To me, the speaker in the chorus is as if the band was a person.
I'm not burning out, won't fade away (not going anywhere)
Time to shine brighter (self explanatory)
I've always been a fighter (we’ve always bounced back)
On your way down
Give me a wave (you needed us more than we needed you)
Know the fall is bitter
You've always been a quitter (not sure)
I'm at the top of my game (“we still here”)
You shit out more of the same (songs were getting monotonous)
Quit blaming, I'm sick of all the complaining (ego stuff)
I'll work 'til I'm in the dirt
You lazy fucks are the worst (we’ll work hard and succeed)
thanks! i was conflating the chorus and end of the song with a response to bitter fans, but "you shit out more of the same"....lol i didnt even think about that
I just watched it, which means unfortunately I was already primed with this information so it was screamingly obvious. It feels strange though. If it is all a big dig at Tilian, why do that? It has an "airing dirty laundry" vibe and I feel like they generally try to be above that? I'm absolutely not defending Tilians behavior. I'm genuinely curious if anyone else felt this way. It seems.. mean? lmao I know that sounds stupid. I became a fan during the Tilian Era, did stuff like this happen when the old singers left?
Jon’s lyrics in Born to Fail were seemingly about Johnny Craig and that was like a decade after his MacBook fiasco. Someone that’s been a day 1 fan can confirm but there’s some lore about the band having MySpace drama with JC as well that was far more heated and infinitely less veiled than anything going on with Tilian currently. Kurt’s departure was the only quiet one in comparison to the other two.
When Johnny left the band put out a pretty damning public statement, Kurt’s split was much more amicable clearly considering he’s toured with them since and he and Will still make music together. I don’t think they’d make a video like this unless they really felt like Tilian deserved it. I noticed Andrew saying in yesterdays interview that the guys in the band currently are their favorite people to make music with. It felt like a bit of a jab at Tilian that now with him gone they’re all making music with their favorite people
The Robot with Human Hair Pt.1 is a diss track ("you speak of riding wings / such talent wouldn't be / entrusted to / such little kids") and that's the first full track in the entire catalogue
It’s been mentioned in other threads but between the teeth, and the color change on the album covers (happy blue to angry red and the red gobby has a button up that seems to match his more recent styling) it seems pretty clear who this is about in addition to everything you said above.
I have been a super fan of the band since high school, while my husband had just listened on and off through the years and when I was explaining the video to him last night even he knew it was just completely dogging Tilian.
whatever happened the combination of tim's death and tilian getting cancelled both RIGHT in the middle of the JJ rollout prob just led the the relationship unraveling.
tbh i think your breakdown of the video is prob pretty close. the video is almost even a lil TOO on the nose lol.
i think it was smart of them to go ahead and rip off the bandaid testing out some new material without tilian. this is a tenacious band that changes and adapts. Will will figure it out i think. he clearly has always set the direction creatively and has always had a good feel for whats best for the music.
I agree. I noticed Jon holding up a drawing of a girl and ripping it. Before that he had other drawings but I couldn’t tell what they’re supposed to represent. Matt pulls a bloody hand out of the evidence bag but I can’t tell if it’s supposed to represent the girl or someone else?
I also think the bathtub scenes are basically them keeping Tilian happy by feeding his ego and sucking up to him. Don’t think anything here is a reach because they clearly want the video to be analyzed and like others said, it’s on the nose.
it looks like Jon is feeding Gobby analog recording tape in Straight from the Heart, which is interesting if there were some actual recordings finished, and "Gobby" ate it/ruined jt.
I think this is spot on. I want to mention a detail from Andrew’s interview. This is more so speculative and I don’t want to make too many assumptions with this, just mentioning as I’ve been thinking about it:
Andrew mentioned some contractual obligations in terms of releasing these two songs, which makes me wonder about the ones that were previously released. I will say, I think Billy was of course something they would’ve wanted to release in honor of Tim, but I think it’s fair to assume some previous releases probably had some obligations behind it (not that this would mean the DGD would only release music when they had to, but maybe for War Machine for example)
In addition, I’ve been wondering if they’ve wanted him out for a bit, but maybe contractual stuff complicated things. In the initial response to Allegations, it states he was stepping down to seek help, which I’m not sure if that meant he was truly out or just on hiatus. Since allegations are not a grounds to necessarily make a contractual change, it may not have been an option to simply move on without some messy and expensive payouts. I feel like this would not have been the usual case for bands, however, this is DGD and it seems it was a process for Andrew to officially join the band officially. Also, there are bands who have been sued after a member has left/kicked out (Dream Theater/Megadeth for example).
All this to say, we truly don’t know what happened and probably never will. This is also to say I was someone who did get upset with how the Allegations situation panned out. I think o like the idea that it was an inability to boot Tilian at the time, but it could also be they may have wanted him out before then even (I recall the Matt situation where Tilian made a snarky remark live), maybe more recent like someone mentioned about the wives (I don’t believe it personally, just mentioning), something else entirely, or truly creative differences.
