Sic Transit Gloria...Glory Fades

Okay, the following composition is for anyone who was seriously intrigued by this song (like I was) and who wants a deeper, different perspective of the meaning, rather than just the surface meaning. Yes, it's long, but I took like half a day to think on it and write about it...I don't know, I was really interested in it! For anyone who does take the time to read it, I'd love to hear your opinions about it, too! Just be nice...well, here goes:

Attempting to understand (define, dissect, what have you) this song, this epitaph of musical poetry can be as easy or as difficult as one wants to make it. I took the latter path. The reason is because I think this song holds both literal and metaphorical meaning. The surface story is fairly clear. A girl. A boy. She as the lustful, he as the romantic, and the compromises that inevitably may be assumed from such a situation, as seen in the song. Thematically, I think there is another obvious frame of mind here, which is that of growing up and losing innocence. However, in this analysis I’d like to try to refrain from addressing that phrase as much as possible because I do think it is a rather beaten to death theme (and I’d like to think that Brand New is more creative than that). Instead, I’d like to make a seemingly new, perhaps far-fetched (perhaps not so far-fetched) imposition and address the possibility of the theme of murder. Reading over the lyrics, I picked up words and phrases that seemed to allude to murder, which gave the song an over-all metaphorical sense that something else was happening here or being felt here. This can tie in with the previous mentioned theme as well in that the boy’s childhood/innocence is being “murdered.” As life can be taken away from a person, this boy’s innocence was taken away from him, rather than just lost. To elaborate, the following is a line-by-line set of short (and not so short) examinations of the lyrics, with further explanation following. It is a mix of the different themes, as well as the literal meanings from the implied “story.”

Keep the noise low. *She doesn't wanna blow it. [An image of a person (or even animal) stalking, going in for the kill quietly and carefully.]

Shaking from head to toe while your left hand does "the show me around." [He’s nervous, which implies that he’s a virgin/inexperienced.]

Quickens your heartbeat. It beats me straight into the ground. [This new experience is making his heart beat faster because he is nervous and aroused, but it also “beats him into the ground,” as if it kills him, too. A person’s heart beats until they are in the ground (dead).]

You don't recover from a night like this. A victim still lying in bed, completely motionless. [I thought these lines were pretty straight-forward. You don’t recover from death. He calls himself a “victim,” as a victim of murder, being a “completely motionless” dead body.]

A hand moves in the dark to a zipper. Hear a boy bracing tight against sheets barely whisper, "This is so messed up." [She’s “gaining” on him. He sees what they’re doing as “messed up” because perhaps he has a sense how relationships “should” be done and that there are standards when it comes to the sensitive subject of sex. She’s obviously moving too fast for what he romanticizes to be a real, loving relationship.]

Upon arrival the guests had all stared. Dripping wet and clearly depressed, he'd headed straight for the stairs. No longer cool, but a boy in a stitch, [This verse is open to a lot of interpretation because it is more “story,” which isn’t completely clear in this song. I view it as the boy going home after he and the girl have sex. I think it illustrates the feeling that you get in those situations where you do something that you’re not proud of and you still have to go home to face your parents, or whoever else. Embarrassed, paranoid, angry, sad, etc. Also, I don’t think he is “dripping wet” because it’s raining outside. He’s sweating out of nervousness, perhaps paranoia and maybe even still from having sex.]

unprepared for a life full of lies and failing relationships. [Shows that he is beginning to have a new negative view of what a relationship is. He feels he is in love with the girl, but it’s not at all what he imagined. Everything he thought a relationship is supposed to be before is now lies to him. The relationship is failing him and killing what he thought they were together.]

Up the stairs, the station where the act becomes the art of growing up. [I thought it was interesting how they call upstairs a “station.” This might make you think of a police station, which is where one goes in the event of a murder. The use of that word might just support the feeling you get from the theme of murder. Anyway, he’s up the stairs again. It’s where he went to do the dirty, and now he’s up there to escape what I perceived to be his parents. Both things you do when you’re an adult — get away from your parents and have sex. For him, that’s what up the stairs is — adulthood. It is commonly known as a place for sex (where the bedrooms are), but I think the stairs can be seen metaphorically, as well. As he climbs the stairs, it is like climbing up through the stages of life, growing as he goes, the bottom of which holds his parents, the top of which is adulthood, the end, where he has an unnatural death. I tried to figure out a good explanation for calling the act (sex) the “art” of growing up, but I could only conjure up vague theories. I suppose some people view life, sex and murder as art (if you’ve ever heard the phrase “the art of murder”), but then again maybe it just sounds cool call growing up art.]

