The Lyrical Beauty of Twenty One Pilots: Blurryface edition
As an English major, I look for more than just a nice beat to make a song worthwhile. Lyrics are important to me, and few have impressed me of late as much as Twenty One Pilots. The play on words, the flow of it all, and the brutal honesty are something we simply do not hear enough of these days. Allow me to take you on a tour through their genius on the album that got me hooked, Blurryface.
Heavydirtysoul
“If I didn’t know better, I’d guess that you’re already dead
Mindless zombies walking around with a limp and a hunch
Saying stuff like, ‘You only live once’
You got one time to figure it out
One time to twist and one time to shout
One time to think and I say we start now”
Yup. They just called us out on yolo. They raise a valid point, asking: If we’re not really living life to the fullest, can we even really be alive, or are we falling into our own graves because we couldn’t look up from our phones to stop from tripping on our own tombstones? That’s deep. (About six feet, in fact.)
Stressed Out
“Out of student loans and treehouse homes
We all would take the latter”
While this song is chock-full of great, relatable lyrics, this one, as of right now, is my favorite lyric, maybe ever. A few weeks ago, the true brilliance of this line hit me. Take the word “latter”: it means the second of the two previously mentioned items, but do you know what it also sounds an awful lot like? LADDER: as in the thing you use to get to a treehouse. Just let that sink in.
Ride
“I’d die for you
That’s easy to say
We have a list of people that we would take
A bullet for them…
But I don’t seem to see many bullets coming through…
I’d live for you
And that’s hard to do”
Realistically, how many of us will have to sacrifice our life for someone else? Not a lot. But giving someone your life is a much greater, harder devotion.
Fairly Local
“I’m not evil to the core
What I shouldn’t do I will fight
I know I’m emotional
What I wanna save I will try”
It’s not always about whether you accomplish anything or not, but whether or not you tried. Stand up for what you believe in. Sometimes it can be you.
Tear in my Heart
“You fell asleep in my car I drove the whole time
But that’s okay I’ll just avoid the holes so you sleep fine”
This right here is the kind of love I want to hear about. Forget all the hyped up Hollywood romance, and give me a man who loves me in the little things. This is real life, and it can be beautiful.
Lane Boy
“I’m in constant confrontation with what I want and what is poppin’”
We all know how hard it is to stay true to yourself in a world that is constantly bombarding you with new ways to not be a social outcast.
The Judge
“I’m a pro at imperfections
And I’m best friends with my doubt”
You’re not perfect. Neither is anyone else. You’re not always confident. Neither is anyone else. They know it. They get it.
Doubt
“Scared of my own image, scared of my own immaturity,
Scared of my own ceiling, scared I’ll die of uncertainty”
Again, THEY GET IT: that feeling of not knowing if you’ll ever be enough, if you’ll peak in college, or even simply fearing the great uncertainty surrounding it all.
Polarize
“I wanted to be a better brother, better son
Wanted to be a better adversary to the evil I have done”
Sometimes you look back and just wish you could have been better, could have done better. This song is all about recognizing your shortcomings and deciding where to go from there, a critical part of growing as a person.
We Don’t Believe What’s on TV
“I don’t care what’s in your hair
I just wanna know what’s on your mind
I used to say I wanna die before I’m old
But because of you I might think twice”
This is tragically beautiful. Imagine someone wanting to die before they’re old. Has the world let them down so much? And is this even that hard to imagine? It’s depressing how we put so much stock in appearances and not enough in actually knowing people.
Message Man
“You don’t know my brain the way you know my name
You don’t know my heart the way you know my face”
This goes back to their point of not really knowing anyone in this day and age. Get to know someone’s brain and heart for a change.
Hometown
“We don’t know, we don’t know
How to put back the power in our soul
We don’t know, we don’t know
Where to find what once was in our bones”
We can talk about being lit all day every day, but where has our fire, our passion gone? Is there any light for the future?
Not Today
“Listen, I know this one’s a contradiction because of how happy it sounds
But the lyrics are so down
It’s okay though because it represents, wait better yet, it is
Who I feel I am right now”
For all those times you don’t feel like putting on a smile, but manage to do it anyway.
Goner
“I’m a goner
Somebody catch my breath
I wanna be known by you”
In this, the saddest sounding track on the album, the message really comes through. They’ve mentioned it time and time again: we need to come together, to appreciate each other as we truly are. No one person can do it alone. It takes everyone.
The true beauty of this album is that it can mean so much to so many people. These are just my interpretations. Give the songs a listen, and try to look past the catchy beats to the deeper meaning behind Blurryface.