in a 2012 interview, The Used bassist Jeph Howard said that "A Box Full of Sharp Objects" is probably his favorite song by the band.
A few years ago, while preparing to send the album art for b-side collection Shallow Believer to his record label, Bert McCracken scrawled the word “Artwork” across its cover in silver ink. The sentiment, which, to Bert and his bandmates in The Used, resonated with both extreme simplicity and indescribable complexity, said everything without really having to say anything. Now, the Utah band has titled their fourth full-length album with that very word: Artwork.
The group started writing the album after finishing the Taste of Chaos International tour in 2007, slowly collecting and jamming out ideas with no concrete intention beyond making the songs as dirty as possible. The Used, whose last album, 2007’s Lies For the Liars, debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard Top 200, spent the first half of 2008 in LA exploring and refining these ideas, eventually piecing tangential riffs and melodies into a scattering of songs that contained a surprisingly cohesive sensibility. The band members dubbed the music they were writing “gross pop,” their own new genre of hook-laden numbers that pushed the boundaries of the grotesque. Tracking for the album began in June of 2008 with producer Matt Squire and eventually concluded in February of 2009, primarily at LA studios The Lair and NRG. Between a few sporadic tours, the band spent about three months total recording with Squire where they allowed their creativity to dictate when they worked on something.
“I wouldn’t say it was hard to make any of the record but it definitely was time consuming,” Bert says. “We worked on our time table. The band allowed me to create when I was able to create, which was a good thing. I didn’t feel pressure to force things. There was no specific time I had to do anything. If we were in the studio and I’d been working on lyrics for five hours and nothing came out, we would just try again tomorrow.”
In the studio Squire approached the recording process with a laid-back attitude the band both appreciated and needed. The decision to work with a new producer after establishing a longtime relationship with producer John Feldman, who was at the helm of the band’s past three albums (Lies For the Liars, as well as 2004’s In Love and Death and 2002’s The Used, both of which were certified gold), was derived from a simple desire for change. The Used wanted to see what would happen if they entered the studio with someone different, a process guitarist Quinn Allman compares to “breaking up with your girlfriend not because you don’t love her but because you need to try something new.”
“It wasn’t that we absolutely didn’t want to work with Feldman or that we absolutely wanted to work with Squire,” Bert explains. “It was more that the band needed a change. We wanted to try something different and have it sound a lot different. It took a few weeks for us to get a vibe for each, but once we got used to it, it was really easy. Squire brought in this willingness to try anything and an open mind and a good attitude. I feel like he was really in touch with what the band wanted to do and he was really supportive of our ideas.”
The result is a raw collection of twelve songs that not so delicately teeter the line between being aggressively discordant and charmingly hooky. The first single “Blood On My Hands,” which Quinn describes as the song that “sums up everything about The Used,” is confined chaos, brutally thrashing one moment and proffering a pop-driven, sing-along chorus the next. “Empty With You,” a track Bert says is “about feeling empty and lonely but as long as you have someone who can feel lonely with you then everything’s okay,” surges with passion and gripping honesty, while “Cut Yourself” balances the album’s predilection for propulsive rage with its quieter, piano-driven exploration of what it means to have someone to lean on.
“This record is more sincere,” Quinn says. “It’s got a sound more reminiscent of the first record. Lyrically, it completely engulfs you and makes you feel safe but it’s all about feeling alone and empty and knowing there’s always a light. If you’re frustrated that much it means you care that much. The lyrics carry you through the record and you’re right with Bert and where he’s at. The music isn’t showing off. It’s just being what it is. I think the fans will appreciate all that.”
“This record is about coming together,” Bert adds. “Whether it’s through positivity or negativity, it’s about coming together through anything.”
Artwork encapsulates the past eight years of a band that’s played tours and festivals like Warped Tour, Ozzfest, Projek Revolution, Give It a Name, Reading and Leeds and SxSW, and sold over two million albums in the States alone, while simultaneously urging them forward. It’s a collaborative effort that drew The Used closer together during its creation. It’s about love and mortality and the basic human emotions we all experience every day. It’s biting and gritty, and it’s melodic and catchy. It’s a new chapter for a band that’s constantly sought to redefine the bounds of pop music—and have always successfully done so. It’s a reminder, as Bert says, “we’re all artists creating our own art just by living it.”
