Guitarist Eddie Reyes, who had played in The Movielife, Mind Over Matter and Inside, and guitarist Jesse Lacey of the Rookie Lot founded Taking Back Sunday in Amityville, New York in November 1999. Lacey moved to bass with the addition of guitarist John Nolan. The group also included vocalist Antonio Longo of One True Thing and drummer Steven DeJoseph. After Lacey left the band, Nolan contacted Adam Lazzara to fill in on bass, which resulted in Lazzara moving from North Carolina to New York. Lazzara had met the band when they played a show near his hometown in North Carolina and had offered to try out.
DeJoseph left, leaving the band without a drummer. Mark O'Connell, a friend of Reyes, heard about the vacancy and joined the group. After recording Taking Back Sunday's self-titled EP, Longo left the band and eventually played with The Prizefighter and the Mirror. In December 2000, Lazzara switched from bass to lead vocals. He never thought he would become the group's singer: "I remember getting into Reyes' Windstar with that EP and just driving around singing those songs, just to make myself actually do it." O'Connell suggested that the group needed a bassist, and brought in Shaun Cooper of Breaking Pangaea. In February 2001, Taking Back Sunday released a five-track demo before touring for a year.
Prior to the release of their debut album Tell All Your Friends, a music video for "Great Romances of the 20th Century" was released on March 4, 2002. It was directed by Christian Winters, a friend of the band. Winters made the video before the group signed with Victory, and the record company enjoyed it. The song was distributed to radio stations on March 12, and the full album was released on March 25.
Around this time, Nolan (citing exhaustion from touring) left the band, and Cooper followed shortly afterwards. According to Lazzara, Nolan and Cooper were "having trouble because everything was happening so fast. Going from being home to being gone all the time and having your whole life consumed and almost defined by the band that you’re in is a lot to handle". The band briefly considered breaking up. Nolan and Cooper formed Straylight Run with Nolan's sister, Michelle, and Breaking Pangaea drummer Will Noon. Taking Back Sunday added Fred Mascherino on guitar and vocals as well as Matt Rubano on bass.
The group's second album, Where You Want To Be, was released on July 27, 2004, on Victory Records. Although sounding slightly different from Tell All Your Friends by using some different musical instruments, the new album managed to do well commercially; propelled by the single "A Decade Under the Influence", Where You Want To Be went on to debut at the No. 3 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart, with around 220,000 copies sold. It became one of the best-selling independent rock albums within a year, selling 634,000 copies by June 2005. Rolling Stone Magazine listed Where You Want To Be as one of the top fifty records of 2004. Instead of spending marketing money towards trying to get radio play, Victory Records used the internet and fans to spread the word about the upcoming album. They targeted consumers familiar with Victory Records as well as fans of emo music. They distributed a label sampler that included songs from Where You Want To Be to get fans excited about the release. They used the Taking Back Sunday street team, consisting of about 25,000 individuals, to promote the album. In return fans could get pre-sale tickets, win shoes and other various prizes.
Taking Back Sunday toured frequently for eight months in support of Where You Want to Be. The band received even more mainstream exposure by appearing on late night talk shows Jimmy Kimmel Live!; as well as contributing Where You Want to Be's second single, "This Photograph Is Proof (I Know You Know)", to the soundtrack for Spider-Man 2. They also contributed the song "Your Own Disaster" to the Elektra soundtrack.
On June 10, 2005, it was announced that the band had signed with major label Warner Bros. Records and would begin recording their third album later in 2005. That month, the group contributed "Error: Operator" to the video-game adaption of Fantastic Four, and it was later added to the film's soundtrack as well.
On September 21, 2005, it was announced that Taking Back Sunday had begun recording their third album with Eric Valentine. The group chose Valentine because he had produced Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for the Deaf (2002) and Third Eye Blind's self-titled album (1997). On April 25, 2006, Taking Back Sunday released their third album, entitled Louder Now, on Warner Bros. Records. The members' comments on the album reflected the dramatic change the band had undergone in the two years since their last release. Matt Rubano noted that the move to a major label was not something the band took lightly, but it was a move that made sense given the band's tumultuous past. Lazzara stated that fans seemed to feel their live shows had more energy than their recordings, and that Louder Now brought more of that across.
Taking Back Sunday received mainstream exposure by appearing on the late night talk shows The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien, as well as the teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation in an episode entitled "What's It Feel Like To Be A Ghost?".
In December 2006, the band released its first documentary, Louder Now: PartOne, featuring behind-the-scenes tour footage and four live concerts. Following months of touring to support Louder Now, Taking Back Sunday appeared in the American leg of Live Earth on July 7, 2007. During the summer of 2007, Taking Back Sunday was also a part of Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution tour, along with My Chemical Romance, HIM, and several other bands.
