Longshot album Love is for Losers

[solongfromthestars]

4 hours ago, The Bellie said:

Since you've invited me here (and thank you very much!) I'll give my thoughts on The Longshot songs too.

First I want to say that I haven't always tried to interpret every song for myself, sometimes I can't not interpret them and I get right away pictures in my head and ideas of their meanings, for other songs I'm not sure of what it means but don't even think of diving into a deep analysis, while I think I should end up doing it for the songs that I love the most (Walk Away is the first example I think of, it must be in my top 5 GD songs but I've never taken time to try and figure it out completely).

Second, I want to say that for my part, I'm not sure that Billie speaks of (or to) the same person throughout the trilogy and The Longshot. Surely there's a certain number of songs where he speaks of that ex-girlfriend (if there's no one else than Lady Cobra in that role for instance) but in some songs to me he speaks of Adrienne (Missing You for example) and in some others of Amanda (the eponymous song, and there could be others) and in some others I feel like you that there could be something of imaginary, because I don't know who he could be talking to (live Give it all to you : "we could be together, a love that lasts forever", who would he want to be with forever if not Adrienne, but he's already with her, so it's mysterious  But it's funny that there's often such mystery about his songs, we'll never get tired of interpreting them with endless variations). 

And great drawings, I love drawing too, I need to learn to draw Billie 

I'll go for the color again in your post:

I'll continue later, don't have anymore time now!

Thank you very much for reading and sharing your interpretations! I agree that he's not singing about the same person in every trilogy song. The ones I interpret as all being about the same person as The Longshot songs - this wild but comforting girl who's like the "sunshine" - are Stay the Night, Fell For You, Angel Blue, Oh Love, See You Tonight, Stop When the Red Lights Flash, Wild One, Makeout Party, Stray Heart, Baby Eyes, Wow! That's Loud, Brutal Love, Missing You, 8th Ave. Serenade and The Forgotten. I can see why people interpret Missing You as being about Adrienne though. So mysterious and that's a huge part of the charm to me.

In The Last Time and Taxi Driver, I'm not sure if he's singing about Adrienne but otherwise I agree with everything you've said. I love that line in The Last Time and how keeping the subject in his thoughts is considered even better than giving her all his blood. Really love your interpretations of "he knows there's something not right about it, or even that he'll find misery there too" and "get around" being like avoiding something, too. And omg I love that comparison to being in a taxi to a gig After the Kraków show I missed my Polskibus to Prague and in desperation to get there in time I called an Uber to take me and it was just like the song. Frantic and expecting way too much of the driver! You should totally learn to draw Billie. I'd love to see that. Looking forward to more of your interpretations, anyway and thanks again for sharing!

I also agree with @Hermione. I think he's definitely referring to his own addictions at points, both in the trilogy and with The Longshot, but that they're used as metaphors or double meanings and to describe how the person he loves is helping him through. It's interesting to consider the possibility of her being an imaginary girlfriend, or "ghost," with his comments about spirituality and addiction, as if she's a sort of spiritual being that gives him comfort. Feels a bit far fetched at the same time but I just love how many different scenarios his lyrics let us dream up!

[The Bellie]

6 hours ago, solongfromthestars said:

Thank you very much for reading and sharing your interpretations! I agree that he's not singing about the same person in every trilogy song. The ones I interpret as all being about the same person as The Longshot songs - this wild but comforting girl who's like the "sunshine" - are Stay the Night, Fell For You, Angel Blue, Oh Love, See You Tonight, Stop When the Red Lights Flash, Wild One, Makeout Party, Stray Heart, Baby Eyes, Wow! That's Loud, Brutal Love, Missing You, 8th Ave. Serenade and The Forgotten. I can see why people interpret Missing You as being about Adrienne though. So mysterious and that's a huge part of the charm to me.

I put in orange the songs, either where I'm not sure that he speaks about the same ex-girlfriend (like in Missing You where I think it's for Adrienne), or to make some commentary about it: 

Stray Heart: I'm not sure whom he addresses with the chorus "everything I want/need, I want from you, but I just can't have you" but I'm quite sure that in the verses, when he says "I lost my way, baby, this stray heart went to another / you're the only one that I'm dreaming of / I said a 1000 times and now a thousand one, we'll never part / I'll never stray again from you" he speaks to Adrienne, maybe asking forgiveness for having strayed away from her with the trilogy girlfriend. So the chorus could be meant for one or for the other, depending on how we interpret the "I just can't have you", but I tend to think it's about the trilogy girlfriend, even though it seems really strong, especially while to me the "you're the only one that I'm dreaming of" is for Adrienne.

The Forgotten: it seems a quite good prequel to The Longshot and especially to Love is for Losers (I'll come to why below) with "don't look away from the arms of love", but I don't have the feeling he speaks of someone in particular, to me at that point of the trilogy (the last song of it) the romance with the trilogy girlfriend is behind him, and he's trying to draw a hopeful conclusion to everything he's talked about in the three albums, including being lost (Little Boy Named Train), lost in addiction (Lazy Bones) and also the social/politically connoted stuff (like things he expresses in Carpe Diem, Kill The DJ, Sex, drugs and Violence, 99 Revolutions) with a line like "like soldiers from a long lost war, we share the scars from our abandon, and what we remember becomes folklore" where I feel like he's talking at the scale of society (and I love that line, I find it very pertinent) .

Angel Blue : when he sings "you're just a kid and no one ever gives you a break, you want a senorita and now your heart is gonna break", since he says "you want a senorita" it probably means he speaks of himself, and with "you're just a kid" I wonder if this song doesn't speak about him younger, and a girlfriend he had in the past. Or maybe he's just saying that he's never changed since he was a kid in that way of wanting a senorita, a girlfriend. The song is followed by Sweet 16 in the album, where I feel like he's speaking maybe to his first girlfriend, maybe of Arica, which he may have met when he was around 16 (what could the 16 in Sweet 16 mean if not the age?), and he says "the kids are alright" like a way of giving her news, since they seem to have stayed in touch (on the contrary to Amanda, as far as we know). And he said once that the song was about diving into memories from his younger years, so it seems clearer about this one than about Angel Blue.

But then again, some lyrics in Angel Blue can make me think of the trilogy girlfriend, notably because "with teenage traces" supposes she's not a teenager, and also because of bad treatments he seems to want to be inflicted by her: "stab my heart like a stick in the mud, cut my chest just to see the blood" since the theme of suffering seems quite omnipresent with that girlfriend, even though as you say she's also comforting, maybe precisely because of the violence; we spoke about the meaning of the tie in his pocket the other day , I'm starting to think Billie does feel comfort coming from that girlfriend in a masochist way, when she hurts him, and it seems that she does, not only eventually in a way of heartbreak, but through some violence he's looking for; and she also seems to be related with drugs and party at the same time, the song Devil's Kind being a good example about it. As for all the drug and addiction references, I don't really think it's a metaphor, I think he realized that being with that girlfriend implies for him falling into addiction, and it's something that he had to quit doing in order to stay alive. (I'll come back to it below when speaking of Chasing a ghost)

There's also the theme of death very present with that forbidden girlfriend (I'll refer to her as Lady Cobra because we may suppose it's her, even if maybe it's not, it'll be simpler to give her a name); you noticed the sunshine recurrence but I admit I didn't notice it much in relation to her, I notice more the themes of night and death associated with her, which pleads by the way with Angel Blue being about her, with the line notably: "waking up the dead and everything will be alright". I'll speak more of that theme of death in The Longshot songs, it's interesting because he said once "death has always been part of my life" but at the same time it may lead him to want to play with it, playing with danger, and Lady Cobra (of it's her) could apparently provide this to him.

About the trilogy songs being linked to one girl or another, (and just specifying I'm not trying to speculate about girlfriends or getting a confirmation of whom a song is destined to, but with the past relationships we know him to have had and the elements he gives us in and out the songs, I'm just saying it's difficult to be sure of when he speaks about the same person. And yeah, if anything that makes it even more interesting ) apart from Lady Cobra, there's also this Ashley (another girl with an A, Billie! ) and from the same lyric book that is the pic you posted of Jason, with a phrase about Fell For you, there's this one about Ashley:

So if it's her real name, it's just another girlfriend than Lady Cobra, and than any other, and he speaks of a "20-year old trip" so it's someone he may have first met when he was very young as well. And in the eponymous song there's the theme of violence that comes back "you led me to the well but wouldn't let me drink" but he says that he doesn't love her anymore: "back then I loved you but you're scaring me to death", so it's probably not the same person as in songs like Fell For You where he speaks of current love. But it could be Ashley even in a song like Wild One, there's the same feeling to me of her not being healthy, "you're looking like hell and you're no fucking saint" in Ashley, and in Wild One "all dressed up with nowhere to go, gave up on Jesus for living on Venus", while other elements plead for "Wild One" being Lady Cobra (the fact he's so disturbed by her, that he drinks the Kool-Aid and jumps on a grenade because of her, and "my heart is in panic" suggesting there are current feelings involved).

Also, if Amanda and Ashley are only referred to quite scarcely, their eponymous songs are quite violent themselves : in Amanda, which is not even in Dos at the peak of violence, but in Tre (where there still is a lot of some more moral violence), there's the word "hate" associated with her along with love, while Ashley is "a filthy thought in [his] memory" (and "a wish on a shooting star", not so far from the ghost in LIFL, not saying it's the same person, but still, the parallel can be drawn, there's the same feeling of something that he chases but can't catch). I also find funny the parallel drawn between Amanda and the Amanda Jones reference in Fuck Time, even though obviously, he's not making out with the real Amanda, but I guess it's on purpose he says that, he still thinks of her and maybe wants to be making out with her (and it's funny to see it's the first song in the trilogy where he kinda takes the advantage, in sex, and it's practically the opener of Dos.

With the songs on Dos the violence of the words and even the violence described in the relationship and notably in sex (coming from him as well) is way more present, but perhaps it doesn't even indicate a different girlfriend (except when he makes it clear with the references to Ashley and Amanda), but a different phase of a same relationship. In Uno, being the falling in love, the beginning of a relationship, the excitement of an upcoming party like he described it, when he just says that he loves Lady Cobra, you mostly feel the love, the desire and the forbidden side of it ("living in denial", "paper planes", "crash in my imagination" in Fell For You, and "talk myself out of falling in love with you" in Oh Love), but not the pain and/or violence as in later songs like Wild One or Makeout Party, or Longshot songs like Body Bag and Devil's kind. So it's still believable that it's the same person in all those songs, despite the ballads in Uno that feel overall like the most joyful, less grim than the later songs about the relationship (even if there's already lines of pain, but wished pain, in Angel Blue, and lines about him harassing her, maybe like a prelude to his own violence, in Troublemaker).

So even if the forbidden love theme in the trilogy and The Longshot is probably about Lady Cobra, the presence of violence in the trilogy seems to be a common thread between all three of the girlfriends he mentions, as if Lady Cobra makes him think of Ashley and Amanda. Also, he only starts naming them (Ashley first, Amanda coming a little behind) right after Stray Heart, where he says, to this girlfriend that could be Lady Cobra: "I just can't have you", and promises Adie (as I suppose it) that he won't stray again from her. So once he says, in Stray Heart, that it won't be possible with his latest romance, it makes him think about the past relationships that didn't work out either, which are all linked in some way.

