Song of the Week Mother Mary (yes, you read it right!)

[Smoothed Out]

The first time I discovered FBHT was on that Carson Daly show when they did Mother Mary and Stop, Drop & Roll

Oh mother mary take my hand...

[Bastard of 1967]

Oh well, too bad, who cares, it's all right...

Definitely my favorite line of this song. I find this applies to me sometimes when I try to give off the impression that nothing really matters to me. . the "I don't care" attitude, when in reality my mind is going a hundred miles a minute. So many levels of meaning to this song- relationships, the church...It also makes me think of my being raised Catholic. You accept everything because that's what your parents taught you and then as you grow you begin to question, doubt, and form your own opinions about your beliefs. Anyways, end of rambling...

Excellent choice for Song of the Week, J'net!

And OMG there is even more to the religion theme than I identified last night! Two more ideas have bubbled up (thanks to my wife's input, hey, gotta give credit where credit is due) -- First, "Let's hang in love from the gallows" immediately evoked an image of Jesus on the cross for her. The other one -- "There's a garden in the park there" -- when Jesus was betrayed by Judas, Jesus and some of his followers were in a place in or near Jerusalem called the Garden of Gethsemane. The "between the lines" message in the Mother Mary seems to be something like "come worship with me here, you won't escape alive."

Oh, and that machine-gun drum roll that Tre rips out for two full measures after the first verse? AWESOME.

[DecanoLP]

Mother Mary is my 2nd favourite FHT - song. I love it

And the videos are so epic. Must have been a great moment for you

[Holly Ann]

Ahh I adore this song. It's got such a catchy tune. I never knew GD actually performed it at their concerts. I thought it was just FBHT. xD I can play this on guitar!

[Maddy.]

It took me 10 minutes to figure out what STAR was.

Oh baby, baby it's -- no, wait, that's for some other SOTW. What I must say is this: OH F*CKING-A WHAT A WONDERFUL PICK!! This song is just a massive jam, pure, simple, punchy, and with killer lyrics to boot. Easily makes my top two or top three FHT tunes and I almost always love listening to it when the iPod hoarks it up.

We have come to expect Green Day and their alter egos to frequently take moody, deep, dark, dense concepts and themes, and package them in pop-infused shit-kicking rhythms, melodies, and harmonies. Mother Mary fits well within this, and I think takes it up another level.

[gold]

Did I mention that I love your interpretations?

[Comedy & Tragedy]

Definitely my favourite FHT song!

I just love the whole feel to it, and they way Billie The Rev's voice sounds on it.

And then we'll miss our destination

Oh well too bad who cares, it's alright

As long as we stick together

[sarita]

And OMG there is even more to the religion theme than I identified last night! Two more ideas have bubbled up (thanks to my wife's input, hey, gotta give credit where credit is due) -- First, "Let's hang in love from the gallows" immediately evoked an image of Jesus on the cross for her. The other one -- "There's a garden in the park there" -- when Jesus was betrayed by Judas, Jesus and some of his followers were in a place in or near Jerusalem called the Garden of Gethsemane. The "between the lines" message in the Mother Mary seems to be something like "come worship with me here, you won't escape alive."

Oh, and that machine-gun drum roll that Tre rips out for two full measures after the first verse? AWESOME.

AND "Oh Mother Mary take my hand" could also mean trying desperately to hold on to those beliefs from your childhood, that idealism that we used to have before life happened. Before we realized all is not perfect and happy and other people's ideas/ the media started influencing you, whether negatively or positively.

[Kayfabe]

128 plays on iTunes don't lie.

I can't even express my wall feelings in any thread post so I'm just gonna channel what I'm feeling into these brackets. ( ).

AMIFUCKINGRITE?????

[petros]

Oh I love this song sooooo much!

And these videos are awesome!!!

[Bastard of 1967]

It took me 10 minutes to figure out what STAR was.

Me too -- I think Sammykinz meant "SDAR"...tho STAR has a cool ring to it.

Did I mention that I love your interpretations?

Thanks! It was sooo late last night when I wrote that (late-night systems maintenance work to do for the office) so it seemed like the perfect time to work through MM....I mean, what else do you do when you're waiting for 75+ Windows criticial security updates to download on 6 different servers?

