“Mulberry Street” by twenty one pilots, Wednesday, December 7, 2022 (Trigger Warning: discussion about mental health)

 

I was wrong about twenty one pilots, and the reason I'm willing to admit that is after I spent time with their album released last year, Scaled and Icy, I realized that this duo was much more than who I thought they were. Mostly gone--but not entirely--are the emo rapping and trap beats that turned me off of the group when they debuted. The lyrics on Scaled and Icy, though, are emotional, and singer Tyler Joseph masterfully weaves clichés, esoteric messages for fans, current lingo, and new turns of phrase all to a funky piano/guitar groove. Scaled and Icy is in the vein of Paramore's After Laughter, on the surface it's fun and light-hearted, but when you spend a little time with the lyrics, you're bound to discover a surprising depth.

THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS. I was thinking about albums of the year and how last year I didn't seem to have one. In 2019 I was obsessed with Mike Mains & the Branches' When We Were in Love. And although I didn't listen to it a lot in 2020, I would have to crown folklore as the album of the year for Taylor Swift's songwriting and the vibe that helped create pristine moments when listening to the album. For me, 2021 was a year of old music and it seemed that was the case for a lot of bands as well, whether it was livestream concerts or re-recordings of records. Sure there were a few good records, Adele's 30, Ed Sheeran's =, Nick Jonas' Spaceman, and IU's Lilac, but none of them screamed album of the year like Scaled and Icy. My approach to this record comes after enjoying a nice shower to "Saturday" and a few of the other tracks last year and only listening to "Mulberry Street" two days in a row before deciding to check out the rest of the record. As I began research for today's song, I realized that I really don't have the proper licensure to discuss a band that has such a cult following that they incessantly comment on the band's Genius pages about the fiction woven into the band's songs, about a race on another world, a religion called Vialism that has something to do with social media, apathy, and suicide. 

KEEP YOUR SUNNY DAYS; LEAVE US  IN THE RAIN. Much of twenty one pilots' lyrics have to do with mental health, and "Mulberry Street" is no exception. Named after the street in New York City that fellow piano man Billy Joel sang about, "Mulberry Street" is a seemingly upbeat track that's a fun listen. In a concert video (see below), the duo performs "Mulberry Street" in the middle of a cover of Elton John's "Benny and the Jets." The Elton John cover feels fitting given twenty one pilots' flamboyant style. But the happiness of the music covers the melancholy of the track. An episode of What About Therapy broke down the lyrics of the track from a mental health perspective. The podcasters pointed out that this track is sometimes criticized because lead singer Tyler Joseph is possibly saying not to medicate depression. The podcasters don't think that's what Joseph is actually advocating, but rather discussing that drugs, alcohol, vices, and temporal distractions can make us not actually process our feelings. Joseph reminds us that it's okay to feel sad sometimes, that it's okay to live in the weekdays not only for the weekends, and that it's okay to move sideways because moving ahead may be too hard. So let's live in that weekday for just a little bit longer.

Lyric video:

Live stream version:

Live concert featuring "Chlorine" and a mash up of "Benny and the Jets" and "Mulberry Street."

Read “Mulberry Street” by ​twenty one pilots on Genius