Okay, moving on to continuing on The Longshot  (I suppressed of few lines to only keep the ones I'm replying to):

On 1/4/2019 at 9:54 PM, solongfromthestars said:

Chasing a Ghost

"I've got the tears oh baby, crying in my soul" - the narrator is putting on a brave face but crying inside; "hang from the chandelier from a long long time ago" - hanging from the chandelier is probably referring to wild sex or fantasies they shared (which could in turn be referring to ¡Dos!), but the way it's sung is sensitive and emotional rather than crude. It's a long, long time ago but he's still reminiscing about it. He's "chasing a ghost" because he's desperately chasing his memory of someone, even though they're little more than a ghost. with the links I made (without planning to make them, just while writing) between Lady Cobra, supposedly the trilogy girlfriend, and Amanda for instance, I wonder if the "long, long time ago" isn't referring to the time with Amanda when he was very young. I don't know when he wrote Chasing a ghost, but maybe was it quickly after the trilogy, not so long after the end of the relationship. The ghost could be something he has been chasing since a time way before Lady Cobra, something that never existed, something he was seeing through this girlfriends who weren't meant for him, and even now, he continues to desire it. The word ghost is like referring to a dead person, while they aren't dead, it could be connoting the faded side of the memory associated with them, while it's only faded in time, not so much in his mind, so I tend to believe the word is chosen to describe, not only the fact it doesn't exist, but also maybe the link to death he kinda finds through these girlfriends, notably through Lady Cobra supposing it's her, who's probably the "her" further in the song.

"Everyone is happy and everyone is gay, feeling the spirits and twisting the night away," refers to a party or show, one that the song's subject is also at. They could be someone he only sees at events, which could tie into Brutal Love with "dance forever, under the lights" (can't resist to say a few words about Brutal Love  the ghost he's chasing without ever reaching it in CAG and LIFL is maybe the unsaid thing he wants in Brutal Love: "oh how you want it, you're begging for it, but you can't have it, even if you try; it's in the clutches, in the hands of this brutal love", which explains why he keeps thinking that he needs his girlfriend, because he needs that; then, "drop out, drop dead, hideous / how low is this brutal love" may be like saying "if I go down to the whole depth of that love, I will only find death", but it could also be, on the contrary, "if I drop out of this relation, I will drop dead, because she is vital to me", or maybe it could be a way of telling her, or the thing he sees in her, to drop out and dead, as if there's something so ugly (so "low") about the relationship, and he knows there is, he wants to be led to see it (to see the hideous that turns out to be this thing she has and that he thinks he needs) in order to be able to renounce to it. I think he admits the lights he sees in her are not true, in the line you quote in BL "dance forever, under the lights"; much more than a party ambiance to me, it's almost an unreal, heavenly description of something that he wishes when "closing his eyes", opposed to darkness, opposed to silence -that is ironically "turned up" as if is was a light- "the heartache of [his] life", admitting he's trying to soothe his major, lifelong suffering with the brutal love that could keep him dancing forever... but it's a dangerous illusion) and the trilogy's forbidden love themes. Perhaps he's never even been in a relationship with them but just wonders if, as he sings in Stay the Night, they could be "the one that got away." That would also fit with them being a "ghost" because he can't actually have them. Or maybe it's none of that and he just happens to be seeing them at this event. "But when the thrill is gone and I'm staring at my phone," is a beautiful depiction of modern day longing and disappointment, when the party's over and he tells the subject "thanks for the company but I'm still standing alone," because even though the short time they spent together was thrilling, they're still not together. Instead, he's aimlessly staring at his phone, as we all have at some point. The party could be a metaphor for how exciting and thrilling the subject's company is too. Lots of interpretations there! I feel that the "company" is meant as the company he gets through the phone, maybe, as nowadays you get easily friends and virtual company but when he comes back to reality, he's still standing alone, it's the only thing that stays.

"And it ain't the same, ain't it a shame?" - whatever he shares with the subject is no longer the same and he's lamenting that in both this line and the following "here's to the painkillers, oh yeah, on a Saturday night." Saturday nights are associated with fun, partying and letting go for a night, but instead, the narrator is alone taking metaphorical painkillers to numb the pain of his lost love. I feel the here's to the painkillers is directly associated with shame right before, as if he admits, "isn't it a shame for me to be looking for these painkillers now?" or simply these painkillers are a shame. And yes, the "it ain't the same" is finding out that the ghost he came to find is not here and only lives in his mind, and today he clearly sees that, hence the "it ain't the same" [as before when I couldn't see it. So shame on me for trying to go back to painkillers even though now things have changed for me, and I don't need painkillers anymore, the reasons I used to take them doesn't exist anymore].

"So if you see her tell her that I said hello" - he's given up hope that he'll even see her again to say hello, but feels no animosity towards her; I rather feel that he chooses not to leave without seeing her after all "I miss the times we spent and now I gotta go" - whatever they shared, he misses it but now he has to move on, whether because their love was forbidden or just didn't work out to me, because it was harmful to him; "she was my last hurrah and always got me stoned" - she was his last thrill, his last love and he enjoyed his time with her so much it was like drugs that left him stoned I feel like she literally led him to get stoned; "thanks for the sympathy and the punch in the nose" - thanking her, whoever is listening, for the sympathy and sarcastically "thanking" her, or the circumstances that prevent their love, for the "punch in the nose" as a metaphor for heartbreak. I'm not sure it's a metaphor for heartbreak, I think the punch in the nose is saying she made him fall from high because he realized, incidentally through their relation, the illusion he was still looking for, like misfortune that is sometimes opportunity in disguise. By nearly reaching the deep end with her, it's also what made him realize the deep problems which he eventually overcame. So he thanks her for a sympathy that's real, and thanks her indeed sarcastically for forcing him, indirectly, to wake up, in a brutal way, to things he needed to look at in himself.

One of my favourites for sure and I'm so grateful I eventually had the chance to see it without fans onstage. agree  

Body Bag

I love that song but it's one of those I've never tried to draw a precise interpretation out of; and I love agree overall with yours, which is very interesting!

Love Is For Losers

Summary: sarcastically dismissing love as being for losers because he's been left longing for a love he's lost.

"I'm riding I hear "running" but it's a detail shotgun in a car that's broken down" - the narrator is being dragged through a love that's broken down or maybe it's like saying he's desperately running away even using a car that's broken down; "nowhere to run and this city's like a ghost town" - there's nowhere to run to avoid facing his feelings and the truth. He feels so alone as his lover has deserted him that the entire city feels like a ghost town. "And I'm feeling like a stranger, and I'm standing I hear stranded, maybe like he's parked his broken car in the dark so he won't move from there in the dark" - he feels like a stranger to his lover and himself in the face of losing her. He's standing alone in the dark, as he's "standing in the shadows with all the good times gone" in Chasing a Ghost, where it feels like there's no light at the end of the tunnel.
 
"Hey kid, love is for losers now, alright. Stupid kid, you're a loser now, alright" - he's sarcastically - because he doesn't really mean it since he's still pathetically in love - telling himself and his lover that love is for losers, calling them stupid for falling for it, to make himself feel better. He refers to himself and her as kids because that's how vulnerable he feels. I agree especially with that last point, but I feel he's only talking to himself, and calling him loser and stupid to find an explanation, but not necessarily to feel better, more like being harsh on himself (although, that just may make him feel better). Maybe the "kid" is also because he must have heard that "love is pain" before as he says later in the song, and he feels to turning into a kid again who's got to learn his lesson, that love is for losers.

"My heart's a has-been for my long lost valentine" - his lover is long gone now, but his heart is a has-been, stuck in the past as he's longing for her and "chasing a ghost." Then, he laments that "I searched the winter for the bride of Frankenstein." He searched and fought desperately for someone that could never exist as his bride. When Frankenstein's monster (and I do think Billie has probably read or at least seen Frankenstein and is referring to this) asked for a bride so he wouldn't be so alone, Dr. Frankenstein initially agreed to create one. However, he abandoned it out of fear they might produce more monsters, and Frankenstein remained alone. His bride couldn't exist. She was never more than an unattainable dream, as the narrator is searching for someone who couldn't be more than that. This is one of my favourite lines Billie has ever written and I got it tattooed on my arm right before the Vancouver show (and it's a bit faded because dancing on the front row with a fresh tattoo isn't a good idea, but that makes me love it more). That's very interesting, I didn't know in detail the story of Frankenstein. Gotta see it now  "But we all got our delusions" - but we all have that one dream, like my bride of Frankenstein, that we cling onto and delude ourselves might be real. yes, rejoining the fact that what he's looking for, the ghost, doesn't exist "Say goodbye to an I hear "another", which may just indicate that he knows it's not the first time he has to put a story behind him, convincing him even more he's a loser since he has kept falling into the same illusion old flame" - but now I have to move on.

"It goes to show ya, when they say that love is pain" - taking a cliche that turned out to be true for him to describe his feelings; yeah but I feel like he's just pretending to accept that it's true, and finally mocking this cliche; but we have a different interpretation on the last line "only the lonesome, got nowhere to run but the tears to go..." - inviting all the lonesome to lament with him and accept they have nowhere to run but to face the tears. I hear "only the lonesome gotta wait around for the tears to go away", as saying: if you're alone, because you've been left alone, you can only wait around for your tears to dry. And why do you have these tears? because you've been left alone after trying to be with someone, so better not try to be with anyone. But, at the same time, if you stay alone, you'll have to wait around for the tears to go, meaning they won't really go. So maybe the right answer is love after all, so you're not alone, and you've got someone to help you dry your tears. I believe he's choosing love, saying despite the risk of heartbreak, I choose love because I know that eventually it makes me happy, and prevents me to be crying alone. But it is kinda ironic because the tears came from the pain of the heartbreak... for the pain of having chosen love in the first place. But then, the conclusion is only the same: who is hopelessly crying alone? the lonesome who turned away from love. So he still needs love precisely because he can't deal with the tears alone, or else he'll just have to wait around for them to go. Love isn't only for that of course but it's kinda, in a very pathetic place, finding a pathetic but concrete way to find an answer. And about this song, when you think of it, he knows he is a loser, and in that case love is really for him, not staying alone. Kind of a different way to turn it, and in Turn Me Loose when he says "don't call me a loser", it's that he accepts to lose one specific love which is not a real loss, because the true love, he has found it elsewhere.