On October 30, 2006, the band's former record label, Victory Records, released Notes from the Past, which featured four songs from Tell All Your Friends, six songs from Where You Want To Be, and two B-sides: The Ballad of Sal Villanueva and Your Own Disaster ('04 mix). The band then released Louder Now: Part Two on November 20, 2007, a DVD of unreleased live concert footage from their show at Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, California, which included special features such as the video for "Twenty-Twenty Surgery", made to be released in Europe. The DVD was packaged with a companion CD featuring eight live tracks, two B-sides that were previously unreleased in America, and a special "Twelve Days of Christmas" track.
In October 2007 the band announced that Taking Back Sunday and guitarist Fred Mascherino would be parting ways, which came after he decided to focus on his then upcoming solo album with The Color Fred. He was later replaced by Matthew Fazzi, who would provide guitar and backing vocals. Mascherino went on to reveal in later interviews: "There were just problems between the five of us about writing, who was going to do it and how we were going to do it, we weren't being very productive because we were fighting too much about that stuff. The band was more about cooking food than making music." This statement inspired the band to write the track "Capital M-E", which features lyrical references to Mascherino's departure and the comments he made afterward. In 2010, Fred Mascherino posted a picture of himself and Adam Lazzara with the caption, "Today was a good day" indicating that he and Lazzara have since made up and are on good terms again.
On November 6, 2008, Taking Back Sunday revealed in Rolling Stone that their fourth studio album was to be titled New Again and would feature the tracks "Winter Passing", "Lonely Lonely", "Catholic Knees", and "Carpathia". They stated that "Winter Passing" was "a slow dance like the last song at your 8th grade dance that moves more like an R&B tune than a rock and roll song", and that "Carpathia" will include the first bass solos in any Taking Back Sunday song. They also commented that "Catholic Knees" is "one of the heavier songs we've ever written", and that "Lonely Lonely" is "relentless – two and a half minutes of punching you in the face".41 In the build-up to the release of New Again, the band released a number of tracks—the first of which was "Carpathia"—on December 21, 2008 as free digital downloads to those who purchased the band's Christmas holiday set, with a physical limited vinyl release of the track as well as a live version of "Catholic Knees" released on April 18, 2009, secondly title track "New Again" as a free single download from the band's website on April 16, 2009, followed by the first full single "Sink into Me", released on April 20, 2009, premiering on BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe show, and being made available digitally short after. On May 16, 2009, "Everything Must Go" was released to stream on the band's MySpace. Every Monday, the band released a new song on their MySpace from New Again labeling it "New Music Monday".
On August 18, 2009, the band released a digital live album entitled Live from Bamboozle '09. The album consists of 13 live tracks recorded at The Bamboozle, where they played in May of the same year. On February 12, 2010, the band released a previously unreleased b-side from New Again, entitled "Winter Passing", on their official website.
On March 29, 2010, Matt Rubano and Matthew Fazzi announced that they were no longer members of Taking Back Sunday. The band's official website also posted a picture of the original line-up with the members' eyes crossed out, indicating a possible reunion of the Tell All Your Friends era lineup. On March 31, 2010, tbsnewagain tweeted a link to a video announcing the new lineup of the band. The video ended with a quick stream of words which ended with, "Sometimes it takes some time to remember where you were headed in the first place and the people you intended to go there with. There's no hard feelings, just the future."
On April 12, the band made an official announcement confirming that John Nolan and Shaun Cooper had re-joined the band. It was announced that they would soon begin the recording process of their fifth studio album with Louder Now producer Eric Valentine. On the same day, Adam Lazzara did an interview with Alternative Press, in which he discussed how the original line-up got back together and how both Matt Rubano and Matt Fazzi were not fired, but rather "let go". The band finished writing in El Paso with around 15 songs completed, according to Mark O'Connell. Pre-production on the new album began on August 17, 2010, the same day their live acoustic album Live from Orensanz was released. On December 20, 2010, the band put out a new Christmas song entitled "Merry Christmas I Missed You So Much". On April 6, 2011, the band played at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey, to record footage for an upcoming video for the song "El Paso". Adam Lazzara requested that the audience put away their phones and cameras during the recording. They played the song three times during the set. During this performance, the band also debuted a new song entitled "Faith (When I Let You Down)", live for the first time. "Faith (When I Let You Down)" was released as the official first single from the album on May 3, 2011, with an acoustic version of "Great Romances of the 20th Century" as the b-side. On June 7, 2011, the second official single "This Is All Now" was released on iTunes, with the b-side being an acoustic version of "Ghost Man on Third". On June 26, 2011 in an interview with Robert Herrera of Punkvideosrock.com, Mark and Shaun stated that the reason they returned to their original lineup was because they no longer felt it was Taking Back Sunday without the original members. Mark stated they were miserable as a band, weren't having fun, and didn't like the direction the band was going so they decided to reach out to the original members and after meeting with the band in Texas found that "the chemistry was still there."