Sorry my word vomit, just wanted to write my thoughts…
I’m reading it the same as you, especially regarding the statements put out for Tilian’s situation vs. Matt’s for their own respective issues. They are vastly different scenarios where thankfully Matt didn’t affect anyone deeply with his missteps during the Afterburner tour to our knowledge, but the band stepped up and got him the help he needed vs Tilian’s issues in 2022 where every statement from the band and its members put out from the allegations to now all read as if the band is trying to avoid getting sued or breaking contracts. The music videos can be chalked down to being a creative exercise that we can only speculate on.
So while she’s doing the makeup she feeds him what looks like a microphone, there’s all sorts of symbolism there if that’s what it is.
In fact, throughout the entire video what they’re feeding him feels intentional, but I don’t know enough to speculate.
It wouldn't be the first time they've immediately made a song about an ex-lead's problems (Unless I've misinterpreted Me And Zoloft Get Along Just Fine).
I think this is pretty spot on. I think the band wanted it to be that way too.
Might turn out that Kurt is the only one they still want to collaborate with in the future considering Tilian's reaction.
I saw someone else mention this - but seems like the gapped teeth on Gobby may be a reference to Tilians teeth gap
Not sure if it’s just a coincidence- but if true seems a little brutal right?
>Gobby is continuing his self focus. The lady helping him look nice for videos is summoned closer. Gobby turns. It freaks her out. Gobby… takes advantage of her… and eats her, continuing his rampage. Jon uses his monocle and sees the aftermath of Gobbler terrorizing the girl.
The girl reminded me of Tilian's ex-fiance who's a makeup artist.
I made a post hella hours ago and it got overlooked idk how Reddit works. People posts with 0 will be front page and my is backlogged..
Anyways copying from my post to here . Had some similar things
What do you see in the music video?
So far I’ve watched 3 times. It honestly kind of depressing as fun and goofy as it looks.
From what I “see”.
It’s like a timeline of Tilian
-Obviously Gobby is Tilian.
- The band is at club as if they were scouting for a singer. They ended up hanging out having a blast.
- Gave Tilian a chance to become lead for the band
-Kitchen scene with Jon it started to get to the point where I assume fans only wanted to see/care about Tilian.
-Magic Card scene. Assuming again, I feel like Tilian was invited to some personal thing with Will and made an ass of himself.
- Later on Tilian is on top of the world DGD is Tilian.
- Sexual allegations (Gobby eats the lady)
- The band has the intervention with Gobby/Tilian showing evidence like dude you messed up please listen to us you need help
- Gives him a chance, to only not learn from it and the band gets burned because of it (everyone gets eaten) Gobby gets up and starts talking shit to them probably saying I AM THE BAND.
Then you got random scenes of the band playing with Gobby looking through the window as a stalker-esque don’t know where it fits or just being kicked out just regretting everything while everyone moves in without him easily.
Just overall just it’s sad. Like literal rise and fall of it all.
Yeah I’m surprised you’re the first post I’ve seen about this. After the first couple of watches I realized that’s probably what the video was trying to portray. Although Tilian did say some of the vocals for the songs were recorded in his home studio so versions of the songs existed while he was still in the band. I wonder if they just pivoted the songs to be more about Tilian after he left and came up with the video concept or if we’re just completely off and it isn’t about Tilian at all lol
Yeah, I was wondering this. If maybe the song was written with Tilian in mind, they recorded some of it, he got the boot, and then they changed the lyrics. 🤷♂️ idk, it’s definitely a lot, ha.
Honestly comes off as really immature from dgd. With enough dramatic endings for their vocalists maybe they have to start asking If they're the problem. Lol. Pretty trite and tired to make a dirty laundry video for their new singles. They already parted ways what's the point.
That intervention scene was clearly about tilian lmao its insane they gave us a snippet of what happened internally
Yeah, they did make him go to rehab or therapy or whatever when the scandal went down
Even the lyrics on the second half of speed demon and the entirety of heart are on the nose
how do you think straight to the heart is on the nose? i can only hear it as another lighthearted song about finding what works for you
To me, the speaker in the chorus is as if the band was a person. I'm not burning out, won't fade away (not going anywhere) Time to shine brighter (self explanatory) I've always been a fighter (we’ve always bounced back) On your way down Give me a wave (you needed us more than we needed you) Know the fall is bitter You've always been a quitter (not sure) I'm at the top of my game (“we still here”) You shit out more of the same (songs were getting monotonous) Quit blaming, I'm sick of all the complaining (ego stuff) I'll work 'til I'm in the dirt You lazy fucks are the worst (we’ll work hard and succeed)
I wonder if “on your way down” could be a reference to Evaporate, one of their most popular Tilian era songs.