He keeps his hands low. He doesn't wanna blow it. [I thought it was cool how they switched it around here. In the first lines, the girl doesn’t want to blow “reeling” him in and getting what she wants. The boy just doesn’t want to mess up his first time.]

He's wet from head to toe and his eyes give her the up and the down. His stomach turns and he thinks of throwing up. But the body on the bed beckons forward and he starts growing up. [Sex = growing up. Boy = innocent child type. Boy + Sex = boy growing up. Nuff said. Also, he’s a seriously nervous motherfucker.]

The fever, the focus The reasons that I had to believe you weren't too hard to sell. [Speaking of the feelings one gets from/during sex, particularly one’s first time. The second line still eludes me. The only thing I can really think of is a little gritty. If it is speaking about the girl when addressing “you,” then perhaps it’s just showing her slutty-ness when it says “you weren’t too hard to sell,” as a prostitute. But I don’t really dig that.]

Die young and save yourself. The tickle, the taste of... It used to be the reason I breathed, but now it's choking me up. Die young and save yourself.

[Switching to “the tickle, the taste of” gives a new more positive perspective. Maybe it is the boy’s transition in mood during sex, realizing that he likes it. Or maybe these are descriptors of the girl’s point of view. Thus, the taste of what? Of blood, maybe, continuing to allude to murder. But back to the boy, he used to live for love, a meaningful relationship. Now his view of what a real relationship is is being warped into something that’s killing something inside him — hope, romanticism, innocence, truth. And then there’s that powerful line: “Die young and save yourself.” I think this basically sums up the message of the song and the story, so it makes since why they scream it. It’s not common to die of natural causes when you’re young. So to die young, typically some form of murder is induced. And in this message, to die young means saving yourself from probably a multitude of things — losing your innocence, dealing with the tragedies of growing up, facing “lies and failing relationships.” Save yourself the trouble, kid.]

She hits the lights. This doesn't seem quite fair. [Ok, this might just seem kind of silly. Obviously, she turns off the lights right before the act, but metaphorically it could mean her knocking his lights out…yea. Anyway, it doesn’t seem fair. It’s not fair to him that they are doing this because he most likely feels pressured into it. It’s apparent that he’s confused about relationships, so he might think that having sex is what he is supposed to being doing with the girl he “loves” even though he doesn’t want to. Parallel to that, murder isn’t fair. It coincides with the thought that no one deserves to be murdered and at the same time, gives the sentiment of a child yelling “It’s not fair!” as they do, further showing his innocence.]

Despite everything he learned from his friends, he doesn't feel so prepared. She's breathing quiet and smooth. He's gasping for air. [Again showing that she is a sort of predator, while he is the kill.]

"This is the first and last time," he says. *She fakes a smile and presses her hips into his. [In the first line, he actually verbalizes that it’s not something that he wants to do. Maybe it is his attempt at making that first time more special. If they don’t frequently have sex, doesn’t it give that one time they did more value? Then she fakes a smile, as she fakes everything else — her feelings for him, the things she tells him, and so on with lies, just to get into his pants.]

He keeps his hands pinned down at his sides. He's holding back from telling her exactly what it really feels like. [His hands pinned down at his sides gives the image of a corpse, stiff and unmoving. I think the last two lines can go two different ways. Since he’s being pressured into the situation, he doesn’t want to tell her outright that he actually doesn’t want to, and that it pains him inside. Or it could be that because he doesn’t believe that they should be having sex, he doesn’t want to admit that it feels good for him physically.]

He is the lamb, she is the slaughter. [Ok, I can’t escape the whole theme of innocence here. But it also does very well for the theme of murder. Lambs are known to represent innocence. They are white and fluffy and unintimidating. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a biblical sense here as well, since Brand New tends to do that in their songs. In such a case, the girl would be demonized, maybe addressing the evils of premarital sex, which furthers the wrongness in what they’re doing. Murder, adultery, it’s all there in one big fucked up stew of teenage confusion and sinful sex.]

