Welcome to the Black Parade

"Welcome to the Black Parade" (also going by the shortened title The Black Parade and originally titled "The Five of Us are Dying") is the first single and fifth track from My Chemical Romance's third studio album, The Black Parade. It was released on September 11, 2006 on iTunes and October 9, 2006 on CD. It is the band's eighth single. The studio version was available on MySpace on September 2, 2006.

Music video

The video for the single was directed by Samuel Bayer, known for his work with Nirvana and Green Day.^[2] The music video was released on September 26, 2006 in the UK and Canada, and was released on September 27, 2006 in the U.S. It was heavily played on MTV. It features The Patient (the centre character of the album, played by Lukas Haas) dressed in a hospital gown, and being taken by death in the form of a Black Parade. On the main float stands My Chemical Romance playing "Welcome to the Black Parade". Behind the float are dozens of masked figures.

All the costumes were designed by Academy Award Winning Costume Designer, Colleen Atwood (famous also for her frequent collaborations with Director Tim Burton).

The cover art for the single is a scene from the video, with the man in the bottom center being the Patient. He is flanked by two women named "Fear" and "Regret" in Gerard Way's Revenge-era makeup. The setting of the music video goes from a hospital to a surreal cityscape, with ash-covered wreckage, black snow and destroyed buildings. The video features 4 of the main characters. "The Patient", "Fear", "Regret", and "Mother War". "Fear" and "Regret" are the two women that stand beside "The Patient" on the cover for the single. "Mother War" is the woman in the Victorian-era gown and gas mask. Liza Minnelli plays the character of "Mother War" in the song "Mama". The video tells a basic version of the story behind The Black Parade quite closely. Gerard Way has said that it is "the definitive video for the record" which "summed up the album".

Promotion

The song became the group's first number one in the UK on October 15, 2006, staying there for two weeks, and later rose to number one on the Modern Rock charts on October 26, 2006, where it would stay for seven weeks. It is the band's most enduring success and their highest-charting single to date on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #9. The song ranked at #17 on Rolling Stone's "The 100 Best Songs of 2006".^[3] The song was made downloadable for Rock Band and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. ITV used the song in a video montage in its final Formula One broadcast at the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, after losing the rights to broadcast F1 in 2009 and beyond to the BBC. The video featured several prominent F1 drivers (such as Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello, David Coulthard and Sebastian Vettel) as well as ITV presenters (and retired commentator Murray Walker) lipsynching to the song.

The working title of the song was named after an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Charts

The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at #71 for the chart week of September 30, 2006, becoming their highest debut for a single. It peaked at #9 on the Hot 100 in its 17th and 18th week on the chart, becoming the band's first top ten Hot 100 hit, and their highest peaking single thus far (their previous highest position on this chart was #33 with "Helena"). In addition it topped Modern Rock Tracks for seven weeks in a row, and is the band's only #1 on this chart to date. The single knocked Razorlight's "America" off the number 1 single spot on Sunday, October 15, 2006 in the UK after extensive airplay, becoming the band's first #1 there. The single was #26 of the top 40 singles of 2006 in the UK, selling 169,000 units. The song has been certified platinum by the RIAA by selling over 1,000,000 copies.