My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)

Fall Out Boy

The hit single My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up) is from Fall Out Boy's new album, Save Rock and Roll. The music video for the song is the first of the Young Blood Chronicles, which is an ongoing series with the band filming a video for every song on the album, Save Rock and Roll. This song is very popular and is played at many sports events. It also has been featured in the movie, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, and the new TV show, The Originals (a spin-off of the show Vampire Diaries). The song has a fun beat and is catchy, however one has to wonder what the lyrics mean.

My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up) Lyrics

The lyrics don't really make any sense when first read but one does get the sense that he is singing about exposure or "seeing the real." In an interview with the band members, Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz, they talk about the meaning of the song. Patrick explains that the song is about the anger adults keep hidden that we might have expressed freely when we were younger. He says that adults keep this side of themselves hidden because that is what we are supposed to do, and it's not "gentleman like" if we were to blow up and get angry at people. This reminded me of dramaturgy from sociological analysis.

Dramaturgy explains that the self is not stable or an independent entity. Rather the self is a performed character that we are endlessly staging and restaging the presence of others. The example from Patrick's explanation is that he says people construct and mediate their behavior to act appropriately as "adults." The second part of dramaturgy is impression management. This is the art of successfully staging a character or "part", of enacting a performance that creates the desired impression of the self. Patrick's example of this is that people manage their behavior to not appear as angry or crazy, so they construct the "well manged and put together" adult. Finally the last four things to look at in dramaturgy is the stage, setting, part, and team. Below are examples of how My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark does each of these four things.

1. Stage (front stage and back stage): The front stage is adults appear as following the norms society expects them to obey: they are well put together and act "ladylike" or "like a gentleman." The back stage is that adults do get angry and need to channel that emotion. The song acts as a release that lets the frustration and tension out in an appropriate manner.

2. Setting: Adults compose their front stage in front of other people, so the setting would be places where they have to socially interact with other people (i.e. work, home, internet, etc.) The back stage would most likely be in a setting where a person doesn't think anyone is watching or could possibly overhear, like driving alone in a car.

3. Part: The pattern of actions adults use to define their front stage character would be acting cool and collected. If something or someone angers you there should not be any expression of frustration (verbal or nonverbal). The patterns of actions that define the back stage character is yelling, hitting things, maybe even crying.

4. Team: Adults are a cast of players who share the same performance. They all know that it is socially inappropriate to show the emotion of being angry. Therefore they share the same performance of remaining clam and cool in a frustrating situation.