Don't answer that, and get your mind outta the gutter!!! :eyebrow:

But as I re-read it again this morning I was thinking like, holy s**t what a ramble that was, I sound like one of those guys holed up in a cabin somewhere, launching his conspiracy theories... Thanks for bearing with me and I'm glad you enjoyed the read anyway!

I think it's just awesome that even in a half-bombed-off-his-ass state, Billie managed to whip together those lyrics seemingly out of nowhere.....I think either Mike or Tre was quoted once as saying that Billie has like 50 different radios all tuned to a different station going off in his head all the same time -- but when one of them locks onto something and starts blaring it above the rest of the noise, look out -- MM is the kind of explosive writing that his ADHD-like inspiration can lead to. (Sidenote: Adie is one hell of an amazing woman to have been able to live with and, hell, TAME that for the past 15+ years!) ....and now we have MM -- it makes all the good little Catholic boys and girls want to spring up and dance to a peppy little song that's all about how their corrupt religion has betrayed them and is destroying their world. How punk is that!!

[sarita]

....and now we have MM -- it makes all the good little Catholic boys and girls want to spring up and dance to a peppy little song that's all about how their corrupt religion has betrayed them and is destroying their world. How punk is that!!

Love that little summary!

And it's a damn fun song, too!

[†...HAUSHINKA...†]

mother mary was the first song I loved when I listened to the FBHT for the first time and I still love it so much!!

I listen to it every morning whilm I'm driving to go to the university

I love the style, the lyric, the rhythm, Billie's way to sing it and I love the way FBHT perform it!

P.S. the first video is amazing!!!

[Mar]

Lol JUST an hour ago I was in the car with my 2 year old nephew and he asked "song please?" so I said "which song?" and he said "bababababa song!". He was asking for Mother Mary

Very nice to see a Foxies song of the week!

That is so cute!

[Annie, get your gun]

Oh God... what can I say about this beautiful song? I'm in love with it! With the music, the way Billie's sing it and the mistery....

I remember that the first time i've heard it,it just got stuck in my head... what was that??... it definetely wonderful and charming. So, i downloaded from the Foxboro's page and... i don't know... that song blew me away, IS MAGICAL!!!

I'd like to know what inspires them to write it...

[tommy_huggs]

Love this song! My favourite FBHT song.

[MrsBJArmstrong]

GREAT BAND, GREAT SONG and GREAT VIDEO.

AND best concert of my life!!!!

November 1, 2009 in Islington, London. <3

HAVE to do that again!!!

[umbjisfhinefum]

loooooooooooovvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeee mother marryyyyyyyyy

[Ila Reto]

i dont think i would like this song much if it wasnt for The Rev singing it.

and i know that's a given, but i love how "smooth and sultry" his voice is.

like he's really trying to persuade you to crawl out of your window to have a fun, somewhat romantic, night out.

my favorite line: "take a ride on the midnight train, we'll fall asleep at the station"

[dreaming]

I love to sing it loud when riding a bike under golden street light with fresh air flowing through my hair

I don't know why

It just makes me start to

miss someone's beautiful shining eyes

maybe I'm in love...haha

[minorty13]

I love to sing it loud when riding a bike under golden street light with fresh air flowing through my hair

I don't know why

It just makes me start to

miss someone's beautiful shining eyes

maybe I'm in love...haha

OMG! This song while riding a bike IS THE BEST!

That and in the car anytime you're going really fast!

[AfterShock]

"I'll do most anything cause I don't care..."

Freaking love this song. Best FBHT tune in my opinion

[Sharmellow]

It's an amazing and fun song. <3

[idiot4u]

Oh baby, baby it's -- no, wait, that's for some other SOTW. What I must say is this: OH F*CKING-A WHAT A WONDERFUL PICK!! This song is just a massive jam, pure, simple, punchy, and with killer lyrics to boot. Easily makes my top two or top three FHT tunes and I almost always love listening to it when the iPod hoarks it up.

