#i will never stop being amazed over his wordplay / rhymes in songs

[dreamwithgeorge]

I‘m currently doing a 30 day journaling prompt challenge. I thought it would be fun to share some of them with everyone in the next few weeks so we can get to know each other :)

Day 1:

If you could have a sleepover with anyone (famous or not) and talk the whole night - who would you choose?

Feel free to send this to others as well and have a fantastic day! 🌵

this sounds fun!!

easy answer: dream 💕

[my-words-are-light]

Watch Where You’re Flying

Hey @sai-shou! Happy birthday! I wanted to write something for you, except it’s not really that good because I had trouble pushing myself to write it. Or anything at all, really... but I wanted to make something for you. You’re amazing, you really are. All these birthday wishes, so full of love, and all this admiration... you earned it, and you earned it because you were you.

I wanted to do something for you as well, to celebrate your birthday and show you how much you truly matter to all of us. You’re so much better than you say you are and you’re growing so fast. You never stop amazing all of us. Keep doing the best you can. We believe in you. We all do.

We love you, and miss you, so very much. Have a happy birthday.

-----

A little birdie has just told me that a policewoman is looking for sirens. Why don’t you hurry on over and give him a hand?

So went the call that Amelia Eamon received from Kevin Runan, her... “employer” at Goldcrown. And, as of a few weeks ago, her sister’s—Faith Eamon—as well. They both knew as well as each other that they were in no position to say no. What else was left to do but to go check it out?

Keeping their siren masks in their jackets, the Eamon sisters departed to where Kevin told them to go. This would be fine. They could endure. All they had to do was keep it up.

They found the policewoman on the side of the road, her car parked while she paced back and forth with her hands clutching her hair. This must’ve been urgent. Amelia and Faith approached the officer. “Uh, hey, are you alright?” asked Amelia.

“Ah, hey.” The policewoman ran her hand down her face and sighed. “No, not really. Why?”

Amelia and Faith glanced at each other. In silent agreement, they pulled out their masks. It was obvious they were siren masks. Anyone in law enforcement would know that. Each one was custom made for its wearer, from its shape to its colour. “We, uh, heard you needed sirens,” said Amelia.

The officer stared at the masks for a tense, awkward moment. Amelia and Faith knew this was a risk, yet they had to take it.

“Um,” said the officer, “I don’t know where you heard that but… I meant police sirens. Like, for my car.” She pointed a thumb at the top of her car. “Mine are busted.”

Amelia and Faith looked at the apparently broken sirens. Indeed, they were also called ‘sirens’. The thought suddenly occurred that they could’ve been called by a sailor who would then have to clarify that they meant the seaborne sort of ‘siren’. That thought occurred to them in a futile bid to distract them from their massive embarrassment.

“Oh,” said Amelia. “Well, my mistake. I am so sorry. I got the entirely wrong idea.”

“It’s all good. Gave me a bit of humour in this, uh… circumstance.” The officer grunted. “Long story short, I’ve places I need to be. Crime places. And I need to be there urgently. Problem is, regulations forbid officers from engaging in a criminal pursuit with a vehicle without using sirens. As mine are busted, I’m going to cop an earful from my bosses for something that isn’t my fault.”

“I know that feeling...” Amelia muttered under her breath.

“So yeah. Not going anywhere.”

“Don’t you have spare sirens or something like that?” asked Faith.

“No, we don’t prepare for stuff like this. I’m supposed to wait until mechanics come by to patch up the sirens and then I’m good to go. Problem is, I have no idea when they’re supposed to show up, or even if they know this is urgent. I’m screwed.”

Faith looked at Amelia.

Amelia looked back.

Faith grinned and wiggled her eyebrows.

Amelia’s eyes widened in fear.

Faith widened her grin and wiggled her eyebrows faster.

Amelia shook her head softly from side to side.

Faith turned back to the policewoman. “What about us?”

Amelia bit her lip.

The officer looked at Faith. “What about you?”

“You need sirens, right?” asked Faith.

Amelia began hissing under her breath.

“Uh, yeah,” said the officer.

“Well, we right here are sirens,” said Faith proudly.

Amelia clenched her teeth.

“… You certainly are,” said the officer.

Faith crossed her arms. “So how about you use us as sirens for your car?”

Amelia let out a sound that part growl, part cry, part whimper, and part sigh. I will leave to the reader the task of figuring out the exact proportions of each.

The officer blinked several times. “I don’t follow.”

Faith clapped her hands together. “Tie us to the roof of your car and we’ll replace your sirens.”

Amelia dragged her hands down her face. Some unholy sound came from her, muffled by her palms as they descended.

The officer blinked.

Faith smiled.

Amelia kept making that strange, horrible sound.

Finally, the officer spoke. “What?”

Faith kept smiling.

The officer blinked. “No. What?”

