Desert Song

My Chemical Romance had some rough patches in their first three years. To start, Gerard and Mikey Way's grandmother died. Then Gerard went from being a raging drug addict to a sober man, which took a bunch of effort. Gerard was also pretty suicidal when he was on drugs, so that was a definite problem. This song looks back on the band's troubles, but states that because they went through all of this, they're more hopeful for the future: "Did you come to stare or wash away the blood?" - They can either live with these problems or clean off the slate and make a new start. "We hold in our hearts the sword and the faith" - The sword is for courage to keep trying for freedom from the pain, and you need faith to be able to wield the sword. "From the lights to the pavement, From the van to the floor, From backstage to the doctor, From the earth to the morgue" - This explains how things would have been if they had given up. "Did we fall down?" - They don't know whether or not they'd hit bottom or are drifting toward it. "Spend the rest of your day's rockin' out just for the dead" - This means that if they hadn't of got through it all, they would of just been playing for all the dead ones, seeing as they'd be with them.

This was intended for the Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge album but didn't make the cut. Instead, the band included it on their live album Life On The Murder Scene, and the accompanying documentary of the same name.

During the making of Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, the band was experimenting with pills and drinking heavily outside of the studio, but remained professional during their recording sessions - usually. When it came time to record this tune, Gerard tried to sing drunk, which he says was the worst take he ever did. Frank Iero, the band's rhythm guitarist, recalled the session. "To record that song, Gerard just got wasted all night," he told Tom Bryant, author of Not the Life It Seems: The True Lives of My Chemical Romance. "The final recording was just drunk. It fitted the mood of the song though. It was more like he was playing a character and, in order to play that person, he had to get f--ked up."