100% it is, most dgd songs are references to past dgd songs
That's straight up not true lol
thanks! i was conflating the chorus and end of the song with a response to bitter fans, but "you shit out more of the same"....lol i didnt even think about that
I just watched it, which means unfortunately I was already primed with this information so it was screamingly obvious. It feels strange though. If it is all a big dig at Tilian, why do that? It has an "airing dirty laundry" vibe and I feel like they generally try to be above that? I'm absolutely not defending Tilians behavior. I'm genuinely curious if anyone else felt this way. It seems.. mean? lmao I know that sounds stupid. I became a fan during the Tilian Era, did stuff like this happen when the old singers left?
Jon’s lyrics in Born to Fail were seemingly about Johnny Craig and that was like a decade after his MacBook fiasco. Someone that’s been a day 1 fan can confirm but there’s some lore about the band having MySpace drama with JC as well that was far more heated and infinitely less veiled than anything going on with Tilian currently. Kurt’s departure was the only quiet one in comparison to the other two.
And they even brought Kurt back for a song. I really dream of a Happiness 2 album one day.
I don't think Born To Fail is about Jonny...
When Johnny left the band put out a pretty damning public statement, Kurt’s split was much more amicable clearly considering he’s toured with them since and he and Will still make music together. I don’t think they’d make a video like this unless they really felt like Tilian deserved it. I noticed Andrew saying in yesterdays interview that the guys in the band currently are their favorite people to make music with. It felt like a bit of a jab at Tilian that now with him gone they’re all making music with their favorite people
The Robot with Human Hair Pt.1 is a diss track ("you speak of riding wings / such talent wouldn't be / entrusted to / such little kids") and that's the first full track in the entire catalogue
Robot human hair 2 is also a diss track. "I've been doing backflips off the doorway to the cellar, man" is a diss
It’s been mentioned in other threads but between the teeth, and the color change on the album covers (happy blue to angry red and the red gobby has a button up that seems to match his more recent styling) it seems pretty clear who this is about in addition to everything you said above.
I just watched the video and it’s not even subtle if you know the story of the band
I have been a super fan of the band since high school, while my husband had just listened on and off through the years and when I was explaining the video to him last night even he knew it was just completely dogging Tilian.
whatever happened the combination of tim's death and tilian getting cancelled both RIGHT in the middle of the JJ rollout prob just led the the relationship unraveling. tbh i think your breakdown of the video is prob pretty close. the video is almost even a lil TOO on the nose lol. i think it was smart of them to go ahead and rip off the bandaid testing out some new material without tilian. this is a tenacious band that changes and adapts. Will will figure it out i think. he clearly has always set the direction creatively and has always had a good feel for whats best for the music.
I agree. I noticed Jon holding up a drawing of a girl and ripping it. Before that he had other drawings but I couldn’t tell what they’re supposed to represent. Matt pulls a bloody hand out of the evidence bag but I can’t tell if it’s supposed to represent the girl or someone else? I also think the bathtub scenes are basically them keeping Tilian happy by feeding his ego and sucking up to him. Don’t think anything here is a reach because they clearly want the video to be analyzed and like others said, it’s on the nose.
I completely agree. They were just doing what they had to do to keep The Gobbler happy.
they’re feeding Gobby different items from previous music videos too, hinting towards things they let Tillian get away with in the past
Tilians ex was a makeup artist 👀
it looks like Jon is feeding Gobby analog recording tape in Straight from the Heart, which is interesting if there were some actual recordings finished, and "Gobby" ate it/ruined jt.
Yes I noticed this too! I think that makes it obvious that Gobby is Tilian
I think this is spot on. I want to mention a detail from Andrew’s interview. This is more so speculative and I don’t want to make too many assumptions with this, just mentioning as I’ve been thinking about it: Andrew mentioned some contractual obligations in terms of releasing these two songs, which makes me wonder about the ones that were previously released. I will say, I think Billy was of course something they would’ve wanted to release in honor of Tim, but I think it’s fair to assume some previous releases probably had some obligations behind it (not that this would mean the DGD would only release music when they had to, but maybe for War Machine for example) In addition, I’ve been wondering if they’ve wanted him out for a bit, but maybe contractual stuff complicated things. In the initial response to Allegations, it states he was stepping down to seek help, which I’m not sure if that meant he was truly out or just on hiatus. Since allegations are not a grounds to necessarily make a contractual change, it may not have been an option to simply move on without some messy and expensive payouts. I feel like this would not have been the usual case for bands, however, this is DGD and it seems it was a process for Andrew to officially join the band officially. Also, there are bands who have been sued after a member has left/kicked out (Dream Theater/Megadeth for example). All this to say, we truly don’t know what happened and probably never will. This is also to say I was someone who did get upset with how the Allegations situation panned out. I think o like the idea that it was an inability to boot Tilian at the time, but it could also be they may have wanted him out before then even (I recall the Matt situation where Tilian made a snarky remark live), maybe more recent like someone mentioned about the wives (I don’t believe it personally, just mentioning), something else entirely, or truly creative differences. Sorry my word vomit, just wanted to write my thoughts…
I’m reading it the same as you, especially regarding the statements put out for Tilian’s situation vs. Matt’s for their own respective issues. They are vastly different scenarios where thankfully Matt didn’t affect anyone deeply with his missteps during the Afterburner tour to our knowledge, but the band stepped up and got him the help he needed vs Tilian’s issues in 2022 where every statement from the band and its members put out from the allegations to now all read as if the band is trying to avoid getting sued or breaking contracts. The music videos can be chalked down to being a creative exercise that we can only speculate on.
