When most people think of My Chemical Romance, “Welcome to the Black Parade” is usually the first thing that comes to mind.
But the band has revealed that arguably its most famous song was almost never heard…
When it came to producing their third studio album, MCR almost cut the signature track after lead singer Gerard Way revealed that he struggled to connect to it personally.
“Any time it kind of got brought up, especially by my AR, Craig Aaronson, I would just kind of shoo him away about it and be like, ‘Yeah, that song’s about nothing. I’m not interested in that one,’” he told Apple Music 1 host, Travis Mills.
Way explained that although the band liked the song, it wasn’t feeling right. Until they came at it from a different perspective.
“We didn’t want to just give up on the song, so then I started to bring the concept into the musical side of things and we started breaking the song and reconstructing it,” explained Way.
The process led to the songwriter creating the song’s famous opening melody. “Once we re-approached it from the perspective of starting with a completely new introduction and a new way to start the song, it helped us fix the rest of it.”
“Welcome to the Black Parade” was eventually released as the lead single from The Black Parade and we’re all richer for it.
