Bazooka Rocks 3: Get Ready with These Taking Back Sunday and The Used Heartbreak Songs
I remember belting out songs from The Used, Senses Fail and Taking Back Sunday in my hay days. Those three bands had practically become the structure of my teenage life – an affirmation of my already excessive angst.
For all of those #hugot moments, crying over lost loves and finding new ones, and lessons in keeping and letting go today; Taking Back Sunday, Senses Fail and The Used can still provide a deadly soundtrack for whoever has torn your heart out and left it bleeding on the floor.
Taking Back Sunday Will be at Bazooka Rocks 3
New York-based rock band Taking Back Sunday started their career in 1999 with the release of their first album Tell All Your Friends under the Victory Records label in 2002. Mostly centering on heartbreak and revenge, their songs have become an anthem to the early millenial generation.
Top 10 Taking Back Sunday Songs
10. Cute Without the “E” (Cut From The Team)(Album: Tell All Your Friends)
My all-time #hugot song. Their lyrics are so intense that singing it in the shower does not give it justice. However, every time the first few notes of this song blasts out of anyone’s speakers at an inuman, it’s mostly the girls that are singing their hearts out. Their Fight Club-inspired video is perfect for the song, too!
#hugot lines: “Hoping for the best just hoping nothing happens
A thousand clever lies unread on clever napkins
I will never ask if you will never tell me
I know you well enough to know you never loved me”
9. Timberwolves At New Jersey (Album: Tell All Your Friends)
There’s an unwritten code in friendship where you don’t snake your best bud’s girl or boy. Their cute homemade video is a manifestation of that. Forbidden love, treachery and well, revenge.
#hugot lines: “This is me with the words on the tip of my tongue
And my eye through the scope
Down the barrel of a gun
Remind me not to ever act this way again”
8. You’re So Last Summer (Album: Tell All Your Friends)
Remember that ex who just got bored with you and left you hanging? The same one who made it look like it was your fault? The one you’d give your whole world to in a snap? Yup, the boys of Taking Back Sunday felt that too and conveniently wrote a song about it for the whole world to sing. Get an audience, a solid band and a hip hop dude to dance on stage, and you’ve got a funny video.
#hugot lines: “The truth is
You could slit my throat
And with my one last gasping breath
I’d apologize for bleeding on your shirt”
7. Great Romances of the 20th Century (Album: Tell All Your Friends)
When you listen to this album, you wonder how much heartbreak these boys have been through. Tuning in to this song, you’ll also realize how cold girls can be (but even boys of course). Remember that ex you caught cheating on you? The same ex who has the audacity to reason out his actions and say “Come on, Let’s just get this over with.”
#hugot lines: “September never stays this cold
Where I come from
And you know
I’m not one for complaining,
But I love the way you’d roll
Excuses off the tip of your tongue
As I slowly fall apart”
6. A Decade Under The Influence (Album: Where You Want To Be)
There’s so much tension in that awkward car ride home with your ex (that you’re probably not over yet). And even more so once you hit home base. Like the song goes, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”
#hugot lines: “Well I got a bad feeling about this,
I got a bad feeling about this (to hell with you and all your friends, it’s on)
I’m coming over but it never was enough
I thought it through and my worst brings out the best in you”
5. This Photograph is Proof (I Know You Know) (Album: Where You Want To Be)
It’s that phone call or that face-to-face confrontation where your cheating boyfriend/ girlfriend lays out all his/her cards on the table. All you have to do now is to listen and catch all of the excuses. And you’re left with one option: “drop everything, start it all over.”
#hugot lines: “Now I’m lying on the table
With everything you said
It will all catch up eventually
Well, it caught up and honestly
The weight of my decisions
Were impossible to hold
But they were never yours
They were never yours”
4. What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost (Album: Louder Now)
Taking Back Sunday’s first album under Warner Bros. Records hits the audience with something more mature, a far cry from their “raw” sound back when they were under Victory Records. But heck, it works.
This song reminds me of dysfunctional parasitic relationships where your partner molds his or her character around you. Though codependence can be mutually beneficial, the song says otherwise. Jeering at the partner who’s lost his or her identity in the process, and because you’re sick of the drama, you hit straight at the jugular.
#hugot lines: “And then you said a little more about your dreams,
Like it was my call
If you would only listen
Bypassed everything and went straight for the neck”
3. Liar (It Takes One To Know One) (Album: Louder Now)
We all hate that lying, cheating, arrogant ex at one point in our developing lives. More than personal experience, though, this song (they say) alludes to Lord of the Flies and the boys’ battle for survival. But if you really want to relate, sing it, “Liar. Liar. It takes one to know one.” Because, you know, we’re all liars in our own sense of drama.
#hugot lines: “I’m an addict for dramatics
I confuse the two for love
You can tell me don’t beg”
2. Make Damn Sure (Album: Louder Now)
Obsession can be degrading on your part while an affirmation of your partner (or ex)’s individuality. Infatuation/ borderline stalker can lead to devastating results, especially if you’re chasing a tease. Now, years after he or she rejected you, revenge is sweeter when aged to perfection.
#hugot lines: “A long night spent with your most obvious weakness
You start shaking at the thought
You are everything I want
Cause you are everything I’m not”
1. El Paso (Album: Taking Back Sunday)
Pretty heavy and filled with an ecstatic energy, this is my favorite song from their self-titled album. It shows how far the band’s sound has reached. About El Paso, Texas, I can only surmise that the lyrics are about the hard and gritty life of the Wild Wild West.
#hugot lyrics: “What I wanted to know
Where did god sway
And if the silence was gold, gold, gold
When you got your way”
Okay, I have a clear bias towards their older albums but hey, their music is clearly evolving and I’m excited to see what they’re going to offer at Bazooka Rocks 3 and mosh with everyone!
Check out page 2 for a #hugot The Used playlist.