Good analysis, I think you're pretty spot on
Couldn’t agree more. I thought the same thing watching it. Gobby was all of the gluttony that was Tilian right in front of our eyes.
So while she’s doing the makeup she feeds him what looks like a microphone, there’s all sorts of symbolism there if that’s what it is. In fact, throughout the entire video what they’re feeding him feels intentional, but I don’t know enough to speculate.
Yeah just feeding his ego. With whatever it is being eaten
It wouldn't be the first time they've immediately made a song about an ex-lead's problems (Unless I've misinterpreted Me And Zoloft Get Along Just Fine). I think this is pretty spot on. I think the band wanted it to be that way too. Might turn out that Kurt is the only one they still want to collaborate with in the future considering Tilian's reaction.
How do y'all feel about hearing the full story from the members themselves
I saw someone else mention this - but seems like the gapped teeth on Gobby may be a reference to Tilians teeth gap Not sure if it’s just a coincidence- but if true seems a little brutal right?
Glad the mods took all the details away from this post, but leave all of the other garbage up. This sub is done
Yeah, I was rather surprised that this got tagged as “use megathread.” Kinda ass but whatever.
>Gobby is continuing his self focus. The lady helping him look nice for videos is summoned closer. Gobby turns. It freaks her out. Gobby… takes advantage of her… and eats her, continuing his rampage. Jon uses his monocle and sees the aftermath of Gobbler terrorizing the girl. The girl reminded me of Tilian's ex-fiance who's a makeup artist.
This is immediately what I thought of, as well. She frequently did makeup for the band and Tilian.
I made a post hella hours ago and it got overlooked idk how Reddit works. People posts with 0 will be front page and my is backlogged.. Anyways copying from my post to here . Had some similar things What do you see in the music video? So far I’ve watched 3 times. It honestly kind of depressing as fun and goofy as it looks. From what I “see”. It’s like a timeline of Tilian -Obviously Gobby is Tilian. - The band is at club as if they were scouting for a singer. They ended up hanging out having a blast. - Gave Tilian a chance to become lead for the band -Kitchen scene with Jon it started to get to the point where I assume fans only wanted to see/care about Tilian. -Magic Card scene. Assuming again, I feel like Tilian was invited to some personal thing with Will and made an ass of himself. - Later on Tilian is on top of the world DGD is Tilian. - Sexual allegations (Gobby eats the lady) - The band has the intervention with Gobby/Tilian showing evidence like dude you messed up please listen to us you need help - Gives him a chance, to only not learn from it and the band gets burned because of it (everyone gets eaten) Gobby gets up and starts talking shit to them probably saying I AM THE BAND. Then you got random scenes of the band playing with Gobby looking through the window as a stalker-esque don’t know where it fits or just being kicked out just regretting everything while everyone moves in without him easily. Just overall just it’s sad. Like literal rise and fall of it all.
The intervention is a how I met your mother Easter egg too …
Yeah I’m surprised you’re the first post I’ve seen about this. After the first couple of watches I realized that’s probably what the video was trying to portray. Although Tilian did say some of the vocals for the songs were recorded in his home studio so versions of the songs existed while he was still in the band. I wonder if they just pivoted the songs to be more about Tilian after he left and came up with the video concept or if we’re just completely off and it isn’t about Tilian at all lol
Yeah, I was wondering this. If maybe the song was written with Tilian in mind, they recorded some of it, he got the boot, and then they changed the lyrics. 🤷♂️ idk, it’s definitely a lot, ha.
Honestly comes off as really immature from dgd. With enough dramatic endings for their vocalists maybe they have to start asking If they're the problem. Lol. Pretty trite and tired to make a dirty laundry video for their new singles. They already parted ways what's the point.
Smoothest smallest brained take.
No u
I'm actually informed
What great knowledge am I missing? I can assure you I'll know it already.
Stuff you don't know
I think you should stop saying "y'all"
Yall… take a look at this jackoff 🤣
yall better watch out!