We have come to expect Green Day and their alter egos to frequently take moody, deep, dark, dense concepts and themes, and package them in pop-infused shit-kicking rhythms, melodies, and harmonies. Mother Mary fits well within this, and I think takes it up another level.

I agree 100% with Angeline's post earlier in this thread:

....that sums it up perfectly. I do want to focus more deeply on that pleading, behind-the-scenes undercurrent she mentioned -- because I think there is a hell of a lot going on in that undercurrent. Take a look at some key words and phrases in the lyrics:

Elope...Shadows -- we're doing something sneaky, something that we don't want anyone else to know about.

All dressed up like a switchblade knife -- Who is the knife pointing at? Was it actually used? There is blood all around...

hang in love from the gallows -- Some people fall in love. Others fall into something destructive, even life-threatening, that they *think* is love.

Anywhere is better than here -- In light of the above, this may be a thinly-disguised reference to suicide.

I'll do most anything, 'cause I don't care -- I'd kill myself or someone else over you.

Too much wine driving me insane/And then we'll miss our destination -- keep reading.

"As long as we will stick together in hell, we'll reign in rows of sunshine. We'll watch it rise and shine forever" -- My changed punctuation is deliberate. "Eternity" is all over this lyric, as are other elements. Just keep reading, y'hear?

Behind the peppy garage-rock sound lies a deeply disturbed relationship. The more I try to figure out exactly what the relationship is that Billie is writing about, the more I come back to the one key lyric that repeats throughout the song: "Oh Mother Mary, take my hand."

We know from interviews, biographies, and other sources that Billie has gone through a great deal of personal turmoil and rebellion insofar as his Catholic upbringing is concerned. But he's not your run of the mill atheist or agnostic -- he actually paid attention to the dogma. Even more importantly, he sees the world around him and he recognizes what his one-time religion's teachings have done to it. Here, in Mother Mary, he records some of what he learned, labels it as bullshit, and shoots it full of holes. Loosely translated, here is what I find at the song's deepest levels:

"Mother Mary" is the representative of the church. She is one that you pray to. She is a guardian, a savior, a saint, a spiritual representative of God's love toward humanity. But "as implemented", the church is shadowy and sinister. It hooks you through your parents' influence when you're young and can't make a knowing, intelligent choice for yourself. Let's go for a walk around the lake, there's a beautiful garden we want to show you....and while you're there and when nobody else is looking we'll suck away your power to say "no". We'll elope and you won't even realize 'til it's way too late that -- wow -- you're, like, stuck with us now. And now that you're sucked in we'll teach you how to hate, kill, and destroy in the name of the God you so dearly profess to love, and who so dearly professes to love you. It'll give you such a mind-fuck that nobody with a sense of reason would want to willingly take on these teachings. So here, have some communion wine (or perhaps some stronger substances?) to make it all feel better. You'll be so wrapped up in the ritual and the dogma that you won't remember to look around you and see what all this is really doing to the world. But out of this arises what we truly lust for -- the power to rule our hell-on-earth for eternity -- so I'll do everything you tell me to. In your name. According to your will. Because after umpteen years of repetition it comes so automatically that I don't even think to stop and give half a shit about what the consequences are anymore. I'll go through the motions, and I just won't care.

Edit: WHEW. I think I need to lay off the coffee for a few days. Ta ta til the next SOTW!

[Angie-Marie]

I love Mother Mary, it's my favorite FBHT song. I love listening to that song when I go driving at night, especially when it's a really warm night and I can have the windows down.

[idiot4u]

OK--got a little crazy and replied before I'd actually written anything... Hey Bastard of 67--I like your poetic analysis of this song--especially as it relates to his religious upbringing. I always have to know the lyrics to everything and each time I listen to whatever song it is, I like to try to hear new things in it. It's amazing how many layers there are to Billie's writing. You gave me some new things to think about with MM.

i dont think i would like this song much if it wasnt for The Rev singing it.

and i know that's a given, but i love how "smooth and sultry" his voice is.

like he's really trying to persuade you to crawl out of your window to have a fun, somewhat romantic, night out.

my favorite line: "take a ride on the midnight train, we'll fall asleep at the station"

Smooth and sultry--oh yes.