DAYWALKING

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Welcome to the Black Parade (Good Friday Remix)

When he was a young boy in Nazareth
His father took him into Jerusalem for The Feast
He said: Son, when you grow up, will you save
The broken, the beaten, the damned?
Will you heal The Patient slipping into stillness?
Will you think of your unfortunate father?
I will grow old, son, and they will not write about me
The inspired authors will leave me out of their narrative
And you will become their hero.

One day, I’ll leave you—
A spectral memory to guide you up Kranion
They will break you, beat you, damn you
And you will exhale your final breath
With splinters in your back
And thorns in your head
Your mother will watch
As bodies fill the streets
And your disciples turn away
In shame and fear, they will carry on
As carrion-feeders circle overhead
Hoping to feast on your decaying sóma
Those who came together for theória
Will return home beating their breasts
Your spirit, rent from its corporeal container
Will join the Black Parade, as mine did
When we are both dead and gone, believe me:
Our memories will persist in their hearts and minds.

In a world lurching between misery and hate
They will paint it black and shout loudly
In defiance: Why God? Where were you?
Given the choice to do and die
You will be both life for the lost
And father to the fatherless children
In the streets of the city marching
Behind their single mothers
Who pray in your name
As the prescient piano and diminished drum
Sound an unexplainable anthem of things to come.

He said: My name is Joseph of Arimathea
I am a member of the council
They call me good and righteous
But I am just a man (not a hero)
Give me his corpse, Pilate
For I did not consent
To the decision and action of my peers
And I have a tomb cut in stone
Where no one has ever yet been laid
We will wrap him in a linen shroud
And prepare spices and ointments
To preserve our decimated dreams.

Then, we will head the call to carry on
Though he was broken and defeated
And weary widows weep in desperation
I will not explain or beg forgiveness
For I am one who bears a scar
My name is Metōnymia
Like crown for king,
Grave for death, and as in:
     Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
     I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
     The evil that men do lives after them;
     The good is oft interrèd with their bones.

No evil did you, son
Nor will evil live after you
Only goodness and mercy
Will follow us as we carry on
Through the rise and fall
For we are not ashamed
Of the good news
Of the coming of the Messiah
We, too, sing the Black Parade
And give a cheer for all the broken
We don’t care; we’ll carry on
We want it all; we want to play the part
Do or die, in sickness and in doubt
We will forsake all others
And keep thee unto us for as long as we live.