I think this song is an anthem. Anyone of any age who's experienced losing love or longing can relate and wallow to it. I don't think Billie wanted The Longshot to be huge but if he'd tried, I think it would have been a big hit. agree ❤️

Cult Hero

Summary: turning someone, whether himself or another, who's unknown and/or doesn't fit the image of a "hero" into a "cult hero." I like this summary! It's one of the songs I took a little more time to appreciate, but now I can say I really love it, it's probably in my fave half of the album now

"I am the patron of a story never told" - the narrator is nobody, but only because his story will never be told; "I am the longest shot in town" - a great line because it refers back to the band's name and how he feels everything about him is a long shot and maybe he refers to when he used to drink a hell of a long shot, in an abnormal way, and now plays with it ; "I ride the darkest horses in the rodeo" - unlike your regular hero, I walk a darker path;  "I am the unsung of the clowns" - I'm the unheard representative of fools. I love this 

"I am hyena at the dog and pony show" the pony in TML can't even let his tail get out of line, while he is playing in a totally other category, not having his place at the show expect for being the total freak  - I'm a freak, an outcast; "I'm the last of the lesser knowns, 'cause I wanna be a cult hero" - in a sense, he's making fun of himself by sarcastically exaggerating his own importance as the last person to be lesser known, which isn't something most people would be proud of I agree ; but he wants to be a cult hero.

"I got my darkest secrets and whispers at the moon, where all the stars never align" - acknowledging that he has dark secrets, which most "heroes" don't, that only the moon and unaligned stars will ever hear because he's a "lesser known"; "well, I can self destruct on any given note, my ruin is my storyline" - he has issues, he's imperfect, but that in itself is his storyline. It's what makes him a cult hero. Yes, he's depicting his storyline as his ruin, yet saying he wants to be a cult hero, and doing the contrary to what a regular hero should be doing. But I think it's also sarcastic in the way that he knows he is already a cult hero, and he just wants to tell us "you must know that, even though you venerate me, and since you do, here's what I really am, here's what I'm capable of, and that self-destructive, crazy person can happen to be someone that you venerate." And it's like pretending that he was doing all this, being a freak and all, with the aim of being a cult hero, while in reality I think it's more an observation he makes in hindsight, that he has became one. So "I want to" is ironic, he doesn't want something he already has, but it's a big fuck you to the regular hero status because, in fact, it really worked for him, being anti-hero the way he was.

When Billie posted clips of Cult Hero, he included a photo of his dad, who was on the teamsters and always fighting for the right thing. That could be considered heroic. But obviously, no one outside of his family, friends and fans even knows who his father is; and even if they did, he's not the kind of person who's generally celebrated as a hero. So I think in the song could be about making a cult hero of someone like his father who'd never achieve mainstream hero status and putting that on a pedestal. I simply thought that he considered his dad as his own cult hero and that's why he chose a picture of him to illustrate the song. But I agree with you

 

I'll try to finish this tomorrow, I'm so sorry for the length, but it's great to be responding to your awesome post and have all these things in me that want to come out as well. 

The photo of you wearing a customized t-shirt with written Love is for Losers and a paper plane, is it a reference to Fell For You?

[solongfromthestars]

18 hours ago, The Bellie said:

 

So I'm going to respond to trilogy stuff first with my interpretations and quote a few things. I think this is still relevant to this topic since we're discussing whether the songs are linked and Billie has played some at Longshot shows. If we don't have a trilogy song meanings topic we should, though!

Stray Heart: it does seem like the verses are telling a long-term partner he's strayed from them but never will again. The chorus is so contradictory, though, so I take it all as him telling the forbidden girlfriend his heart has "strayed" to her, but belongs to another, so whilst they'll "never part" (kind of like I see Soul Surrender as the love living on in his imagination) he "just can't have you." I find this quote of Mike's about it really interesting: “I think this song carries through to that feeling of longing that is running through our band at this point of our lives. It’s also longing but driving yourself insane at the same time. There’s always that person you put on a pedestal and they can pull at your heartstrings all they want.” (source)

The Forgotten: I think it's about everything you've mentioned as well as the forbidden girlfriend. I interpret "sometimes you're better lost than to be seen" as the one line he's speaking to her only - assuring her it's better for her to be lost and in his past than for anyone to know of her existence. Then "don't look away from the arms of love" as him speaking to both himself and her, as he recovers from it all and her as she accepts she's "better lost than to be seen." The "brutal love" probably seemed like a "bad dream" for them so I take the "don't look away from a bad dream" line as him saying that even though it's reduced to a bad memory now, they won't forget it because there was some good in there. "I don't feel strange, it's more like haunted" could refer to this whole "ghost" theme. Lines like "what we remember becomes folklore" are definitely about society I think. Perhaps now he's opened his eyes from the "bad dream" he's seeing what's going on around him and relating it to his feelings. Whatever it all means, such a beautiful song.  

Sweet 16: I remember Billie saying it was written as a 16th anniversary gift for Adrienne and sort of reflected on their lives so far. I can't find the quote where he actually said that now but I did find this one: "The brown-skinned girl drinking Olde English in an Oakland warehouse in the song Sweet 16 is not one of the "imaginary girlfriends" Armstrong says he sometimes conjures to write songs. She's the Lebanese, Minneapolis punk-rock girl named Adrienne he met on a 1990 Green Day tour, a girl who became his pen pal, then his girlfriend, then his wife and the mother of his two sons." (source)

Angel Blue: so taking that into account, my interpretation of the "you're just a kid" and "teenage traces" is that the forbidden girlfriend seems even more so because their age gap is taboo. At risk of sounding a bit gross, I think the "bloody valentine" line is referring to her virginity, which is reinforced by the "baby has barely started" note in the lyric book (and I don't mean to imply he's fantasizing about a minor or anything, I'm sure she's not that young ). Definitely possible he's referring to himself as the "kid" though, or even that he's using her age as a metaphor for his own vulnerability. Really interesting to connect "waking up the dead and everything will be alright" and the other mentions of death with how he's said death is so present in his life. There does seem to be something quite spiritual about this girl, so it makes sense he often associates her with that. My partner once mentioned that the reverse of "angel blue" is "red devil" (which is a great observation I can't take any credit for!) so that could connect to Devil's Kind and the death themes, too. Some people have interpreted it as being about his guitar Blue but I don't see that one. Violence does keep coming up whether it's literal or metaphorical. Good observation! I'll mention that again later too.

Ashley: I've always thought Ashley was an alternate name for Amanda, or a metaphor for various past girlfriends. I think you're right that the trilogy girlfriend probably makes him think of them, so perhaps being with someone who's violent but also comforting is letting him declare that he no longer loves or needs Ashley or Amanda and can see them for what they are.

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With the songs on Dos the violence of the words and even the violence described in the relationship and notably in sex (coming from him as well) is way more present, but perhaps it doesn't even indicate a different girlfriend (except when he makes it clear with the references to Ashley and Amanda), but a different phase of a same relationship. In Uno, being the falling in love, the beginning of a relationship, the excitement of an upcoming party like he described it, when he just says that he loves Lady Cobra, you mostly feel the love, the desire and the forbidden side of it ("living in denial", "paper planes", "crash in my imagination" in Fell For You, and "talk myself out of falling in love with you" in Oh Love), but not the pain and/or violence as in later songs like Wild One or Makeout Party, or Longshot songs like Body Bag and Devil's kind. So it's still believable that it's the same person in all those songs, despite the ballads in Uno that feel overall like the most joyful, less grim than the later songs about the relationship (even if there's already lines of pain, but wished pain, in Angel Blue, and lines about him harassing her, maybe like a prelude to his own violence, in Troublemaker).

100% agree with all of this!

So now onto Longshot...

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with the links I made (without planning to make them, just while writing) between Lady Cobra, supposedly the trilogy girlfriend, and Amanda for instance, I wonder if the "long, long time ago" isn't referring to the time with Amanda when he was very young. I don't know when he wrote Chasing a ghost, but maybe was it quickly after the trilogy, not so long after the end of the relationship. The ghost could be something he has been chasing since a time way before Lady Cobra, something that never existed, something he was seeing through this girlfriends who weren't meant for him, and even now, he continues to desire it. The word ghost is like referring to a dead person, while they aren't dead, it could be connoting the faded side of the memory associated with them, while it's only faded in time, not so much in his mind, so I tend to believe the word is chosen to describe, not only the fact it doesn't exist, but also maybe the link to death he kinda finds through these girlfriends, notably through Lady Cobra supposing it's her, who's probably the "her" further in the song.

That's pretty much how I see the imaginary girlfriend concept. She might never have existed, or she could be multiple people or fantasies, all from different times in his life. I think I already said above that the "ghost" theme is probably linked to the death mentions so I agree with that!

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(can't resist to say a few words about Brutal Love) the ghost he's chasing without ever reaching it in CAG and LIFL is maybe the unsaid thing he wants in Brutal Love: "oh how you want it, you're begging for it, but you can't have it, even if you try; it's in the clutches, in the hands of this brutal love", which explains why he keeps thinking that he needs his girlfriend, because he needs that; then, "drop out, drop dead, hideous / how low is this brutal love" may be like saying "if I go down to the whole depth of that love, I will only find death", but it could also be, on the contrary, "if I drop out of this relation, I will drop dead, because she is vital to me", or maybe it could be a way of telling her, or the thing he sees in her, to drop out and dead, as if there's something so ugly (so "low") about the relationship, and he knows there is, he wants to be led to see it (to see the hideous that turns out to be this thing she has and that he thinks he needs) in order to be able to renounce to it.

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Agree!

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I think he admits the lights he sees in her are not true, in the line you quote in BL "dance forever, under the lights"; much more than a party ambiance to me, it's almost an unreal, heavenly description of something that he wishes when "closing his eyes", opposed to darkness, opposed to silence -that is ironically "turned up" as if is was a light- "the heartache of [his] life", admitting he's trying to soothe his major, lifelong suffering with the brutal love that could keep him dancing forever... but it's a dangerous illusion)

I feel that the "company" is meant as the company he gets through the phone, maybe, as nowadays you get easily friends and virtual company but when he comes back to reality, he's still standing alone, it's the only thing that stays.

Both of these are possible too. I don't think it's necessarily a literal party in Brutal Love when he says "dance forever, under the lights" but perhaps an unattainable fantasy of them metaphorically dancing forever in this heavenly space you described. I agree he could be admitting at the same time that those lights aren't real.

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I feel the here's to the painkillers is directly associated with shame right before, as if he admits, "isn't it a shame for me to be looking for these painkillers now?" or simply these painkillers are a shame. And yes, the "it ain't the same" is finding out that the ghost he came to find is not here and only lives in his mind, and today he clearly sees that, hence the "it ain't the same" [as before when I couldn't see it. So shame on me for trying to go back to painkillers even though now things have changed for me, and I don't need painkillers anymore, the reasons I used to take them doesn't exist anymore].

I rather feel that he chooses not to leave without seeing her after all / to me, because it was harmful to him / I feel like she literally led him to get stoned / I'm not sure it's a metaphor for heartbreak, I think the punch in the nose is saying she made him fall from high because he realized, incidentally through their relation, the illusion he was still looking for, like misfortune that is sometimes opportunity in disguise. By nearly reaching the deep end with her, it's also what made him realize the deep problems which he eventually overcame. So he thanks her for a sympathy that's real, and thanks her indeed sarcastically for forcing him, indirectly, to wake up, in a brutal way, to things he needed to look at in himself.

These could all work. I do think she could have literally led him to get stoned to nurse the pain of not having her or just being too wrapped up in their relationship or fantasy. And I think she definitely forced him to look at himself and he could be thanking her for that.

