Crooked Young by Bring Me the Horizon Lyrics Meaning – Decoding the Anthem of Disillusionment
Lyrics
Hallelujah, well I’m saved
Just a dozen steps and 28 days
It’s a miracle, I’ll be born again
As the Lord as my Shepard
I will find a way
Fuck your faith, no ones gonna save you
Fuck your faith
There’s no hope for us
We speak in tongues, blacker than the sun
No death can touch the crooked young
There’s no hope for us
We speak in tongues, blacker than the sun
No death can touch the crooked young
The crooked young
We don’t sleep, we don’t eat
We speak in tongues
We can’t die, we’re dead inside
No death can touch the crooked young
Believe in no one
But yourself
The faceless won’t save you
The clouds will eat your fucking prayers
There’s no hope for us
We speak in tongues, blacker than the sun
No death can touch
Hallelujah
I say it’s a miracle, thank you Jesus
Hallelujah, I say
Fuck your faith, fuck your faith
In a generation characterized by skepticism and disenchantment, Bring Me the Horizon’s ‘Crooked Young’ stands tall as an anthem that encapsulates the angst of youth disillusionment. With a visceral blend of melodic hardcore and lyrical urgency, the track delivers a powerful treatise on faith, redemption, and the stark rejection of institutional beliefs.
Diving beyond the surface-level aggression and guttural screams, ‘Crooked Young’ is deceptively intricate in its messaging. It is a musical novella that peels back the layers of religious disillusionment and the search for self-reliance amidst societal pressures. Let’s venture into the deep, confronting truths that are hidden within its haunting refrains.
The Echo Chamber of Faith and its Discontents
The opening cry, ‘Believe in the one,’ immediately sets the tone for a spiritual invocation; yet what follows is a masterful bait-and-switch. The frontman’s subsequent ‘salvation’ sings like a mockingbird’s parody, throwing shade on organized religion’s promised path to purity. It criticizes the routine nature of redemption offered by a system that seems to commodify soul-saving into measurable steps and time frames.
By juxtaposing phrases steeped in religious vernacular with blunt profanities, the song dares to question the efficacy of faith-based solutions in a world steeped in real-life complexities. Its bold ‘Fuck your faith’ refrain becomes a mantra for the disbelievers, an unabashed declaration of spiritual autonomy in the face of sacrosanct doctrines.
No Death Can Touch: The Immortality of the Crooked Young
The pre-chorus ‘There’s no hope for us, we speak in tongues, blacker than the sun, no death can touch the crooked young’ acts as both a chilling acknowledgment of loss of faith and an empowering war cry. This speaks to a sense of invulnerability amid existential crisis, as if the very acts of transgression have rendered the ‘crooked young’ beyond the reach of death’s traditional sting.
The resilience in the nihilism surfaces as a dark, poetic irony. The ‘crooked young’ are dead inside, not as a mark of despair, but as a statement of detachment from expectations and pressures. The repeated idea that ‘no death can touch’ them is an allusion to both literal and figurative mortality, hinting at spiritual emancipation from the fear of death that often binds individuals to religious adherence.
Exposing the Hidden Meaning: Rebellion as Emancipation
Buried beneath the grim exterior of ‘Crooked Young’ is an existential excavation site, where the act of rebelling against the divine is symbolic of a larger struggle for personal liberation. The hidden meaning is a thread connecting the tattered tapestry of voices fed up with being force-fed hollow promises—be they from religious institutions, societal norms, or governmental structures.
The song’s core message isn’t about promoting atheism as much as it is about advocating for a more authentic existence. The damning critique of blind faith is intrinsically linked to the broader social narrative of questioning authoritarian narratives and finding one’s own path.
Memorable Lines: The Subversion of Hallelujah
Arguably one of the song’s most striking features is its subversion of ‘Hallelujah.’ Typically associated with joyous spiritual revelation, the song hurls it into the fray as a sardonic salute to the fallacies of faith healing and salvation. ‘I say it’s a miracle, thank you Jesus, Hallelujah, I say’ is delivered with such caustic energy that it’s impossible not to feel the sting of its irony.
This juxtaposition reflects a genius musical approach, where traditional expectations are cleverly manipulated to provoke thought. It’s not just a fleeting piece of lyricism but a deliberate twist that forces listeners to confront the cavernous divide between spiritual idealism and the perceived reality of many contemporary youths.
The Culmination: A Clarion Call for Self-belief
In the end, ‘Crooked Young’ isn’t just summoning the disenchanted—it’s empowering them. Its message culminates as a clarion call for belief in the self over deities or doctrines. This outlook is imbued with both the pain of disillusionment and the power of self-determination, suggesting that it’s through the abandonment of external validation that true autonomy is found.
The defiant cry, ‘The faceless won’t save you,’ is a reminder of the transitory nature of institutions compared to the constancy of the individual spirit. By ultimately asserting ‘Believe in no one but yourself’ the song gives a nod to the philosophical underpinnings of existentialism, stressing the importance of self-reliance in an unpredictable world.