Faith raised an eyebrow.

The officer’s jaw fell open. “What? No. No! What? No!” She walked over to her car and slammed her hands on the roof, shaking her head in silence.

She pushed herself away from the car and turned back to the Eamon sisters. “No! What? No! Absolutely not! Out of the question! How do you even think of something like that?”

“Boredom and synonyms make for good wordplay,” said Faith. “Also, our masks glow.”

“Well good for you! I’m not strapping two girls to my car which is probably going to go at ludicrously high speeds to only get semantically get around a regulation! I could get you killed!”

Faith put up her hands flat. “Fine. Enjoy waiting for those mechanics while criminals crime.”

The policewoman grunted and paced around more forcefully. After several seconds of this, she looked back at the sisters. She pursed her lips and crossed her arms.

“I hope you’re not seriously contemplating this,” asked Amelia.

The officer’s face relaxed in resignation. “I am, in fact, seriously contemplating this.”

Amelia gulped. “Well I hope you’re not seriously going to take her up on her idea.”

---

She did, in fact, seriously take her up on her idea.

“Faith!” screamed Amelia over the traffic.

“What?” called back Faith.

“I’m going to kill you!”

“What?”

Amelia, sadly, could not kill her sister at that point in time because they were tied to the roof of the policewoman’s car, wearing their glowing siren masks while the policewoman drove along the busy highway, harshly growling curses that the Eamon sisters could barely hear.

“Wee woo wee woo wee woo!” Faith sounded, grinning like an idiot.

“Are you kidding me…?” muttered Amelia.

Faith looked at her sister and giggled. Amelia had to admit, this was so silly and stupid that it went back around to being fun. They hadn’t done something this childish in… years. And, what with Kevin breathing down their necks, there was something both relieving and empowering in this.

Amelia gave up. “Wee woo.”

“There we go!” cheered Faith.

Thinking back on their childhood, the sisters remembered a song they were taught in school.

“The owl flaps its wings as it flies through the night

Woo wee woo wee woo wee woo

The firetruck drives so fast towards fires to fight

Wee woo wee woo wee woo wee

The tree...”

That was was far as the sisters could get before they broke down in laughter. If they weren’t tightly secured to the roof of the car, they would’ve fallen off.

Not that the policewoman’s driving was helping. She was getting more and more erratic; the car was swerving all over the road.

Since this had gotten to the point where it could be a legitimate hazard, Amelia cut the rope with a knife she kept concealed and crawled over the side of the car. “Hey, are you drunk or...”

Amelia’s voice died in her throat, which was a far better fate than the policewoman was going through right now. She was slumped against the wheel, completely lifeless. It was like… her soul was sucked out of her.

Amelia sat up. Sirens drained life from others. Anyone with a siren mask could do it. Yet Amelia and Faith were the only sirens nearby. But how? Sirens could only drain one’s lifeforce through singing, and they weren’t…

… Except for that nursery rhyme.

Amelia turned back to Faith. “I think we sucked her soul out!”

“What?!” called Faith.

“I said—”

“I heard you the first time! I was in disbelief!”

In the next half-second, it sunk in that they were sitting atop an out of control police car with a woman they might as well have killed (until they give her back her life force) in the driver’s seat on a busy highway with lots of traffic.

The sisters screamed as Amelia handed Faith her knife to cut herself free and Amelia—

---

“Stop,” said Kevin Runan, holding out his hand flat to Faith. “Just… stop. Please. No more.”

Amelia and Faith were sitting in Kevin’s office. After that… ‘hectic’ afternoon, the sisters were summoned to explain themselves and everything else that transpired from when he sent them the message.

Roughly ten minutes in, Kevin had had enough. He massaged his temples. “Okay. This is my responsibility. I caused this by dispatching two very desperate sirens to work that I misinterpreted and forwarded along.”

Kevin took a breath. He then slammed his hands on his desk. “But why would you go along with something so stupid?! Why would you wear your masks?! Why would you sing?!”

“It was her idea,” said Amelia, pointing to her sister.

“Snitch,” grunted Faith.

“I don’t care whose fault it was!” yelled Kevin. “The moment you realised that they didn’t mean the ‘you’ kind of siren, you should have left! If I had known this would’ve happened, I would’ve tied you up in your own home and turned on the TV so you wouldn’t have gone!”

“You could’ve also not sent the message at all,” said Faith. “We would’ve stayed home then.”

“Shut up! I had to pull way too many favours just to get you both out of trouble! Do you have any idea how badly this could’ve harmed Goldcrown?! I had to bribe witnesses! Police! Prosecutors! Highway patrols! There were a lot of those, I guarantee you!”

Kevin slumped onto his desk. “So much money. I can’t believe it. We’re all fools...”

The office was quiet, for the Eamon sisters knew better than to disturb Kevin when he was in one of his despondent moods.