Glad you liked the Body Bag interpretation  

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or maybe it's like saying he's desperately running away even using a car that's broken down

Agree!

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I agree especially with that last point, but I feel he's only talking to himself, and calling him loser and stupid to find an explanation, but not necessarily to feel better, more like being harsh on himself (although, that just may make him feel better). Maybe the "kid" is also because he must have heard that "love is pain" before as he says later in the song, and he feels to turning into a kid again who's got to learn his lesson, that love is for losers.

I love the connection to the "love is pain" line he might have heard as a kid.

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I hear "only the lonesome gotta wait around for the tears to go away", as saying: if you're alone, because you've been left alone, you can only wait around for your tears to dry. And why do you have these tears? because you've been left alone after trying to be with someone, so better not try to be with anyone. But, at the same time, if you stay alone, you'll have to wait around for the tears to go, meaning they won't really go. So maybe the right answer is love after all, so you're not alone, and you've got someone to help you dry your tears. I believe he's choosing love, saying despite the risk of heartbreak, I choose love because I know that eventually it makes me happy, and prevents me to be crying alone. But it is kinda ironic because the tears came from the pain of the heartbreak... for the pain of having chosen love in the first place. But then, the conclusion is only the same: who is hopelessly crying alone? the lonesome who turned away from love. So he still needs love precisely because he can't deal with the tears alone, or else he'll just have to wait around for them to go. Love isn't only for that of course but it's kinda, in a very pathetic place, finding a pathetic but concrete way to find an answer. And about this song, when you think of it, he knows he is a loser, and in that case love is really for him, not staying alone. Kind of a different way to turn it, and in Turn Me Loose when he says "don't call me a loser", it's that he accepts to lose one specific love which is not a real loss, because the true love, he has found it elsewhere.

This is a beautiful interpretation even though mine is different.  

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I like this summary! It's one of the songs I took a little more time to appreciate, but now I can say I really love it, it's probably in my fave half of the album now

Me too! Especially after seeing it live.

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Yes, he's depicting his storyline as his ruin, yet saying he wants to be a cult hero, and doing the contrary to what a regular hero should be doing. But I think it's also sarcastic in the way that he knows he is already a cult hero, and he just wants to tell us "you must know that, even though you venerate me, and since you do, here's what I really am, here's what I'm capable of, and that self-destructive, crazy person can happen to be someone that you venerate." And it's like pretending that he was doing all this, being a freak and all, with the aim of being a cult hero, while in reality I think it's more an observation he makes in hindsight, that he has became one. So "I want to" is ironic, he doesn't want something he already has, but it's a big fuck you to the regular hero status because, in fact, it really worked for him, being anti-hero the way he was.

Agree with this! I especially love the part about telling us "you must know that, even though you venerate me, and since you do, here's what I really am, here's what I'm capable of, and that self-destructive, crazy person can happen to be someone that you venerate." A bit like Baby Eyes where he's telling the subject how destructive he can be, except Cult Hero is different because I don't think he's talking to her but all those who see him as a "hero."

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I'll try to finish this tomorrow, I'm so sorry for the length, but it's great to be responding to your awesome post and have all these things in me that want to come out as well. 

No need to apologise, mine was long too! And so is this one I love talking about this stuff. Thanks again for taking the time to chat about it!

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The photo of you wearing a customized t-shirt with written Love is for Losers and a paper plane, is it a reference to Fell For You?

Yes! Since he was playing it at Longshot shows I thought I'd tie it into the lost love theme with the broken heart.

edit: I don't know how this post has ended up half with quotes in a quote but I'm too lazy to fix it  

[Virginia Lot Lizard]

This is a fun thread with lots to read and figure out! There’s so much going on here I’ll just throw in a four points 1.) My Bloody Valentine is a cool band and just sounds cool as words I think it’s just a cool sounding line and is not meant to be that gross. 2.) the Valentine is definitely younger and has played some games like a dirty old man with the babysitter (but the babysitter is still not a child just younger!) make out party and truth or dare or whatever weirdness is on Dos which is a sequel to the FBHT record and a lot it those songs ended up on FBHT set lists like how Fell For You and Stay the Night and Wild One ended up on Longshot set lists which is why I think this character is running theme 3.) No Gloria songs showed up RevRad tour set lists (is that right?) just like no Trilogy songs showed up on RevRad setlists which is why I think they’re related in theme. G-L-O-R-I-A Billie is a fan of Van Morrison and in the song Gloria “comes around just about midnight” and please note Gloria of 21stCB comes around late in the summer or fall season like the character on the FBHT record  (November/late summer and Gloria is spelled out in HS&HG like Van Morrison does it in his song) and nods to FBHT “as the summer loses power” “little girl on the graveyard shift” which nods to Taxi Driver “take me to the late night shift” which is why I think there’s been a running theme of this character through FBHT to 21CB to Bouncing of the Wall to the Longshot record and all the stuff you guys mentioned much more eloquently and with a lot more sense than I am making. And the character/theme of nothing quite happening but maybe just a crush and longing runs through “Red Tide” did nothing happen because of a time of month? Stay the Night? Nothing happened just thoughts. Fell for You? Nothing happened it was all imagination and a dream of kissing her? Horseshoes and Handgrenades: Almost only really counts in horseshoes and handgrenades G-L-O-R-I-A (nothing happens just a crush, but the “almost” still counts?) theme runs into Stop When the Red Lights Flash “just give it one more time, i’ll make you surrender. And a whole bunch of other links from FBHT to the Longshot through that theme/character plus a whole lot of other stuff. Running theme = late night/late night shift/graveyard shift and late summer or fall/the colder it gets you won’t see me no more and also this person is missing (where are you Gloria/long lost valentine/chasing a ghost/out of sight not out of mind). 4.) it’s like the Longshot is still fun but more heartbreaking than the FBHT whereas the FBHT is fun and alive and the party, the Longshot is the brokenhearted aftershock of chasing a ghost and a long lost valentine and a lot of Green Day songs are the links between and it’s all a super fun well written intricate mystery. 

[The Bellie]

@solongfromthestars hoping it's not too long, I finished to comment your Longshot analysis, including your post about Devil's Kind, it was so interesting to read and then write about it, I stayed awake part of the night! 

And I want to thank you for the links to articles on your previous post, especially the promotional magazine one for the trilogy on GDA, it was great.

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Kill Your Friends

Summary: using killing your friends as a violent metaphor to mock, and as a contrast to, the meaningless and surface level kindness that's rife in society today. The narrator is letting go and doing whatever he wants, because everything is going to shit anyway.

I also feel that it’s the song starting from which he will start coming back to his usual life, in the course of the album where it’s like an excursion to a forbidden place. He’s not coming back in this song already, but if I follow up from the beginning, in The Last Time he’s in a hotel room and nobody’s home, so he jumps in a cab in Taxi Driver to momentarily go away to the forbidden place he has in mind; in Chasing a Ghost he’s at the party but finally leaves it before meeting “her”; Body Bag is a remembrance of her, in Lose is for Loses he’s already in his car, not yet driving home, he’s in the most remote place in the album, alone in a ghost town figuratively searching the winter for the bride of Frankenstein (I literally picture a deep snowy forest be arrives in front of with that line, at the edge of the "ghost town") and it’s in this distant place and time where the main theme of the album is set; in Cult Hero he links back to concrete elements in his life, through metaphors such as the dog and pony show, we’re not in a ghost town or lost in the winter anymore, it’s more like him describing the way he feels among his usual surroundings, thinks about how he came to where he is now and after setting in LIFL that he is a loser, he comes to the conclusion that it’s the fact he was an outcast / a loser from the start that made him a hero, it’s like another step to accepting himself; and now we come to KYF where he speaks of “friends”. It’s funny because he only says once “all my friends", it’s mostly "your friends" as if he’s telling other people to kill their friends, but he often says “we” as a way of including himself in the whole. To me, it’s like he came back to the party in CAG – even though the "loved ones" he mentions may also be his, so perhaps he could’ve passed by home at the time of Cult Hero already, to come back one last time with loved ones and is describing a party with closer people to him involved, and they come as they are depressed like the other protagonists of the party, his "friends" and the ones he addresses to kill their friends. I could sum it up by saying he kills them metaphorically as a way of turning this page for good before heading for something else (starting in Happiness, where he’s in his car alone again, in a complete different environment) but there's other things to say.

"Heaven's making rent, there's a vacancy for me and all my friends" I hear “vacant seat” but it’s the same, saying if he wants to go in heaven now, it’s a good time for it, time to defeat death now and party at the morgue while inviting people to kill each other and die as his "friends" with him - heaven (notably not hell) has room for the narrator and his fairweather friends who'll metaphorically die; "the end of days are on the way" - he feels a metaphorical apocalypse is coming, so it doesn't matter what he does; "who needs eulogies? When you got your loved ones and everyone's depressed" - mocking the concept of performative loved ones and gratitude for them when in reality everyone's depressed, by saying you don't even need eulogies when you have something so falsely perfect I just saw that eulogy are mostly funeral eulogy, it makes it clearer for me; also, why would depressed people need eulogies to die, they don’t care, they came with their loved ones and could die with them for heaven at this party, that’s sounds better than anything else, even though it's only a disguise of saying they want to defeat death; "party in the morgue tonight, everything's gonna be alright" - what happens matters so little they they'll practically still be alive when they're dead. and it’s a way of dealing with depression, by defeating death and playing with it, continuing to party with some sort of denial in “party in the morgue tonight, everything's gonna be alright” like in Angel Blue: “waking up the dead and everything will be alright”. It's funny because at the same he's being ironical about "the end of days" coming, and also about the response to it that is partying to defy death.

"And we'll be singing kill your friends and we better get it, and we'll show up missing" - we'll be singing something crass and gory, but who cares? It means little to him because the friends he's singing about aren't really his friends. I agree with that, I feel that it could as well be the people from the party in CAG, as saying to them "you must be so depressed to be just partying like that, with painkillers etc, so better wish you all to be dead", but of course it’s presented as something he'll encourage doing with the partying, while in real (for what I think), he wants to point out that deadly side of partying. It has always mattered for him to make that difference between celebration and party, the celebration (of life, of people coming together) being the thing he praises, while the party (getting wasted) is more associated with depression (cause), death (consequence/risk). "Show up missing" is some fun wordplay. yeah, like saying there's a point in showing afterwards that you're missing, or that sometimes absents are better seen than presents, or even saying that you’ll be like a ghost, absent but who keeps showing up in some way

"Deadbeats on parade, gonna bite the bullet and jump on the grenade" - calling these people displaying false kindness deadbeats. He's going to say what he wants instead of holding back, even though that might be like jumping on a grenade, "Fuck the world, it's judgment day!" - again, he's going to do what he wants, because it feels like judgment day is coming anyway I feel that he’s mocking the concept of judgment day (the same way he’s mocking thoughts and prayers) pretending it to be coming now so to find a reason for it to be a good moment to fuck the world and make a death wish ; "we got thoughts and prayers" - mocking another societal concept of "thoughts and prayers" which don't really help anyone, so he sings "nothing comes to mind and I don't even care." yes, and I think the song is also about defying the afterlife, defying the morally/religiously good way of dealing with it, as he comes back to it in Turn Me Loose (with a sarcastic laughter right after “just for the record and the afterlife”), along with mocking absurd and destructive parties like he used to get caught in (and that he affirmed not to like, in the live Instagram he did in Costa Mesa I think, right after the Observatory, he said he doesn’t feel comfortable and is the shy guy in the corner). Instead, "I'm gonna take it to the mausoleum and we're not going 'til you're screaming..." because he will be heard, he won't be brushed off with thoughts and prayers and he's not afraid to use violent imagery to get that across yes, and maybe he wants to make the protagonists of the party admit that they are killing each other, or wishing to be killed, with the party.

