Home

Chastity writes heart wrenching emo. Which, pretty much, is true of all the writers we study in the English classroom! But exactly how hopeless do Brandon Williams (a.k.a. Chastity) and each of our course writers feel?

ACTIVITY 1

Your job is to reorder the list of 10 Chastity lyrics immediately below. Number 1 will be the lyrics that convey the sense of feeling utterly hopeless and number 10 will be the lyric that actually feels less hopeless than the rest!

Make sure to jot down a quick explanation for each of your choices – with reference to writing techniques.

  • ‘Dying To Live’: “Everything’s different and it’s changing so fast”
  • ‘Pummeling’: “I’m up to my eyes in my usual misery”
  • ‘Children’: “Run run run run run run”
  • ‘hell’: “We walked in circles round the cemetery’
  • ‘Sun Poisoning’: “In a world bad and bleak, we could keep each other healthy”
  • ‘Vicious Circle’: “All I know is this vicious circle”
  • ‘Feeling Loved, Feeling Fucked’: “failing at most stuff, but not giving up”
  • ‘Summer All Over Again’: “Summer all over again, and I am still stuck in my own head”
  • ‘Jaw Locked’: “I got jaw locked”
  • ‘When You Go Home I Withdrawal’: “my head spins in circles”

There is no absolute right or wrong answer, but have a look below when you’re done to see if your list matches up with ours.

Here’s how we ordered Chastity’s songs – from the most hopeless to the least hopeless. We started with ‘Jaw Locked’ because the metaphor suggests that Chastity feels voiceless – that he’s not heard. That’s a serious problem. Also, on a more practical level, maybe he can’t eat either. Fatal. The “circle” lyrics all come next – from the idea of spinning in this unbreakable loop to that feeling being “all” he knows. Nightmare. Then there’s the “usual” misery. Sounds bad, but at least he has – it appears – managed to survive the bad times thus far. And his eyes are still usable at least. If he can’t speak, at least he can see! Then there’s the repetition of run. There’s a sense of panic inherent in this line, but at least also the potential for escape. The next two lyrics suggest “giving up” isn’t inevitable. Nor indeed is dying. And, the last lyric feels much less hopeless because, frankly, things may be changing fast – but, given, the other lyrics we’ve examined, that’s probably a good thing!!!

  1. ‘Jaw Locked’: “I got jaw locked”
  2. ‘Vicious Circle’: “All I know is this vicious circle”
  3. ‘Summer All Over Again’: “Summer all over again, and I am still stuck in my own head”
  4. ‘hell’: “We walked in circles round the cemetery’
  5. ‘When You Go Home I Withdrawal’: “my head spins in circles”
  6. ‘Pummeling’: “I’m up to my eyes in my usual misery”
  7. ‘Children’: “Run run run run run run”
  8. ‘Feeling Loved, Feeling Fucked’: “failing at most stuff, but not giving up”
  9. ‘Sun Poisoning’: “In a world bad and bleak, we could keep each other healthy”
  10. ‘Dying To Live’: “Everything’s different and it’s changing so fast”

Next, let Taking Back Sunday help you with your English Literature studies!