“Sugar, We’re Going Down" by Fall Out Boy, Saturday, August 4, 2021

Fall Out Boy, in some ways, is the anti-anberlin, at least from their beginnings. Anberlin signed with Tooth & Nail Records, and Fall Out Boy was in contract talks with the Militia Group, a label started by a former Tooth & Nail employee, before signing with Fueled by Ramen. Both bands recorded their label debuts in 2003, both of which received little attention. But the distinction comes with their sophomore records, both released in 2005. Never Take Friendship Personal is loved by anberlin fans and spawn the #38 Alternative Airplay single "Paperthin Hymn." From Under the Corktree in contrast contained two singles that were played on pop radio, "Sugar, We're Going Down" and "Dance, Dance." In 2005, the former hardcore punk rock group stumbled on a sound that was going to be huge until the end of the decade. "Sugar, We're Going Down" is an example of Emo going mainstream, a sound of the times that was loved for its raw emotion and ridiculed for its styles.

IS THIS MORE THAN YOU BARGAINED FOR? The record label tried to scrap the chorus of "Sugar, We're Going Down," claiming, according to lyricist/bassist Pete Wentz, "the chorus was too wordy and the guitars were too heavy and that the radio wasn’t going to play it." But this was the golden opportunity for Emo. Not only did it make it to the radio, it was a Top 10 Billboard hit, peaking at number 8. The song was inescapable in 2005, and Fall Out Boy became a new kind of "boy band" type of aggressive teenage pop along with Panic at the Disco and My Chemical Romance. Of course, it didn't hurt that Green Day had released their emo-twinged American Idiot the year before, but it seemed that to be rock in the second half of the 2000's was to be emo. Fall Out Boy and any rock band that stuck around or took a break and came back to the pop charts would have to move on from the Emo stereotype. In fact, Fall Out Boy's follow up to Corktree, Infinity on High, would stretch the band musically, stretching the genre of Emo and helping the group (possibly?) escape the connotation of the what they were still creating--the emo kid. Emo was a label that everybody was in high school. Yet, nobody wanted to admit to being emo. In Katy Perry's first (mostly forgotten) single, "UR So Gay," the later massively successful "I Kissed a Girl" singer encapsulates what is emo--a high school junior, who quotes profound literature he read the Spark Notes to the other night, who is dealing with a lot right now, self-absorbed. This example is timeless, but to put a 2004-2009 tag on Emo, dress the boy up in girl-jeans or tight boy jeans, once the stores started carrying them, add make-up and a "Karen" haircut with some die, and a scarf, piercings, and jewelry for accessory. This essentially was what Emo and high school school was all about.

ISN'T IT JUST MESSED UP HOW I'M DYING TO BE HIM. "Junior year of high school for me, it was nothing but Mozart's Requiem and From Under the Cork Tree in my car," Anna said in the living room when the group was taking a break from studying for the English GRE senior year of college. "No kidding. For me it was Requiem and Never Take Friendship Personal," Allan said. The futility of studying for what was known as the most pretentious cocktail party eroded into to pizza outings and trips to Barnes and Nobel, Books-a-Million across the street and the used-book warehouse on the way back to school. Allan would buy so many books he could never read before going to Korea. The small graduating senior classmates always got together on the pretense of study--the six of them, Allan the only male. The other male classmate wasn't close to the group, a tortured poet who expressed his disdain for the organized religion, hence not fitting into Adventist-six. Tonight, the conversation turned into a writers' discussion. After making note cards of major characters in Shakespeare and half-heartedly drilling each other, Katie got out a piece that she had been working on, a short story about World War II through the eyes of Hitler's cat, Blondi. Anna shared her beat-poetry that seemed inspired by Flight of the Concords and Ben Folds. When they read Allan's first chapter of his novel Leaving Norwich, a small-town romance about a young man who fails to marry his high school sweetheart after she goes off to college and falls in love with a man who is everything the protagonist, Vincent, has failed to become, Christina sighed heavily. "Wow, Allan. You're certainly keeping a lot inside," she said, putting down the pages on the coffee table in two of the girls' shared apartment. "There are levels messed up with this character's perspective. I just hope that you can find a way to let some of this go."

https://genius.com/Fall-out-boy-sugar-were-goin-down-lyrics