"One finger on the trigger and lying on the stereo" I hear “and one on the stereo” - he's got one finger on a metaphorical trigger while he lies on the stereo that everything is fine; I feel like in that line he only has a choice between the two, or he has to take the two, the trigger being for a gun, like saying "I can shoot my friends with the gun and/or to keep the music of the party on"; here killing is set as a service, a gateway to an assured heaven, and keeping the volume of the stereo high so the deadly party keeps going on is the same thing; "I think you're killing me with kindness" - he's sick of pity parties that mean nothing "killing me with kindness" could be hypocrisy he's denouncing, or a way of saying that when he was trapped in that world of party, he was slowly dying, but the kindness of his lover was making him stay, so he was been killed by the means of kindness; or, killing while keeping the music on is a seductive way to give death, it's like mocking the fact that dying in such parties could be considered pleasant; also, it reminds me of "one hand on my knee, one hand on the hooch" in Lady Cobra for what it's worth, it's the same image of having both hands occupied; and even though in Lady Cobra it's she who speaks that line talking about him, here he seems to speak for himself (the role of the gunslinger could confirm that he has command on the trigger and the stereo), but then right away there's this presence, this "you" that is killing him too, and it's only time in the song he's been killed, and not telling to kill (okay, this could be way too far-fetched ); "gunslinger, dead ringer and Michelangelo" - he wants to feel like he's dangerous yeah, he’s given a role of life or death on people; the comparison with Michelangelo is funny, he painted famous religiously themed pieces like the Final judgment, in the Renaissance, quite accurate with the song; "I'm in stitches blowing kisses and a death wish" - he's laughing as he does something morbid and offensive because he doesn't care anymore and in reality, what he's mocking is equally offensive. yes, and he can "blow" kisses while only thinking them deadly in the context, he points out that in these parties, kisses and death wishes are the same, that condemning to death depressed people in parties is like a kindness, and that’s something he settle his accounts with after having lived it himself. Only now it's like he's on the proactive side, like saying "since these parties only lead to death, so how about we go for real death?" and he is the gunslinger telling people to kill each other, taking them to the mausoleum and not leaving till they scream "kill your friends" and they'll all get their place in heaven. And funnily, he is the one who surely "shows up missing" next, not because he's dead or in heaven, but because he chose to remove himself from there.

Happiness

Summary: ironically singing about happiness to communicate the opposite. or to say that happiness and unhappiness are part of each other, I can't believe he states himself to be really unhappy, it's more like dealing with the fact the happiness he can find will always contain the unhappiness he wanted to run away from in the first place in seeking happiness, so both go together. That being said, the moment when he starts to say "my burden" and the instrumental part right after the bridge totally breaks my heart, among the most heartbreaking parts in all Billie songs for me.

"Where is my sanctuary town? My love is reaching for a higher ground" - the narrator is asking where he can find this mythical sanctuary of happiness he's never known, trying and failing to reach a higher ground where love doesn't hurt or where he feels that the love he has to give will be given back in return to him, like a higher ground to love without obstacles, but it rejoins what you say; "I'm in the church of broken hearts, these congregations for the after dark" - he's wallowing in heartbreak like it's a religion, shared with people who spiritually congregate on sleepness nights, in the dark where they'll never be seen. It’s funny because he speaks of after life in TML, and here it’s after dark. Life and dark are opposites, so it seems he doesn’t want to be thinking about after life, he wants to be thinking about after dark, which indeed refers to the end of night, the light of day, so thinking about the life itself, and find happiness in it. I think the term of church, even if it’s not meant as literal and religious, happens interestingly after KYF where he was destroying everything related to dying religiously, and also destroying everyone he was mocking in dying in the less religious way possible. So it comforts me a bit in the thought he was also being sarcastic about the process itself of mocking religion, in KYF, criticizing the party, while here he comes back to some spirituality with this word "church", away from the party.

"How lonely is your lonely? How lonely is your restlessness?" - do you feel as lonely as I do? I’m really not sure the line means that or only that but it’s surely mysterious. I agree he’s trying to make “you” connect with his feeling of lonely as to question their own feeling of lonely. Instead of “your lonely”, I feel like he’s pretending to say “how lonely is your loneli-” as if he was going to say loneliness, and then he unexpectedly says "restlessness", like he was drawing a line between being lonely and restless. It could be saying restlessness is by essence very lonely, that his restlessness comes from feeling lonely in the first place, although it could work both ways, once could complete the other. "See I hear see you when the war is over, some day when hell freezes over, how unhappy is your happiness?" - it's a rhetorical question, because he knows hell will freeze over before he gets an answer and feels less alone. I think the war is a metaphor for his inner war that will never end, but I wonder who is “you”, if he really says it. If it’s his lost love, would there be a link between his inner battle and the fact he can never see this person again? It also makes me think, on a much more general point of view, on the concrete wars in the world that blocks situations for a lifetime, like saying we will never get to see each other, or do what we want, in a context of peace that will never come. It could apply in a larger context than love, it could apply with friendship, but in any case war is seen here as irremediable, as unhappiness is irremediable, while the “you” he’s maybe addressing could only be seen in a context of a peace he can’t find. Or a war between them two in a way? as if their interests were opposed?

"Up on the lonely avenue, my ride is running late or I'm too soon" - using the metaphor of a ride again to describe how nothing goes right for him It’s funny, is it the ride that’s too late or he who is too soon? as if he can’t be in pace with his own ride; and the time concern may be again related to restlessness; "my wheels are spinning in a ditch" - he can't escape his loneliness yes, he can’t find a solution; "that sinking feeling on a floating bridge" I hear flooding but it’s the same idea. From the first time I heard that line I can’t not think of The Last Time and the hurricane. If I were to guess which Longshot songs he wrote more recently, I’d go for Taxi Driver perhaps, and mostly TLT and Happiness together, written in 2017, with the hurricanes in the USA or something (although that could be totally false, simple guess). - comparing that to feeling like standing on a bridge that's bound to sink and drown you.

"Lonely nights and too dumb to cry, as the songs are down" – it’s interesting because I never read “the songs are down” but it all makes sense as you say it, the songs are down, meaning they’re written. He doesn’t cry even once he’s written the songs lonely at night. He’s lonely, and restless as he feels like writing the songs instead of sleeping. Is he unable to cry because of the writing process? Is he writing so he won’t feel like crying? Would allowing himself to cry be a way to avoid being restless by writing songs at night? Is it a choice between loneliness and restlessness, crying alone or writing songs so he’ll do something with this loneliness? lamenting how lonely he is, awake at night writing songs about his lost love and misery, unable to cry and feeling dumb as a result; "safety pins and purge all my sins, seasons of my murder" - again, I'm not actually sure what that last word is (release the lyrics Billie) I think it’s burden, but regardless that line is probably still, to me, about unhappiness escalating to the point where you think about death. I never thought it to be to that point, to me it’s more about despair to never come out of an endless cycle of loneliness/restlessness, but with a rather hopeful outtake on it, like an acceptance of his way of functioning and what he’s stuck with. To explain more what I mean, I’ll go back to the link with The Last Time: in TLT he’s sitting in this hotel room and feeling insane about the hurricane, and now he’s on the flooded bridge, his car not moving forward, he’s brought himself in the middle of the storm much more than before, and he’s not going insane anymore but talking about that sinking feeling that he’s part of now, he’s sinking with the surroundings, like wanting to meld his inner sinking feeling with a similar event that happens outside of him. I’ve noticed a bit the same kind of parallel in RevRad, in songs like Forever Now, it may seem far fetched but when he sings of wanting to start a revolution and hearing it on his radio, it’s like being restless and proactive on matters that are outside of him, so keeping his mind on something else is helpful; while at the same time he doesn’t want to think about his personal problems, about tomorrow, the tomorrow that may be compromised because of his habits, but he doesn’t want compromise, so he has to change his way if dealing with all that…

Here, in Happiness, there’s some evolution: he now admits that he wants to think about tomorrow since he is part of congregations for the after dark, so the possible bright tomorrow, even if it all seems painful and fragile, but he’s there, and he’s not trying to avoid taking care of himself by the means of something outside of him, since he admits to feel sinking on the bridge, and he dives deep into the relation between writing songs and /or crying, loneliness and / or restlessness, the hope through safety pins and the sins and burden he would want to get rid off, but he knows he can’t really; that unhappy state is what makes him restless when he is lonely, what prevents him to sleep and makes him take the pen when he would only be left to cry instead, which he yet feels “dumb for”, as if sometimes it would be easier to just accept to cry, he knows this songwriting reflex is part of the cycle (the “seasons”) of his burden, it keeps him alive yet can’t make the burden go away, his “sins” are not purged; so to me it’s more like embracing this kinda grieving state after having tried to figure it out, and figuring it out everything he really puts in writing songs, which he loves and needs to the point of vital, even them they imply suffering.

Happiness is my fave Longshot song by the way ❤️

Soul Surrender

Summary: surrendering your soul to someone in love and feeling an almost spiritual connection with them, even when they're gone.

