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Teenagers - My Chemical Romance (Excerpt)
They're gonna clean up your looks With all the lies in the books To make a citizen out of you Because they sleep with a gun And keep an eye on you, son So they can watch all the things you do Because the drugs never work They're gonna give you a smirk 'Cause they got methods of keeping you clean They're gonna rip up your heads Your aspirations to shreds Another cog in the murder machine... |
Teenagers by My Chemical Romance (MCR) is about society and adults trying to control the thoughts and actions of teenagers. It connects with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, because the song extends the ideas in the book.
The first stanza of the song could insinuate how Ratched is always watching McMurphy and trying to change him. The idea that the first stanza adds however, is the idea of “they.” It isn’t just Nurse Ratched that’s trying to fix McMurphy, it’s in fact the whole combine that’s behind her. We see how Ratched is always on edge with McMurphy (Because they sleep with a gun, And keep an eye on you, son, So they can watch all the things you do) and figuring out how to cut him down (Because the drugs never work, They're gonna give you a smirk, 'Cause they got methods of keeping you clean). It also exposes the underlying idea of purity and cleanliness. Ratched is seen as the Big Nurse wearing her hair perfectly and her uniform too. McMurphy comes into the combine a little roughed up from the outside. When the black boys try and give him a shower he refuses and later, after the fishing incident, the combine men are to be “cleansed” of the outside world alluding to the fact that the combine sees the outside world as a bad thing. The song says things like “clean up your looks” and “they got methods of keeping you clean.” This is the part that connects and shows us how the idea of purity is important to the combine and nurse Ratched and how in the end, there was no other way for the Big Nurse to “clean” McMurphy besides cleaning his thoughts hence he received a lobotomy. The MCR song is about teenage rebellion and freedom but it can be easily connected to Cuckoo’s Nest with the hidden ideas of purity, cleanliness, and the idea of “they”. McMurphy and the men are all fighting inside the confines of the ward for freedom, even when most are there by choice.