Behind “The Light Behind Your Eyes”

All of the chapter titles in When The Lights Go Out are either track titles (including one B-side) or bits of lyrics from Danger Days: True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys.

This one is not. “The Light Behind Your Eyes” is off of Conventional Weapons, though the history of both albums is closely linked, and so it feels like a reasonable extension.

If you haven’t read my very long story, this is where I fill in what makes yesterday’s post make sense, and there are tons of spoilers coming up.

It started with the My Chemical Romance video for “Sing”, where the entire band dies getting the Kid away from BLInd, an evil corporate entity. It hit me hard, and I could not leave them dead. Presumptuous, I know, but that’s fan fiction for you.

A new character, Jane, was able to get them out by sacrificing her own life, and that felt like it worked initially, but also, they were still going to die, just later, and I couldn’t leave Jane dead either, which felt really lame of me, but then she dies too. In the end, Frank lives, and is able to stop running with all of the other characters who have not died. Since they have acquired several more children by the time this happens, it’s good that some adults lived.

The last scene before this chapter was at the burial for Gerard and Jane, Frank is there, and it is heartbreaking that he has been left behind, but he pulls Sophie and Latron closer and he is facing the future, and that’s kind of what the whole thing is about. You lose people and you continue to love and help each other, and for all the pain in that there is joy too.

I thought I was done, but then I heard the song, “The Light Behind Your Eyes”. It very much has the feel of a lullabye, but also, here is how it starts:

So long to all of my friends
Everyone of them met tragic ends
With every passing day
I’d be lying if I didn’t say
That I miss them all tonight
And if they only knew what I would say

To me, it just very much became Frank comforting Sophie, but doing it while hurting on his own. There was never any doubt that he would rise to the occasion, and be there for the others, but there was also a sense of how difficult and how lonely it would be, and somehow I felt like he would get some help with a ghostly visitor. Well, maybe it was more angelic. Anyway, Jane comes one night.

I did worry that I was favoring Jane too much; maybe it should be Gerard or Ray or Mikey, or Frank's parents or grandfather. However, it felt right that it was Jane, and I think there are a few reasons for that.

One is that it goes back to a conversation that they had earlier, where she tells him that he will live and have children and grandchildren. It is not obvious on the first pass, but looking back it is very obvious that as much as she knows that Frank has a future, Jane knows that she does not.

Also, I think if it was anyone else, it would be too unbearable to stay. Jane had been in Frank’s life for the shortest amount of time, while still getting fairly close to him, and it was through her that he met the others that he is with now, and they are the ones he needs to cling to. His family or his friends would be more of a reminder of his loss, while Jane is the least connected to his past and the most connected to his present

And ultimately, in one sense Jane only traded her life for Frank’s. Her actions gave Mikey and Ray about another seven weeks, and then she and Gerard had probably another month beyond that. That’s not to negate that time, because some important things happened. Relationships were strengthened, finding out that Grace’s father was alive was huge for the men who had been protecting her, and there were good things.

This chapter reinforces that life is short, and that the relationships we share with others are what’s important, but the other chapters do that too. I think the reason it needed to be written was the hope. Seeing so many people who are dealing with depression and grief, I wanted to put out there that it can be soothed in surprising and unexpected ways. I wanted to remind everyone how much love is out there, and to take and give it all. And life is precious. Death is fine, but as long as we have life we need to make it good.