"Sweet soul surrender" - the narrator describes his love with the subject as baring their souls to each other in devotion, even if that is "sweet old suicide." It feels almost like a spiritual connection of their souls. "She's my sole/soul defender," I hear "sole offender", but it can play both ways, because she has this double function to him because despite the faults the relationship had and her absence now, she's still the only person who'll defend him. If it's "soul," not "sole" defender, he could feel her presence literally defends his soul from negativity. He tells her "don't be so uptight" because there's no need to be when they were this close. He could also be telling other people not to be so uptight about their relationship because she's his "soul surrender." I agree, or maybe telling himself not to be so uptight when he believes to see her ghost

"Just me and my imagination, I swear I think I saw a ghost" - this line tells us he's actually alone and seeing a "ghost" possibly refers back to Chasing a Ghost. He's longing for her so much, and he still feels so connected to her that he's seeing her like a ghost who isn't there, but almost wants to believe that image is real. "Oh, lead me out of my temptation, I got a case of letting go" - he's asking a higher power, or her as if she's that higher power herself, to stop him spiralling back into his worst throes of longing or trying to find her again. I believe there’s also the reference to fearing the relapse into addiction, when he says temptation, and letting go as if letting go of myself, of the care I have been taking of myself to stay out of addiction. Because maybe when he believes to see the ghost (and it’s the first time it happens in the album), it takes him back automatically to associate her with the drugs and the party, that the ghost may wave as a temptation to go back with her, who knows. So the way I hear it, he addresses maybe a higher power, maybe his surroundings, to help him not to relapse because he has a case maybe of an unstable motivation

"Send me a message through the window, something that I have never known" - in wanting to know if she still thinks about him, or if that ghost could metaphorically be real like a manifestation of their reciprocal longing, he asks her to send him a message through the window. The window is like a divide between them, because she can't or won't tell him in person, going back to the forbidden love theme. He wants something he's never known, because he wants to know how that feels for once in his life and because it would identify that message as being from her. Interesting! I think maybe he wants something he has never known because, with what he already knows, it seems to leave him with his confusion. Or, maybe it’s a way of saying, try and find something that I don’t know, and that’s impossible, we shared everything, so you probably won’t be sending me a message. When singing this live, he has sometimes reversed the last line of send me a message through the window” with “just me and my imagination” suggesting it’s sometimes he imagines but he admits it’s only that. "I think I need a long vacation, to keep me clean and blow my nose" - he needs a vacation, where he can cry and forget, to escape this longing and avoid giving in to it. I agree, although I wouldn’t say forget, but more on the contrary be reminded of everything he chose to leave her for. I think he says he needs to be given another punch in the nose like the one he mentions in Chasing a Ghost when through her, he was realizing that he was on the slippery slope, but now as time has gone by he tends to forget that and the danger he had put himself into, so he needs to be reminded of it, and stay clean, not touch any drugs he was tempted to. I think it’s also a way to admit how incorrigible he finds himself, to be tempted again (for her, for everything associated to her), but it’s good, in the way that today he is able to see it, express it and say he needs help (please lead me out of my temptation / I think I need a long vacation)

I know some people interpret it as being about rehab and that's an interesting angle too. For me though, "soul surrender" is the furthest you can go in your love for someone, and experiencing something that deep leaves a mark that feels like you might still see the person's ghost after they're gone. I agree the soul surrender literally is about her, it’s her who could make him surrender, but along with that I think one reason why the love is forbidden is because of what she’s associated with and that he could incidentally relapse with her. So she would make his soul surrender to her if he followed her ghost now, but he knows he mustn’t for his own sake, if he wants to stay healthy, that’s the way I see it.

Goodbye to Romance

So this is an Ozzy cover and Billie didn't write it, so it could be argued it means nothing in the grand scheme of the album. To me it's there for a reason though. It's like hope for the unattainable love he's been singing about for the whole album - "we'll meet in the end" and "it won't be me I hear this time around to love in vain" - while empowering himself by saying "goodbye to friends and to romance" at the same time. It was also played by Green Day at the first trilogy show at the Tiki Bar in Costa Mesa, so this is a nice way of that whole concept coming full circle. I didn’t know that! Indeed!

yes, and this song also touches loneliness and how not to think to “nobody likes you, they’re all out without you”, with “everybody’s having fun, except me I’m the lonely one” that seems to fit even more the theme of the party where Billie feels like the shy guy in the corner, or the stranger throughout the whole album, who finally chooses not to live in shame anymore and to leave this scene, to turn the page; the theme of “friends” he left behind; having “been the king” and then “the clown“ after falling from his laurels with the broken love, but he’s “free again”. (confirming the overall hopeful tone of the album, the way I feel it, even though it goes through its lot of suffering). And the “and I feel the time is right although I know that you just might say to me what you gonna do?” is quite relevant in his story, it’s like she might be asking him that, as “you can’t run away from me, what are you going to do without me, longing for me as you are?” but he knows he can say goodbye to her, and to friends and romance that were associated with her. “We’ll meet in the end” can be a way of saying "I would probably like to meet you when everything is over, not now as my life must continue without you." Either way you interpret it, even though he didn’t write himself, it does close the album very well, I think too

Fever Blister

The narrator uses the concept of a fever blister and being contagious as a metaphor for how repulsive he considers himself, his self-hatred and how he feels he's so awful people should avoid him. It’s one of my favorite songs when I’m feeling asocial, so quite regularly

Razor Baby

I can't even discern all the lyrics to this so it's a bit of a shot in the dark (or long shot?). I get the impression it's from the perspective of a female character like Gloria ("of love and razor blades") that's loosely based on himself, using her self-harm ("razor baby" / "she covers up all through the summer") to empower her instead of put her down.

interesting, I admit I don’t hear much apart from "she has a boy locked in her closet" 

I've Got My Problems

A simple and cynical love song. The narrator just wants someone to hang around with. Finding that feels like a temporary solution to his problems, while he's "hitting bottom" but "she's alright." He probably feels more strongly about her than he's letting on.

You didn't comment Give it all to you and Keep me satisfied in this post, but I want to say, in KMS I really love "I know you're thinking of me all the time", the way it's sung, and the line itself in the context of vulnerability through the whole song, and Give it all to you is really lovely, a bit heartbreaking, my fave Longshot demo.

Devil's Kind

Summary: a new romance is compared to the devil because it's typically "sinful."

[...]

"Give me one last try for your love tonight" - this isn't their first encounter and the narrator doesn't want it to last just one more night as fun, he actually wants her love. Reminds me yet again of Wild One and the note in the lyric book, "let's fall in love (just for an hour)." Really he wants more than just an hour's love, though.

"I'll be the king forever and you can be my sunshine" - to use a cliche, he'll be king of the subject's heart forever. Again, he wants her forever, not just now and he wants to leave a mark on her. Or perhaps persuading her that he’ll be the king forever even if she wants to fall in love with him just of a night, and yeah, you can be my sunshine is like a proposal for her so it will last more than a night In return, she'll be like his sunshine in the dark. I hadn't noticed that "sunshine" keeps coming up until Virginia Lot Lizzard pointed it out, but that's a really good observation. Her being like a cure or defender ("she's my sole/soul defender") is a recurring theme too. "We are the devil's kind" - they're the devil's kind of people because they're sinful. I think a lot of the implications of sin are subtly referring to sex. "And now I won't back down, I said I won't back down" - he won't give up on trying to win the subject's love.

"Take me into the water" - could refer to holy water or water as cleansing for his demons or sins and the water is something that can potentially make him drown; as if he asks her to put him in danger, and then to pull him out of it when he is half drowned and get out of the “slaughter” alone. Anyway that’s the picture that comes in my head "and pull me from the slaughter" - the defender theme coming up again, like she's the only one who can pull him from negativity; "because I've got the shakes and I'm so petrified" - this time only he's petrified. The way it's sung is confident and assertive, but admitting this to her as if she's his comfort is quite vulnerable. I agree Could be linked to "I've got the shakes but I'm alright" in Turn Me Loose, which is a bit of a heartbreaking comparison because at that point the relationship is over, but he's trying to insist he'll be alright anyway.

Whew. I may be reading way too much into some of these lines, but I think as some of my favourite songs Billie has written, they deserve it. These are of course my own personal interpretations based on my own feelings and I could be completely wrong about them all. I also don't mean to imply anything about Billie personally or his private life. I have no idea who or what he's singing about and knowing wouldn't change any of my intepretations. Same 

 

Hope you'll like it!

[solongfromthestars]

@Virginia Lot Lizzard you've come up with so many interesting links I'd never have thought of! It does seem like nothing ever really happens between the narrator and character which makes it more heartbreaking in a way, because he never finds out "if you're the one that got away."

@The Bellie not too long at all! Now I'm going to stay up too late replying

Quote

Kill Your Friends

I also feel that it’s the song starting from which he will start coming back to his usual life, in the course of the album where it’s like an excursion to a forbidden place. He’s not coming back in this song already, but if I follow up from the beginning, in The Last Time he’s in a hotel room and nobody’s home, so he jumps in a cab in Taxi Driver to momentarily go away to the forbidden place he has in mind; in Chasing a Ghost he’s at the party but finally leaves it before meeting “her”; Body Bag is a remembrance of her, in Lose is for Loses he’s already in his car, not yet driving home, he’s in the most remote place in the album, alone in a ghost town figuratively searching the winter for the bride of Frankenstein (I literally picture a deep snowy forest be arrives in front of with that line, at the edge of the "ghost town") and it’s in this distant place and time where the main theme of the album is set; in Cult Hero he links back to concrete elements in his life, through metaphors such as the dog and pony show, we’re not in a ghost town or lost in the winter anymore, it’s more like him describing the way he feels among his usual surroundings, thinks about how he came to where he is now and after setting in LIFL that he is a loser, he comes to the conclusion that it’s the fact he was an outcast / a loser from the start that made him a hero, it’s like another step to accepting himself; and now we come to KYF where he speaks of “friends”. It’s funny because he only says once “all my friends", it’s mostly "your friends" as if he’s telling other people to kill their friends, but he often says “we” as a way of including himself in the whole. To me, it’s like he came back to the party in CAG – even though the "loved ones" he mentions may also be his, so perhaps he could’ve passed by home at the time of Cult Hero already, to come back one last time with loved ones and is describing a party with closer people to him involved, and they come as they are depressed like the other protagonists of the party, his "friends" and the ones he addresses to kill their friends. I could sum it up by saying he kills them metaphorically as a way of turning this page for good before heading for something else (starting in Happiness, where he’s in his car alone again, in a complete different environment) but there's other things to say. Agree with all this. The links to LIFL and Cult Hero are great. It does feel like he's back from his "winter" searching for "the bride of Frankenstein" by this song. That's similar to how I picture the line too. I loosely based my tattoo on this scene from an obscure video game because it's a bit how I imagine it.

I hear “vacant seat” but it’s the same, saying if he wants to go in heaven now, it’s a good time for it, time to defeat death now and party at the morgue while inviting people to kill each other and die as his "friends" with him / I just saw that eulogy are mostly funeral eulogy, it makes it clearer for me; also, why would depressed people need eulogies to die, they don’t care, they came with their loved ones and could die with them for heaven at this party, that’s sounds better than anything else, even though it's only a disguise of saying they want to defeat death / and it’s a way of dealing with depression, by defeating death and playing with it, continuing to party with some sort of denial in “party in the morgue tonight, everything's gonna be alright” like in Angel Blue: “waking up the dead and everything will be alright”. It's funny because at the same he's being ironical about "the end of days" coming, and also about the response to it that is partying to defy death. Agree. I definitely get a "defying death" vibe from it. Good one linking that to Angel Blue - I missed that!

I agree with that, I feel that it could as well be the people from the party in CAG, as saying to them "you must be so depressed to be just partying like that, with painkillers etc, so better wish you all to be dead", but of course it’s presented as something he'll encourage doing with the partying, while in real (for what I think), he wants to point out that deadly side of partying. It has always mattered for him to make that difference between celebration and party, the celebration (of life, of people coming together) being the thing he praises, while the party (getting wasted) is more associated with depression (cause), death (consequence/risk). Good link there too, how he's always been so careful to point out the difference between a celebration and a party. I hadn't thought of that applying to this song but it's definitely a possible link, especially considering what he's been through now and how he could be mocking his past lifestyle.

yeah, like saying there's a point in showing afterwards that you're missing, or that sometimes absents are better seen than presents, or even saying that you’ll be like a ghost, absent but who keeps showing up in some way. Love this!