On July 8, 2011, Taking Back Sunday released an official music video for "Faith (When I Let You Down)". On November 3, 2011, Taking Back Sunday released an official music video for "You Got Me". This is the second single from their self-titled album. The video was created with the help of Steve Pedulla and Ward McDonald and it features guitarist Eddie Reyes dancing solo on a theater stage.
On June 7, 2013, Taking Back Sunday took to Twitter to confirm that the recording of their 6th studio album had begun. They announced on Facebook that the album will be released in early 2014.
On January 11, 2014, Taking Back Sunday revealed that a new album, Happiness Is, was available for pre-order on iTunes, as was a new track: "Flicker, Fade". Happiness Is was released on March 18, 2014 through Hopeless Records.
On June 27, 2016, the band's next album, Tidal Wave, was announced for release on September 16. Material for the album was written in between tours for Happiness Is.
On April 13, 2018, it was announced that founding guitarist Eddie Reyes has parted ways with the band. This was later confirmed by Reyes stating the reason for his departure was due to his battle with alcoholism and hope to join the band again in the future. In the meantime, he has also stated to have started a new band.
On October 12, 2018, the band began announcing a compilation album to celebrate their 20th anniversary, along with a world wide tour. The album is to be titled Twenty, and was released on January 11, 2019. Twenty consists of hits from Taking Back Sunday's previous albums. Along with two new songs.
On October 15, 2021, the band released a cover of Weezer’s My Name Is Jonas. The band would play this during soundcheck and eventually their live shows during their extensive 2019 tour, and the cover was recorded during one of their days off.
As of March 2022, Taking Back Sunday are currently in the early stages of working on their eighth studio album.
Ghost Man on Third
Taking Back Sunday Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Thinking if it's three
Then I'm as smooth as the skin
Rolls across the small of your back
It's too bad it's not my style
If you need me
I'm out and on the parkway,
Patient and waiting for headlights,
Inconsistencies of my moods
It's times like these where silence means everything
And no one is to know about this
It's times like these, where silence means everything
And no one is to know about this
It's a campaign of distraction
And revisionist history, oh
It's a shame I don't think that they'll notice
(it's a shame, I don't think that they'll notice)
It's a shame I doubt they even care
(it's a shame I doubt they even care)
No one is to know about this
It's a shame I don't think that they'll notice
(it's a shame, I don't think that they'll notice)
It's a shame I doubt they even care
(it's a shame I doubt they even care)
Don't let me down
But whatever I have gettin myself into
Maybe has been slicing inches from my waist
It's my fist vs. the bottle
(and thank god you weren't there...)
And that's how bad could this hurt
Or against I won't feel a thing
(and thank god you weren't there...)
I tell you all about it
It's just not working out
(...to watch me hit the bottle)
Not working out
It's a campaign of distraction
And revisionist history, oh
It's a shame I don't think that they'll notice
(it's a shame, I don't think that they'll notice)
It's a shame I doubt they even care
(it's a shame I doubt they even care)
No one is to know about this
It's a shame I don't think that they'll notice
(it's a shame, I don't think that they'll notice)
It's a shame I doubt they even care
(it's a shame I doubt they even care)
Don't let me down
This is why we were taught so much better than this (2X)
This is what living like this does (9X)
The song "Ghost Man On Third" by Taking Back Sunday begins with the lyrics "Jynx me something crazy/Thinking if it's three/Then I'm as smooth as the skin/Rolls across the small of your back/It's too bad it's not my style/ If you need me/I'm out and on the parkway/Patient and waiting for headlights/Dressed in a fashion that's fitting to the/Inconsistencies of my moods." In these lines, the singer seems to be expressing a desire to be someone else, perhaps someone who is smoother and more in control. The reference to the small of someone's back suggests a sexual desire, but the singer laments that it's not their style.
The chorus of the song, "It's times like these where silence means everything/And no one is to know about this/It's times like these, where silence means everything/And no one is to know about this," suggests that the singer is grappling with a secret or private struggle. The lines "It's a campaign of distraction/And revisionist history, oh" suggest that the struggle is related to a kind of rewriting of the past, or perhaps an attempt to forget or ignore something that has happened.
The rest of the song is a series of fragmented, cryptic lyrics that seem to describe a scene of the singer struggling with alcohol. The final line, "This is what living like this does," suggests that it is a cautionary tale about the perils of addiction.
