# Demolition Lovers

"Demolition Lovers" is a song by the American rock band My Chemical Romance from their debut studio album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (2002). The song, which serves as the album's closing track, is a six-minute long punk rock ballad that goes through several different movements throughout its runtime. Lyrically, the song tells the story of two lovers that go on a crime spree and ultimately meet their demise in a desert. The song's story has been tied to the premise of an earlier track on the album, "Drowning Lessons", and has also been connected to the premise of the band's next album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (2004).
The song was well received by critics. Some have considered it one of the best songs from I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, and even one of the better songs in the band's discography as a whole. It is also considered representative of and a precursor to the more grand-scale, narrative-driven songs that the band would create in the future, and has been noted as a fan favorite.

## Background and release

My Chemical Romance was formed after the band's frontman, Gerard Way, witnessed the collapse of the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks. Shortly afterwards, he was joined by the drummer Matt Pelissier, the guitarist Ray Toro, the bassist Mikey Way, and later on, the guitarist Frank Iero. In May 2002, the band went to Nada Record Studio in New Windsor, New York to begin recording their first studio album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. The album, which was created within the span of a week, was produced by Geoff Rickly. I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love was released on July 23, 2002 through Eyeball Records; "Demolition Lovers" is the eleventh and final song on the standard track list. The band played the song live during their earlier shows, though stopped performing for a while in 2004. On September 20, 2022, the band played the song live for the first time since 2004, at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

## Composition and lyrics

"Demolition Lovers" is a punk rock ballad. At about six minutes long, it is one of the band's longest songs. The song starts off slow, and mid-way through its buildup at around the 2:50 mark stops abruptly. When the song starts back up again, it is a completely different, minimalist style. Eventually, the song starts back up again after the slow-down. Throughout the tracks's runtime, it goes through several different movements. Eli Enis of Paste described these movements as: "a slow moody intro, frenetic verses, a breathless bridge, a metallic guitar solo and a snarling gang-chorus". After these movements, the song ends abruptly.
Lyrically, the song follows the titular Demolition Lovers couple as they go on a crime spree, ultimately dying in a "hail of bullets" in a desert. The song has been generally considered to have been made as an analogy on Gerard's willingness to die for his loved ones based on the text present in the album's inlay ("I'm sorry I wrote all those songs about killing you, I hope the last track makes up for it"). Some have considered the song to be an extension of the story of "Drowning Lessons", an earlier song on the album. Furthermore, the story of "Demolition Lovers" has been tied to the concept of the band's next album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (2004), which loosely follows the story of two separated lovers that can only separate if one harvests the souls of one thousand people. The scale and style of "Demolition Lovers" has been considered representative of the band's future grand scale recordings.

## Critical reception

In their reviews for I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, Jesse Lord of IGN and a staff writer of Sputnikmusic highlighted "Demolition Lovers" as one of the best tracks from the album. The former stated that, while the song may have been confusing due to its two separate parts, everything in the song combined would allow it to "make sense". The latter wrote that "Demolition Lovers" made "good use" of its six-minute run time, as an "emotional rollercoaster" that was well captured by its "effective changes of pace and structure". Retrospective opinions on "Demolition Lovers" have generally considered it one of My Chemical Romance's better songs, and the song has also been noted as a fan-favorite. Marriane Eloise of Louder ranked it as the band's 15th best song, Chloe Spinks of Gigwise ranked it 24th, and Cassie Whitt of Loudwire ranked it 27th. Meanwhile, a readers poll for Alternative Press ranked it as the band's 4th best song.
Sprinks described the song as "peak" My Chemical Romance and wrote that the song was like it was "burning and turning to ash", and a "derailed train, roaming without control". Mala Mortensa of Alternative Press wrote that "Demolition Lovers" was an "essential" song from My Chemical Romance's discography, describing it as a "six-minute fireworks display of all the successful dynamics present in its preceding tracks". Another writer of Alternative Press, Alessandra Schade, described the song as having "all the ingredients for a great MCR track: great storyline, theatrics, and some really heavy guitar riffs". Enis considered it one of the band's most underrated tracks, writing that the song was a "disorienting first stab" at the type of more elaborate songs the band would create later on, but still had potential.

## Credits and personnel

Credits adapted from Apple Music.