3 Things I Learned from Fall Out Boy
We all go through our music phases. My personal phases started off with the Spice Girls in elementary school, moved onto No Doubt in middle school and ended up with Fall Out Boy in junior high/early high school.
I’d like to think my musical tastes have evolved a little since then (although I still know every word to “Wannabe” and “Don’t Speak”), but that doesn’t mean that I automatically cringe when listening to my old favorite songs. In fact, listening to old songs puts me in a nostalgic mood, makes me happy and apparently inspires me write blog posts.
While making the almost-3-hour drive to visit my boyfriend this past weekend, I put my iPod on shuffle. In the middle of my rather boring drive, Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar We’re Going Down” came on. I instantly was reminded of the summer that song came out- a time when I had few responsibilities, went to a ton of concerts, and spent many days just laughing and driving around with my friends from high school. After the wave of nostalgia was over, I started to realize that this song (and music video) taught me a few semi-important things.
3 Things I Learned From Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar We’re Going Down”
I learned what a “mausoleum” is
Maybe you’re one of few who actually had heard of this word before, but most likely you just pretended you knew what it meant as you sang along. Curiosity clearly got the best of me at the age of 16, when I looked up what it was- only to find out it’s an above-ground tomb or burial place for the dead. Now I cannot drive by a cemetery with a mausoleum without thinking of the song. And how weird it is that it was used in a song.
I learned what the term “God complex” means
The play-on-words lyrics “a loaded God complex, cock it and pull it” mixed with Patrick Stump’s sometimes incoherent singing voice led many, including myself, to think the lyric was actually “a gun complex”. However, I learned what the lyrics actually said and that a God complex was in fact a real thing. People who are said to have a God complex are characterized by an inflated level of narcissism and a belief that one can achieve impossible things (aka only things that God could do). What I learned from this is that I know quite a few people who may be guilty of having one of these God complexes, but they’d never be able to admit it.
I learned that no matter how weird you are, there is SOMEONE out there who will love you
The main character in the music video has deer antlers (and goofy-looking teeth, but that’s beside the point), yet he still manages to get a cute girl in the end who loves him despite his flaws. So whether it’s your extra-long pinky toe, obsession with collecting troll dolls or the fact that you put hot sauce on your ice cream, there is someone out there who will like that weird thing about you.