She's moving way too fast, and all he wanted was to hold her. Nothing that he tells her is really having an effect. [If you tried to talk someone out of murdering you, do you really think it would work? Probably not. It wouldn’t have an effect because to murder someone, I would guess that you have to emotionally detach yourself from that person, so that you feel nothing when you kill him…but I mean I’m just guessing! So anyway, she feels nothing for him.]

He whispers that he loves her, but she's probably only looking for… [Right here they sort of go into this indistinctive “sssex.” This line just further shows his desperate attempts at a meaning relationship with her and well, she’s probably only looking for sex.] Up the stairs, the station where the act becomes the art of growing up. *So much more than he could ever give. A life free of lies and a meaningful relationship. [I thought it was interesting how they changed this line from “A life full of lies and failing relationships” from earlier in the song. Anyway, pretty self-explanatory.]

He keeps his hands pinned down at his sides. He waits for it to end and for the aching in his guts to subside.

The fever, the focus The reasons that I had to believe you weren't too hard to sell. Die young and save yourself. The tickle, the taste of... It used to be the reason I breathed, but now it's choking me up. Die young and save yourself.

So there you have it. I really enjoy this song and admire it because I think it gives a new perspective on how people feel about sex, particularly young couples. There aren’t many songs that victimize the boy. Sure, there are ones involving seductive girls, but in that case the dude figure is usually into it. In this case, the boy is sick to his stomach, which I think is probably a more common reaction for a teenage boy having sex than what people typically perceive (the whole notion of “He’s a teenage boy, he only wants one thing”). Plus, it makes the girl seem really kind of evil, rather than just slutty, like something else is pursuing her to do this. The situation is almost reminiscent of how a female spider kills her partner after they mate. The way they go about singing the song sort of depicts murder, as well. The verses are low-key, whispering, less “busy.” And then the chorus is like an air horn and a cat fight scrambled in a blender…in a good way. It reminds me of someone sneaking up on someone (the verses) and then the chorus is the messy act of murder. Aside from that, I thought I should talk about the title, since this analysis is so damn long anyway I might as well. Glory Fades. When we’re younger, don’t we have a sort of glorious disposition of love? We’re taught that it’s the greatest thing given to us by God, and we watch movies that make it seem so whimsical and majestic, that it can conquer any tribulation. But then you grow up and you get into relationships and they’re goddamn confusing. Suddenly, your view of love is changing. Once you realize that it actually takes a lot of work and despite that work it still might fail, the gloriousness of it fades. Also, you may have noticed that I put stars by a few lines throughout the lyrics. That’s because I wanted to revisit those lines to present another idea that basically completely debunks almost everything that I’ve insisted in this analysis. Let’s look at the first one, “She doesn’t wanna blow it.” As coarse as it is, this makes me think that the girl truthfully doesn’t want to have sex, either. Even though that’s what’s she’s asserting, inside she really does not. She doesn’t wanna blow it…you know what I’m saying. If that doesn’t convince you, look at the next one: “She fakes a smile.” She puts on an act to make it look like it’s really what she wants, like she’s happy about it, but she’s not. What really got me thinking about this was that last bullet point. Beginning with “but she’s probably only looking for…” it fades out, leaving room for perhaps another option. The background plays “Up the stairs…growing up” as the line “So much more than he could give, a life free from lies and a meaningful relationship” changes up this verse from earlier in the song. So, put together we can look at it as, “But she’s probably only looking for…so much more than he could give, a life free from lies and a meaningful relationship.” Now it’s completely flipped around. Deep down, just like all human beings, she wants to be loved, to find meaning and perhaps escape a life that she got caught up in. Maybe, like him, she felt pressured into having sex, so now it’s her way of compensating for lack of real love in the past. That sad yet familiar situation of the girl giving herself over in order to keep the guy. Now the whole situation is just fucking ironic. But, this is all speculation. None of this is off of any reliable source, it’s merely opinion. Who knows how much of this was actually the intended ideas of Brand New? Meh, whatever. I had fun.