He lifted his head up to glare at the girls. “And you still sung that Wee Woo song afterwards?”

“Do not get me started on that stupid song!” snapped Amelia.

[shark-myths]

4. wilson (expensive mistakes)

part 4 of shark-myth’s mania meta series

so even though there are a few posts of preliminary screaming about this song already (here and here), I haven’t done a proper crawl through the lyrics yet! hold onto your butts, kids. here we go.

Wilson is named for the volleyball in Castaway who is Tom Hanks’ best friend and sole companion as he sloooowly sinks into madness. The bond is imaginary, created entirely in Hanks’ head out of his desperation. There is no hope of the relationship ever being reciprocal—Wilson, by definition, cannot participate in it the way Hanks would want him to. Isn’t that an interesting choice of dynamics to frame this particular song with? ISN’T IT. The initial assumption I made on was that Pete was the Castaway (Pete with his endless endless ENDLESS way down south stuff, Pete with his introducing the song as ‘this is about the person you want to run away to a desert island with’). but later, when we get the video, that perspective shifts: it is Patrick holding the volleyball, Patrick from whom Wilson is violently ripped away in the Beyond the Video.

pair that with the soundplay-over-wordplay quality of certain verses of this song and the mentions of being drunk (which as quite rare in the FOB discography, but quite plentiful in the solo Stump discography), and I think Patrick had more of a hand in writing these lyrics than usual. (oh my god I promise that was an ACCIDENTAL youngblood pun.) I think that there is some sharing of voice, here: some of these verses are from Pete’s perspective, and some of them are from Patrick’s. sonically and thematically, as I have argued before, I anchor this song firmly in the 09 era, around the time of I Don’t Care (this song’s twin, I think) and the hiatus.

the song opens immediately with some classic p. steezy lyrical markers: stutter-singing and emphasis/rhyme by repetition.

 I was I was I was I was Gonna say something that would solve all our problems But then I got drunk and I forgot what I was talking about I forgot what I was talking about

If the lyric was got high, I’d think Pete wrote it. But it’s not, and I think this bit is Patrick. It’s the feeling of being the one with the power to say the one thing that would fix it all, but losing your nerve, or fucking up your intention. What could Patrick have said in 2009 that would have fixed every problem faced by the band, by he and Pete in particular? here you are in shark-myth’s creepy museum of queer conspiracy, so I think you know what I’m going to say. I love you. Patrick could have said Pete, I love you too.

and god. wasn’t it a mistake, not to? didn’t it cost them—everything?

Don't you, don't you, don't you know

There's nothing more cruel than to be loved by everybody

There's nothing more cruel than to be loved by everybody but you

Than to be loved by everybody but you, but you

this verse is pure Pete. Pete Wentz, adored and loathed in equal parts, jumping his own fucking shark in 2009, a media mogul and a reality star and our punching bag and our golden son all at once. (aside: even in their February 2018 interview in UPSET magazine, Pete still expressed that he’d rather be hated than ignored. this explains so much about pete wentz.) And all he fucking wants is for Patrick to love him, and he can make the rest of the world hang on his every word, and it doesn’t mean a fucking thing to him. Patrick is what he wants, what he can’t have. and it’s so fucking cruel.

If I could get my shit together I'm gonna run away and never see any of you again Never see any of you again

This is pure way-down-south escapism. I’ve got a whole post about it, linked above, if you want to hear more about that. It’s very consistent with 2009, and fits well as a line of thinking that preluded the hiatus.

I hope the roof flies off and I get blown out into space I always make such expensive mistakes I know it's just a number but you're my 8th wonder I'll stop wearing black when they make a darker color

This verse is definitely Pete’s voice. We’ve got the pop culture Wes Anderson quote, the pop culture Addams Family quote, and the sharp, clever wordplay to prove it. Pete loves Wes Anderson, and very specifically, this quote from Moonrise Kingdom is pulled from a movie about two oddball kids against the rest of the world who decide to run away from their mundane, misunderstood lives in the name of their true love. their love and relationship is very underdeveloped in the film, very adolescent, very becoming; it serves as an echo and an amplifier of each kid’s sense of not fitting in, of isolation. They choose each other as the miracle solution, the cure, to that isolation; an adult looking at their escape plan sees the futility of it: running away with someone else, someone who is totally untested in love, someone you have made into this huge lifechanging idol in your head but you don’t know very well in real life? they’re going to disappoint you. you’re going to get to mexico and you’re going to find yourself, and all your shitty feels, right there. You have to find a way to fit into your own life before you can fit there comfortably with anyone else. The movie is a good one, and it hits every fucking note for me when we layer it in next to pre-hiatus Peterick and the choice of the Wilson/Chuck Noland relationship as the title of this song.

