#colin in those comments is a writer for the site who later gives black parade a 5/10 paired w a baffling review

[angstics]

this post is about "father", a song name attributed to a few existing black parade songs.

first, it isnt an unreleased song. the oct 2006 comments under the title's page on songmeanings.com tell a short story of how the user who added the song to the website grabbed it off of limewire. the lyrics were originally for "the end", as indicated by another commenter. the original poster said limewire mislabeled "the end" as "father" then edited the lyrics to be what they are now -- an off sample of "i dont love you". they source the mcrmymusic myspace page for the new lyrics. i can not find any post on the site about it.

"father" is also mentioned in the songfacts.com page for "the end", by both bailey from nj and indigo from australia. indigo says: "I always thought [The End] was called Father until i bought the actual cd and it was changed to The End." i think this may be consequence of limewire, or similar sites / programs, mislabeling the song. all these varied accounts point to the same conclusion that "the end" was called "father" at some point.

so, where did this mislabeling come from?

gerard way introduced a song as "father" at the march 2006 secret show mcr performed at sxsw for shirts for a cure (their friend and photographer beemer's charity project that supports people with breast cancer). this post by @ephedrineshot is a great primer on the show. basically, they came out unannounced and performed a short set including some new songs that turned out to be for their next record, the black parade.

here's a quote about the event in blender mag (june 2006), courtesy of ephedrineshot (full page):

the article frames it like this: gerard announces a "new, unrehearsed" song called "father" then says "we're going to regret this". i havent found any other account of this speech. in this video before starting what we know now as "the end", gerard says, "this got bad idea written all over it". though the quote in blender mag is different, the sentiment is the same. concert speech transcriptions are not fully reliable.

most of this could be found through a google search. well, livejournal is Designed to be impossible to search (at least to me). while browsing the community chemicalromance, i came across this post from july 27, 2006:

it's a direct transcript of my chem performing "the end" at sxsw -- most importantly the identical "wave your fucking arms" line. based on the post and comments, there seems to be a lost video that at some point connected "the end" to "father" -- whether it be in the gerard speech described in blender or video details like title / description.

at some point, the black parade began with the song "father". it sounded a lot like "the end". it'd be identical lyrically if not for the line "you've made your conclusion / just call me a fag" and the missing final verse.

there's another interesting change that you almost cant catch in the video because of the bad audio quality. in the ew article on the show, they say: "As the slobbering faithful chanted 'one more song' after the band’s initial exit, MCR returned to unveil a new, partially complete opus. Featuring a 'na-na-na' finale that had the crowd instantly singing along, the song suggested an even more pop-friendly future for the rambunctious quintet." basing my knowledge of the show from the setlist.fm page, i couldnt figure out how CANCER of all songs would have an audience singalong part. either setlist.fm or ew is wrong about the setlist because at 0:45 of the video, when gerard tells the crowd to wave their fucking arms, you can hear him and the audience exchange "na-na-na"'s. if i had to trust one source over the other, id go with ew.

more about the show: austin chronicle 1 | austin chronicle 2 | punknews | metrosiliconvalley