I feel that he’s mocking the concept of judgment day (the same way he’s mocking thoughts and prayers) pretending it to be coming now so to find a reason for it to be a good moment to fuck the world and make a death wish / yes, and I think the song is also about defying the afterlife, defying the morally/religiously good way of dealing with it, as he comes back to it in Turn Me Loose (with a sarcastic laughter right after “just for the record and the afterlife”), along with mocking absurd and destructive parties like he used to get caught in (and that he affirmed not to like, in the live Instagram he did in Costa Mesa I think, right after the Observatory, he said he doesn’t feel comfortable and is the shy guy in the corner). / yes, and maybe he wants to make the protagonists of the party admit that they are killing each other, or wishing to be killed, with the party. I agree with that too. The whole song seems quite mocking in many ways, whilst he's also mocking himself for being so invested in it. I think I missed that live but I know he's said similar things many times and that would apply here for sure.

I feel like in that line he only has a choice between the two, or he has to take the two, the trigger being for a gun, like saying "I can shoot my friends with the gun and/or to keep the music of the party on"; here killing is set as a service, a gateway to an assured heaven, and keeping the volume of the stereo high so the deadly party keeps going on is the same thing. Ooh, I like this. Having a choice between the two makes it feel even more like this song is a turning point in the story.

"killing me with kindness" could be hypocrisy he's denouncing, or a way of saying that when he was trapped in that world of party, he was slowly dying, but the kindness of his lover was making him stay, so he was been killed by the means of kindness; or, killing while keeping the music on is a seductive way to give death, it's like mocking the fact that dying in such parties could be considered pleasant; also, it reminds me of "one hand on my knee, one hand on the hooch" in Lady Cobra for what it's worth, it's the same image of having both hands occupied; and even though in Lady Cobra it's she who speaks that line talking about him, here he seems to speak for himself (the role of the gunslinger could confirm that he has command on the trigger and the stereo), but then right away there's this presence, this "you" that is killing him too, and it's only time in the song he's been killed, and not telling to kill (okay, this could be way too far-fetched). Agree that it could have been the kindess of his lover keeping him at the "party," because that fits with how even though she seems destructive, she's comforting at the same time. I don't think the "one hand on my knee, one hand on the hooch" link is too far-fetched. It could follow your interpretation of him having two choices in the previous line and how the song seems like a turning point, because now he's capable of making that choice. Just thought of another maybe far-fetched, maybe not link. In Cuatro, there were unused lyrics to Wild One that included "she kills me with kindness":

So the connection you've made to Lady Cobra/the trilogy lover could actually be correct. Even if it is all too far-fetched, it's still cool to think up all these different possibilities!

yeah, he’s given a role of life or death on people; the comparison with Michelangelo is funny, he painted famous religiously themed pieces like the Final judgment, in the Renaissance, quite accurate with the song. Agree! Knowing how Billie loves religious imagery, I'm sure that's why he mentioned Michelangelo.

yes, and he can "blow" kisses while only thinking them deadly in the context, he points out that in these parties, kisses and death wishes are the same, that condemning to death depressed people in parties is like a kindness, and that’s something he settle his accounts with after having lived it himself. Only now it's like he's on the proactive side, like saying "since these parties only lead to death, so how about we go for real death?" and he is the gunslinger telling people to kill each other, taking them to the mausoleum and not leaving till they scream "kill your friends" and they'll all get their place in heaven. And funnily, he is the one who surely "shows up missing" next, not because he's dead or in heaven, but because he chose to remove himself from there. Agree. It fits that the kisses are deadly, like a "kiss of death" so to speak in the context of the deadly party and that now from his new perspective, he'd mockingly suggest real death. I really love how you've linked this song to the party theme.

Billie posted this song on Instagram once, so I wonder if he took some inspiration from it:

 

I also randomly found this novel on Google and it seems like the kind of thing he'd read, so now I wonder if there's some inspiration from that too... or not, maybe that's also far-fetched   

Happiness

It’s funny because he speaks of after life in TML, and here it’s after dark. Life and dark are opposites, so it seems he doesn’t want to be thinking about after life, he wants to be thinking about after dark, which indeed refers to the end of night, the light of day, so thinking about the life itself, and find happiness in it. That would be interesting to connect to Lights Out where he considers the dark and light equally frightening, while "living out my private suicide."

I think the term of church, even if it’s not meant as literal and religious, happens interestingly after KYF where he was destroying everything related to dying religiously, and also destroying everyone he was mocking in dying in the less religious way possible. So it comforts me a bit in the thought he was also being sarcastic about the process itself of mocking religion, in KYF, criticizing the party, while here he comes back to some spirituality with this word "church", away from the party. Agree.

I’m really not sure the line means that or only that but it’s surely mysterious. I agree he’s trying to make “you” connect with his feeling of lonely as to question their own feeling of lonely. Instead of “your lonely”, I feel like he’s pretending to say “how lonely is your loneli-” as if he was going to say loneliness, and then he unexpectedly says "restlessness", like he was drawing a line between being lonely and restless. It could be saying restlessness is by essence very lonely, that his restlessness comes from feeling lonely in the first place, although it could work both ways, once could complete the other. He could be saying "you" essentially into the void, as if asking a higher power or life itself. I agree he could be saying restlessness is a lonely place to be. Thinking of Still Breathing, he sings "I've been running all my life just to find a home that's for the restless," as if prior to finding that, he felt alone being restless. So that would make sense.

I think the war is a metaphor for his inner war that will never end, but I wonder who is “you”, if he really says it. If it’s his lost love, would there be a link between his inner battle and the fact he can never see this person again? It also makes me think, on a much more general point of view, on the concrete wars in the world that blocks situations for a lifetime, like saying we will never get to see each other, or do what we want, in a context of peace that will never come. It could apply in a larger context than love, it could apply with friendship, but in any case war is seen here as irremediable, as unhappiness is irremediable, while the “you” he’s maybe addressing could only be seen in a context of a peace he can’t find. Or a war between them two in a way? as if their interests were opposed? Agree it's a metaphor for his inner war. He might be speaking to his lost love, but I think that in this case, she's a metaphor for a happiness or feeling he can't quite grasp, like he couldn't have her. It could also refer to a war between them. Whilst she seems destructive and frightening, he admits in Baby Eyes that he is too, so perhaps they were destroying each other and it felt like a war.

It’s funny, is it the ride that’s too late or he who is too soon? as if he can’t be in pace with his own ride; and the time concern may be again related to restlessness. Agree it could be related to restlessness.

I hear flooding but it’s the same idea. From the first time I heard that line I can’t not think of The Last Time and the hurricane. If I were to guess which Longshot songs he wrote more recently, I’d go for Taxi Driver perhaps, and mostly TLT and Happiness together, written in 2017, with the hurricanes in the USA or something (although that could be totally false, simple guess). That would make sense. The natural disasters may well have inspired that line.

it’s interesting because I never read “the songs are down” but it all makes sense as you say it, the songs are down, meaning they’re written. He doesn’t cry even once he’s written the songs lonely at night. He’s lonely, and restless as he feels like writing the songs instead of sleeping. Is he unable to cry because of the writing process? Is he writing so he won’t feel like crying? Would allowing himself to cry be a way to avoid being restless by writing songs at night? Is it a choice between loneliness and restlessness, crying alone or writing songs so he’ll do something with this loneliness? It could be a combination of all those things.

I think it's burden - could be, would make more sense than "murder." I never thought it to be to that point, to me it’s more about despair to never come out of an endless cycle of loneliness/restlessness, but with a rather hopeful outtake on it, like an acceptance of his way of functioning and what he’s stuck with. To explain more what I mean, I’ll go back to the link with The Last Time: in TLT he’s sitting in this hotel room and feeling insane about the hurricane, and now he’s on the flooded bridge, his car not moving forward, he’s brought himself in the middle of the storm much more than before, and he’s not going insane anymore but talking about that sinking feeling that he’s part of now, he’s sinking with the surroundings, like wanting to meld his inner sinking feeling with a similar event that happens outside of him. I’ve noticed a bit the same kind of parallel in RevRad, in songs like Forever Now, it may seem far fetched but when he sings of wanting to start a revolution and hearing it on his radio, it’s like being restless and proactive on matters that are outside of him, so keeping his mind on something else is helpful; while at the same time he doesn’t want to think about his personal problems, about tomorrow, the tomorrow that may be compromised because of his habits, but he doesn’t want compromise, so he has to change his way if dealing with all that… Not far-fetched, I agree. I love this interpretation and the connection to RevRad. He hasn't sunk on the floating/flooded bridge, so instead he's indeed melding with his surroundings like Forever Now. I think even if he is having thoughts about death in the "murder/burden" line, they're not necessarily negative or suicidal thoughts but that there is some hope found through questioning his happiness, so he can think of death in a more positive way than in Kill Your Friends.

Here, in Happiness, there’s some evolution: he now admits that he wants to think about tomorrow since he is part of congregations for the after dark, so the possible bright tomorrow, even if it all seems painful and fragile, but he’s there, and he’s not trying to avoid taking care of himself by the means of something outside of him, since he admits to feel sinking on the bridge, and he dives deep into the relation between writing songs and /or crying, loneliness and / or restlessness, the hope through safety pins and the sins and burden he would want to get rid off, but he knows he can’t really; that unhappy state is what makes him restless when he is lonely, what prevents him to sleep and makes him take the pen when he would only be left to cry instead, which he yet feels “dumb for”, as if sometimes it would be easier to just accept to cry, he knows this songwriting reflex is part of the cycle (the “seasons”) of his burden, it keeps him alive yet can’t make the burden go away, his “sins” are not purged; so to me it’s more like embracing this kinda grieving state after having tried to figure it out, and figuring it out everything he really puts in writing songs, which he loves and needs to the point of vital, even them they imply suffering. Agree. That's a beautiful way to see it, too As heartbreaking as the song is, there has to be hope because he is still writing songs and questioning his happiness rather than accepting unhappiness; being part of the "congregation" who'll wallow but wake up in the morning, instead of simply receding into the dark never to see the light again. A bit like See the Light is depressing at surface level, but Billie described it as the hope at the end of a turbulent story.

Happiness is my fave Longshot song by the way ❤️ It's @Rumpelstiltskin2000's favourite too! It was one of my favourites when I first heard it but then so many others won me over.

Soul Surrender

I hear "sole offender", but it can play both ways, because she has this double function to him. Could be. I love how we can even find different meanings through not knowing what the actual lyric is  

I agree, or maybe telling himself not to be so uptight when he believes to see her ghost. Agree.

I believe there’s also the reference to fearing the relapse into addiction, when he says temptation, and letting go as if letting go of myself, of the care I have been taking of myself to stay out of addiction. Because maybe when he believes to see the ghost (and it’s the first time it happens in the album), it takes him back automatically to associate her with the drugs and the party, that the ghost may wave as a temptation to go back with her, who knows. So the way I hear it, he addresses maybe a higher power, maybe his surroundings, to help him not to relapse because he has a case maybe of an unstable motivation. I can definitely see why people connect this line to addiction even though that's not necessarily how I see it. It could be either or both addiction and her. Going to link this to the next part...