‘I know it’s just a number’ evokes the weird fixation on math and accounting that some of their lyrics have had through the years, which I will write on someday when I sort out my thoughts about it. I like here too the acknowledgment of artifice; we get it again in TLOTRO, with ‘tell me I’m the only one, even if it’s not true.’ Words and symbols, endearments and declarations, we choose those: we wear them. They do not reflect a true quality. They reflect choices. Pete’s saying, listen, this doesn’t have to mean anything to you, but it means a lot to me; you are the most wonderful thing in the world to me. There’s the great pyramid, there’s the hanging garden of Babylon, there’s the temple of Artemis, and there’s you: Patrick fucking Stump of the golden heart and marble thighs. Which. Fucking same.

The Wednesday Addams quote is of course a fucking delight. It says ‘I’m intense, I’m overwrought, I don’t give a fuck. I’m only ever going to double down. I will never back off. I don’t care if you think I’m ridiculous, I am too much, and I always will be.’ I treasure this line. I sing it to my cat like, several times every day (which i understand is the normal amount)

On the wrong side of p-p-paradise And when I say I'm sorry I'm late, I wasn't showing up at all I really mean I didn't plan on showing up at all

The first line here ties well to Y&M—I woke up on the wrong side of reality—and I love the way it highlights the gap between what we say, for the sake of social lubricant, and what we really mean. Pete and Patrick are both self-identified hermits—Patrick has been speaking a lot lately about his horror of interacting with others, and Pete has said that his main goal on any given day is to speak to as few people as possible — so this line could really be either of them.

Don't you, don't you, don't you know I hate all my friends, I miss the days when I pretended I hate all my friends, I miss the days when I pretended with you I miss the days when I pretended with you, with you

OKAY IF THIS ISN’T ABOUT TRYST THEORY I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS

 Uses of Pretend in Fall Out Boy Relevant History:

the whole song The End of Pretend, written by Pete during the hiatus

"Pretend you don’t remember,” written by Patrick during the hiatus

“Don’t pretend you ever forgot about me”

“I’m outside the door, invite me in, so we can go back and play pretend”

“But I can’t just pretend we weren’t lovers first”

‘I hate all my friends’ is a good time-anchor too. We have the friends who only like you for your hotel suites, we have the making a few more fake friends, we have pete’s endless blog posts about fake people who don’t really care about him—this mentality is very, very indicative of pre-hiatus Pete, especially during his disillusionment in the Sell Out Era, when he moves from ‘the world’s not waiting for five tired boys in a broken down van/these friends are golden’ to a much more cynical ‘sham friends/friends just because we move units/we’re only good because you can have almost famous friends/these friends, they don’t love you/I’ve got a lot of friends…who are just black holes/my friends all lie and say they only want the best wishes from me’ perspective.

If we hadn't done this thing I think I'd be a medicine man So I could get high on my own supply whenever I can I became such a strange shape, such a strange shape From trying to fit in

THIS BIT HERE! This is SO GOOD! The song really shifts all of a sudden at the end. Pete has described himself of this era as a drugstore cowboy, and speaks very openly (especially in this amazing interview with playboy that will make you fucking weep, I need to own this magazine, yes for the articles, and in post-divorce articles about his mental state at that time) about his misuse of prescriptions during that time. so this is pretty obvious: if they hadn’t done the band, if they hadn’t somehow made it work, the only kind of future he can see for himself is dealing some kind of artificial high and keeping himself medicated, insulated, high above all the rest. Interesting, the lyrics say my own supply, but the actual track says our own supply. That shifts the content for me, a little: it makes it more about a collaborative magic that he makes with someone else. It brings me squarely right to the drug use peterick metaphors, the way Pete has written about Patrick as a drug and a high for so many years.

Finally, I love more than anything this line: ‘I became such a strange shape from trying to fit in.’ This, here in the strange tone-shift of the last verse, takes a step back. This is present-day Pete looking back at himself, the way he became contorted and wracked from trying to please everyone. He’s looking at the Pete who ran away from Chicago and floundered in the neon emptiness of LA, getting drunk and photographed and letting his body be used as a dramatic set piece in the flashbulb frenzy of up-and-coming starlets. He’s looking at the Pete who sold himself cheaply, because he knew he wasn’t worth much. He’s looking at the weirdo behind the awkward tragedy of Fresh Only Bakery, the Pete who bit off his own tongue so he never again had to hear himself speak. ARE YOU CRYING YET? I AM. But the line isn’t just sadness: because it shows us, now, the solid ground that present-day Pete is standing on. The distance he now has from his former life as a demolition derby heart. It shows us how well he knows himself, and what he needs, and what he is newly capable of giving.

To sum up: PETERICK IS DEFINITELY REAL

Love you guys! more MANIA meta soon, and keep your eyes peeled from some v day peterick on wednesday 💘 💘 💘 part 0

part 1

part 2

part 3