My Chemical Romance’s “The Black Parade” is regarded as one of the most influential punk rock albums of all time. The album contains multiple iconic 2000’s rock anthems like Teenagers and Welcome to the Black Parade among many others. For years, fans and listeners have been coming up with their own interpretation of what the grand story is of the whole album and now, I will share my interpretation of what the story is and how it is played out.

 

As a short synopsis: The Black Parade is about a dying cancer patient reflecting his past and going through stages of denial, anguish, and acceptance. All throughout this tragedy, beyond the real world, Death, a lost soul that guides souls into the afterlife, taunts at the patient's conditions while awaiting for his death to take him away. 

 

The songs in this album tell a story in a 3rd person limited omniscient perspective, switching perspectives between the Patient, the protagonist, and Death, the antagonist. Usually, the Patient has a song about an event in the story and Death has a song following to comment about it. Another thing to take note is that the tracks have been rearranged and are not in the album’s order, instead an order that fits my narrative. My track order is as follows:

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1. The End

2. Dead!

3. Teenagers

4. House of Wolves

5. Cancer

6. The Sharpest Lives

7. I Don’t Love You

8. This is how I Disappear

9. Disenchanted

10. Mama

11. Sleep

12. Famous Last Words

13. Welcome to the Black Parade

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This track order is heavily inspired by youtuber Wendigoon’s take on the album's narrative (https://youtu.be/CfUgBbuSTPQ) with a few deviations. With this order we have a 3 act rock opera. It is very obvious, but a big and prevalent influence to this album is Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Both albums contain a story within their deep and mysterious tracks and some of the song’s sound on The Black Parade were influenced by that Floyd album. Without further ado, let's break down the journey of the Patient in The Black Parade.