Interesting! I think maybe he wants something he has never known because, with what he already knows, it seems to leave him with his confusion. Or, maybe it’s a way of saying, try and find something that I don’t know, and that’s impossible, we shared everything, so you probably won’t be sending me a message. When singing this live, he has sometimes reversed the last line of send me a message through the window” with “just me and my imagination” suggesting it’s sometimes he imagines but he admits it’s only that. Agree it could be saying they shared everything, so she couldn't send him a message, especially not something he's never known. Maybe it's even a challenge in some way, one he knows she won't be able to complete, partly because she is only in his imagination. Going back to the "lead me out of my temptation" line, that could also be a similar invitation; a metaphorical challenge, as if daring her to comfort him again in her destructive way, because he knows really she can't and then he wins the "war"... or not, that's just another random idea that came into my head as I was writing.

I agree, although I wouldn’t say forget, but more on the contrary be reminded of everything he chose to leave her for. I think he says he needs to be given another punch in the nose like the one he mentions in Chasing a Ghost when through her, he was realizing that he was on the slippery slope, but now as time has gone by he tends to forget that and the danger he had put himself into, so he needs to be reminded of it, and stay clean, not touch any drugs he was tempted to. I think it’s also a way to admit how incorrigible he finds himself, to be tempted again (for her, for everything associated to her), but it’s good, in the way that today he is able to see it, express it and say he needs help (please lead me out of my temptation / I think I need a long vacation). Could be. It feels like the "vacation" would definitely be for reflection and have an eventually positive outcome; whether it is a literal reference to addiction or like my interpretation of a metaphorical one.

Goodbye to Romance

yes, and this song also touches loneliness and how not to think to “nobody likes you, they’re all out without you”, with “everybody’s having fun, except me I’m the lonely one” that seems to fit even more the theme of the party where Billie feels like the shy guy in the corner, or the stranger throughout the whole album, who finally chooses not to live in shame anymore and to leave this scene, to turn the page; the theme of “friends” he left behind; having “been the king” and then “the clown“ after falling from his laurels with the broken love, but he’s “free again”. (confirming the overall hopeful tone of the album, the way I feel it, even though it goes through its lot of suffering). And the “and I feel the time is right although I know that you just might say to me what you gonna do?” is quite relevant in his story, it’s like she might be asking him that, as “you can’t run away from me, what are you going to do without me, longing for me as you are?” but he knows he can say goodbye to her, and to friends and romance that were associated with her. “We’ll meet in the end” can be a way of saying "I would probably like to meet you when everything is over, not now as my life must continue without you." Either way you interpret it, even though he didn’t write himself, it does close the album very well, I think too. I pretty much agree and it's for sure a hopeful end to the album, however we interpret it. Although a lot of the songs feel like coming to terms with the feelings described, this is like a final and positive conclusion to that. I loved hearing Green Day cover it and how it fit with the trilogy even then, so I'm so glad it ended up on Love is for Losers!

Give It All To You/Keep Me Satisfied

You didn't comment Give it all to you and Keep me satisfied in this post, but I want to say, in KMS I really love "I know you're thinking of me all the time", the way it's sung, and the line itself in the context of vulnerability through the whole song, and Give it all to you is really lovely, a bit heartbreaking, my fave Longshot demo. Agree! I love both of those and how they're a vulnerable take on the love he's put on a pedestal as something ethereal.

Devil's Kind

Or perhaps persuading her that he’ll be the king forever even if she wants to fall in love with him just of a night, and yeah, you can be my sunshine is like a proposal for her so it will last more than a night. Agree!

and the water is something that can potentially make him drown; as if he asks her to put him in danger, and then to pull him out of it when he is half drowned and get out of the “slaughter” alone. Anyway that’s the picture that comes in my head. Agree with this too. It's like enjoying the slaughter in a way. Could be linked to the "floating bridge" line in Happiness. I'm not sure they were meant to be connected but it's another possible scenario to dream up, haha.

So yeah, I've really enjoyed picking these songs apart and discussing it with you! It's so fascinating to consider all these different and similar interpretations. I know reading and commenting on all of it was quite a big job, so I'm glad you did and thanks again for that

I might make a trilogy interpretations thread at some point this or next week because I couldn't find one when I searched. I can't imagine how long that post will be!  

[Otis Big]

Viva la Longshot. I hope it's a project he returns to for the rest of his life. I don't see why he wouldn't.

[Hermione]

1 hour ago, hym.jarred said:

Viva la Longshot. I hope it's a project he returns to for the rest of his life. I don't see why he wouldn't.

Yeah it's the perfect thing for if he happens to want to do some music when Mike and Tre don't or just to do it more low key outside of Green Day. It's a convenient thing to have up his sleeve and the classic sound it has is very versatile, definitely seems like something he could keep going back to.

[Virginia Lot Lizard]

On 1/17/2019 at 12:03 AM, hym.jarred said:

Viva la Longshot. I hope it's a project he returns to for the rest of his life. I don't see why he wouldn't.

Me too! 

[Rumpelstiltskin2000]

I knew that Razor Baby reminded me of another song but I couldn't remember what it was. It's Candy by Bikini Kill! No idea if it was intentional.

[Hermione]

13 hours ago, Rumpelstiltskin2000 said:

I knew that Razor Baby reminded me of another song but I couldn't remember what it was. It's Candy by Bikini Kill! No idea if it was intentional.

Razor Baby also has a very similar melody to Minnesota Girl, I guess either one could be influenced by the Bikini Kill song

[Guest]

Still obsessed with The Last Time. It's one of those songs I listen to every single day and never get sick of. I remember how psyched I was to hear the full thing when Billo posted teasers on Instagram and it really lived up to my very high expectations. 

[solongfromthestars]

Just appreciating how beautifully shot the Love is for Losers video is I love it in full but these are incredible standalone shots.

[Squashie]

If you haven't been the the Neon Museum/Boneyard in Vegas (where this was shot), you NEED to go. It is so cool. My family went there last August during our "desert vacation". It was our last night in Vegas, and we were not disappointed. 

I agree, @solongfromthestars, that the video is beautiful. I always chuckle now when I see the shot of Billie below, because it's right by the restrooms. 

 

[The Bellie]

12 hours ago, squashie09 said:

I agree, @solongfromthestars, that the video is beautiful. I always chuckle now when I see the shot of Billie below, because it's right by the restrooms.

When I went to NY last year to see the Longshot, we went in the Hard Rock Cafe, and with my friend we searched during half an hour for a pic of Green day there... then we needed to got to the restrooms and guess what? The pic was right in front of the restrooms  we were like: logical, we should've started to look here! 

[RedundantIdiot]

The music video for Love is for Losers has reached 1m views on YouTube. 

[solongfromthestars]

I'm selling a limited number of my custom Longshot tour dates shirts if anyone wants one  

https://mariagloriaharvey.bigcartel.com/product/longshot-tour-dates-shirt

Also have this one: https://mariagloriaharvey.bigcartel.com/product/fever-blister-t-shirt

[Tina Sixx]

I agree. Love is for Losers is a beautiful video. I like the whole thing from beginning to end a lot. And then at the end of the video I'm always like "Why is he running?" Like he's chasing a ghost and a long lost valentine or he's running away? 

But ya. I get laughed at all the time everytime the video is on somewhere and I say "Why is he running?"

Ok. I'm tired. Time for bread! Goodnight, GDC ❤️

[aydge89]

❤️ is for Losers

Happy Valentine's Day to all you losers out there!

[Juan]

Love the album and the EPs. What's interesting about the record is that it reveals Billie as a diehard power popper, and the tour confirmed that given he played and released an entire EP of Power Pop chestnuts. It was implied before but he really went deep here. I think it ties into the vibe he was going with the Trilogy, as it's essentially the same Green Day sound but a lot more mature.

I was listening to all 3 records the other day and I was struck how much Elvis Costello was in there. Just really sophisticated yet catchy songs. I suspect that's where Billie's heart really lays in. Great melodies, great songs. Just good old fashioned rock n'roll. Compared to RevRad which was so bombastic in places, and only half of that album truly works (Outlaws is the worst thing BJ has wrote). I think GD has been compartmentalized into the "Arena" section and he tries to write songs that suit that tone, and sometimes that can feel forced. Here, he's just kicking back and letting 'em rip and that's great. I really hope he keeps going with this. 

[pacejunkie punk]

10 hours ago, Juan said:

Love the album and the EPs. What's interesting about the record is that it reveals Billie as a diehard power popper, and the tour confirmed that given he played and released an entire EP of Power Pop chestnuts. It was implied before but he really went deep here. I think it ties into the vibe he was going with the Trilogy, as it's essentially the same Green Day sound but a lot more mature.

I was listening to all 3 records the other day and I was struck how much Elvis Costello was in there. Just really sophisticated yet catchy songs. I suspect that's where Billie's heart really lays in. Great melodies, great songs. Just good old fashioned rock n'roll. Compared to RevRad which was so bombastic in places, and only half of that album truly works (Outlaws is the worst thing BJ has wrote). I think GD has been compartmentalized into the "Arena" section and he tries to write songs that suit that tone, and sometimes that can feel forced. Here, he's just kicking back and letting 'em rip and that's great. I really hope he keeps going with this. 

Agree with all of this. I’m interested in the comparison you draw to Elvis Costello and wouldn’t mind hearing more detail on why you think that. EC being such a wordy lyricist and Billie normally just getting to the heart of an idea quickly and moving on, I’ve never seen the two in the same light (though I adore them both). I’ve always said that EC appeals to my head and Billie/GD appeal to my heart. 

[Juan]

Just in a general melodic sense. I hear lots of Trust and Blood & Chocolate in the phrasings and just the approach being more refined than usual. Also, it feels like it was recorded live. I gather B&C was mostly recorded live and so was Trilogy. I think GD circa 92-95 sounded a lot like The Jam (Mike used to sing a lot more, a lot like Bruce Foxton) and now it's more of a Power Pop thing. 

[WhiteTim]

3 minutes ago, Juan said:

Just in a general melodic sense. I hear lots of Trust and Blood & Chocolate in the phrasings and just the approach being more refined than usual. Also, it feels like it was recorded live. I gather B&C was mostly recorded live and so was Trilogy. I think GD circa 92-95 sounded a lot like The Jam (Mike used to sing a lot more, a lot like Bruce Foxton) and now it's more of a Power Pop thing. 

Longshot album I believe was all Billie solo 

 

[Juan]

Yes, I was comparing Trilogy to the EC catalog. But this feels like a continuation of that. 

[The Bellie]

I love the trilogy and the Longshot and there are my most listened albums, but I don't necessarily want the upcoming Green Day sound to be the same. I think if Billie did this side project now, it's meant to be different from the next album, and it is already different from the rest of Green Day (including the trilogy, to me). Also, Rev Rad is still my favorite album, I don't agree that half the songs don't work, played live they were at least as spectacular as the Longshot ones, and better fitted for arenas I think. I would've loved to hear Outlaws live.