Line by Line Meaning
Jynx me something crazy
Tell me something wild or unexpected
Thinking if it's three
Contemplating about the significance of the number three
Then I'm as smooth as the skin
If it's three, then the person is feeling confident and effortless
Rolls across the small of your back
Describing how smooth and sensual something can be
It's too bad it's not my style
Acknowledging that it's not something that you normally do or prefer
If you need me
Offering help and support if required
I'm out and on the parkway,
Leaving and heading out to the highway
Patient and waiting for headlights,
Waiting for someone's arrival, anticipating their headlights
Dressed in a fashion that's fitting to the
Dressing up according to the mood and occasion of the night
Inconsistencies of my moods
Acknowledging that one's mood can be erratic and unpredictable at times
It's times like these where silence means everything
Silence speaks volumes during moments like these
And no one is to know about this
Desiring complete discretion and confidentiality
It's a campaign of distraction
Referring to a situation where a distracting campaign is being run
And revisionist history, oh
Referring to the rephrasing of history for political ends
It's a shame I don't think that they'll notice
Feeling dejected and possibly ignored by those who matter
(it's a shame, I don't think that they'll notice)
A sense of regret and disappointment that no one will notice
It's a shame I doubt they even care
Feeling disillusioned and uncertain as to whether anybody even cares
(it's a shame I doubt they even care)
Questioning the sincerity of others and their level of interest
Don't let me down
Hoping that someone won't disappoint or fail to meet expectations
But whatever I have getting myself into
Referring to a problematic situation that you have landed into
Maybe has been slicing inches from my waist
Implying that the situation is adding a lot of stress and leading to weight loss
It's my fist vs. the bottle
A struggle between a person's willpower and their desire to drink
(and thank god you weren't there...)
Feeling relieved that no one was there to witness that moment
And that's how bad could this hurt
Reflecting on how much worse the situation could have been
Or against I won't feel a thing
Drawing on the past experiences and a way to prepare for similar future circumstances
(and thank god you weren't there...)
Grateful that someone wasn't there to see things play out
I tell you all about it
Sharing details about the situation/moment
It's just not working out
Expressing how something isn't progressing as planned and isn't sustainable
(...to watch me hit the bottle)
Criticizing oneself for turning to drink at moments like these
This is why we were taught so much better than this
Reflecting on how one was taught to be better and to make better decisions
(2X)
Reiterating the importance of the point
This is what living like this does
The resulting consequences and aftermath of living like this
(9X)
Emphasizing and repeating the resulting consequences of poor choices/reactions to situations
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Written by: Adam Lazzara, Edward Reyes, John Nolan, Mark O'Connell, Shaun Cooper
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@NESADDICT
Jynx me something crazy
Thinking if it's three
Then I'm as smooth as the skin
Rolls across the small of your back
It's too bad it's not my style
If you need me
I'm out and on the parkway
Patient and waiting for headlights
Dressed in a fashion that's fitting to the
Inconsistencies of my moods
It's times like these when silence means everything
No one is to know about this
It's times like these when silence means everything
No one is to know about
It's a campaign of distraction
And revisionist history, oh
It's a shame I doubt they'd notice
It's a shame I doubt they even care
No one is to know about this
It's a shame I doubt they'd notice
It's a shame, I doubt they even care
Don't let me down
But whatever I have been getting myself into
Lately has been slicing inches from my waist
It's my fist vs. the bottle
And that's how bad could this hurt
Against I won't feel a thing, I tell you all about
It's just not workin' out, not workin' out
It's a campaign of distraction
And revisionist history
It's a shame, I doubt they'd notice
It's a shame, I doubt they even care
No one is to know about this
It's a shame, I doubt they'd notice
It's a shame, I doubt they even care
No one is to know about this
Don't let me down
This is why
We were taught so much better than this
We were taught so much better than this
This is what living like this does
This is what living like this does
This is what living like this does
This is what living like this does
This is what living like this does
This is what living like this does
This is what living like this does
This is what living like this does
This is what living like this does
@Catlady4185
Arizona vibes
@tylerkeller8869
Takes me straight back to 2004. Oh to be a kid having a summer romance again
@tabethakae4758
This was a cry song of mine back when I was a teenager.
@Arnoldceja1
Haha me too
@lightyinthehood
+1
@ragepilled7281
Still is mine, glad you thots didn't ruin this song too
@tinabobina4069
Hood official classic
@Goldenaxeandsonicallday
always been my fav TBS song
@justenough...almost
41 and the neighbors hate it when I get in the tbs mood
@NESADDICT
😂 love it! I’m 42 so you aren’t alone here in your 40’s