Brand New

Brand New is an underground punk/emo band that transpired out of Long Island, New York and had a slow and steady stream of devoted fans. In fact, it is not that well known outside today's the punk scene. The band has three records and all the lyrics are the finest I have ever heard! The song titled "Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't" describes many aspects that can be easily related to in everyday life. It begins with lyrics that mock narcissistic personalities. "I am heaven sent don't you dare forget, I am all you ever wanted, what all the other boys all promised." The narcissistic attitude can be traced to the reason why people ignore the punk genre. In my short grasp at life I encountered this problem numerous times, but enough about that: Let's move on.


If you follow current popular culture or trends you probably realized that the almighty dollar is the key to success. Well, "I think in decimals and dollars, I am cause to all your problems" informs the listener and myself that Donald Trump's television show "The Apprentice" has taken affect. The American society has thrown out the idea of "working hard" for success and traded it for how much a person is worth. What a pointless tragedy. The line "then ask what it's like to have myself so figured out, I wish I knew" mocks the way my parents demand that I follow the right path and convert into society.


"I hope this song (paper) starts a craze, the kind of song that ignites the airwaves" describes all the hopes and goals I can have such as becoming a doctor of psychology with radical therapeutic approaches; however, this is just my dream and we as a society knows it takes more than that. The song speaks to the anger that can build up inside a person and how our unconscious thoughts broadcast in our head such as, "I hope you come down with something they can't diagnose, nor have the cure for'. I often have extremely evil thoughts about people I dislike, but keep them to myself in order to save face to the general public.


The key element to mankind's existence arises in "Oh it's so hard to have someone to love, and keeping quiet is hard, cause you can't keep a secret if never was a secret to start or at least you don't want to get caught". This lyric describes those hardships that emotional feelings can have on a person. I too have been frustrated because of supposed love for another. After that the emotion level rises in the song, still proclaiming that love emotion "we're concentrating on falling apart, we were contenders we're throwing the fight, I just want to believe, I want to believe in us." The lyrics describe what many feel love actually is and describe it in a way that can take hold on your own thoughts. If I love I may fall and fail, but I did stay in the ring to give my feeling a fighting chance to contend for my love for another. This reminds me of fighting for my current girlfriend. With lyrics like that they may not be so in their terms "controversial" at all and like they said "they are entirely smooth".