“I Come Alive” is the first single from The Used's fifth album, Vulnerable. It is the first release on the band's own label, Anger Music Group, an imprint of Hopeless Records. The song was released on January 17, 2012. (I Come Alive Songfacts).
Hospital
The Used Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You pull the trigger on your own
You're hiding in your safe place
Hiding with your eyes shut tightly
On the way to the hospital
Not will you ever rest your head
You end up feeling mostly dead
Hiding with your eyes shut tightly
On the way to the hospital
Before I cross my heart and hope to die at all
I take off my mask
And leave the lies to the liars
It never used to hurt before
It isn't funny anymore
You're feeling so alone now
Funny how you wish some way that you could die at the hospital
You're quiet on the car ride home
You're waiting for your head to explode
You're hiding in your safe place
Hiding with your eyes shut tightly
All the way to the hospital
Before I cross my heart and hope to die at all
I take off my mask
And leave the lies to the liars
(Before I close my)
Before I close my eyes
I hope to give it up
(Take off my)
I take off my mask
And leave the lies to the liars
And leave the lies to the liars
He thinks he fooled them all
(Hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray)
He thinks he fooled them all
(Hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray)
(Hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray)
Before I cross my heart and hope to die at all
I take off my mask
And leave the lies to the liars
(Before I close my)
Before I close my eyes
I'm gonna give it up
(Take off my mask)
I take off my mask
And leave the lies to the liars
Leave the lies to the liars
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Leave the lies to the liars
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Leave the lies to the liars
Hey, hey, hey
The Used's song "Hospital" is a haunting portrayal of the struggles of mental health battles. The song talks about the feeling of being alone and the difficulty of finding a way out of the pain. The opening lines, "This feeling never leaves you alone, you pull the trigger on your own," depict a person who is struggling with suicidal thoughts, feeling trapped and isolated.
The chorus of the song, "Before I cross my heart and hope to die at all, I take off my mask and leave the lies to the liars," could be interpreted as the singer coming to peace with their own demons, before they succumb to their innermost darkness. It could be seen as a reminder to take off the masks that we put on and show our true selves, instead of living the life others expect of us.
Line by Line Meaning
This feeling never leaves you alone
The pain and sadness that you feel never goes away, it stays with you constantly
You pull the trigger on your own
You have suicidal thoughts and consider ending your life
You're hiding in your safe place
You try to find comfort and safety by isolating yourself from the outside world
Hiding with your eyes shut tightly
You try to escape from reality by closing your eyes and shutting out the world
On the way to the hospital
You feel like you need medical help and are on the way to the hospital for treatment
Not will you ever rest your head
You can't find peace or comfort in anything, and can't even sleep well
You end up feeling mostly dead
You feel emotionally, mentally, and physically drained, as if you are not really alive
Pretending you're the last one
You try to convince yourself that you're the only one going through this pain and no one can truly understand
Before I cross my heart and hope to die at all
Before making any promises or commitments, I need to be honest with myself and others
I take off my mask
I remove the facade I put on to hide my true feelings and thoughts
And leave the lies to the liars
I stop pretending and being dishonest to myself and others, and let the truth be known
It never used to hurt before
The pain and sadness that you feel is something new and overwhelming that you haven't experienced before
It isn't funny anymore
You used to try to joke about your pain, but now it's not something to be laughed at
You're feeling so alone now
You feel completely isolated and disconnected from the world and other people
Funny how you wish some way that you could die at the hospital
You are so desperate for relief that you even wish for death or something that drastic, and the hospital seems like the only solution
You're quiet on the car ride home
You are silent and lost in thought during the ride home, still struggling with your emotions
You're waiting for your head to explode
You feel like you are reaching your breaking point, and waiting for everything to come crashing down around you
He thinks he fooled them all (Hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray)
You try to pretend that everything is okay and that no one can see through your facade, but deep down you know it's not true
Before I close my eyes
Before falling asleep or giving up completely
I'm gonna give it up
I'm going to stop fighting and trying to hold on to something that's causing me so much pain
Leave the lies to the liars
Stop deceiving yourself and others, and let the truth be known
Lyrics © THE BEST MUSIC COMPANY, Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: QUINN ALLMAN, JEPH HOWARD, ROBERT MCCRACKEN
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind