Considering most people seem completely blown away and overwhelmed by the chaotic insanity of Until It Breaks, it is definitely one of the most compelling tracks on Living Things. I've also noticed small bursts of discussion about the theme behind the song. Most people seem to be saying it's about nothing; just 4 random demoes thrown into a test tube with a chemical reaction that resulted in an incredibly good (or bad) song. After following along to the lyrics of the song, something occurred to me that felt like a flowing, connected story. In my opinion, Until It Breaks follows the life of a human being, and the trials and obstacles that need to be overcome. The first verse explains childhood. Mike raps about being "born with the hunger of a lion / the strength of a sun". He briefly raps of the qualities learnt from his parents, and how they will carry on with him. The rest of the verse is about the hyper-active lifestyle of a toddler-young child. Children don't wait around to be told what to do, they grab life by the reigns; "So I don't run the track, no / I make the track run" The second verse moves onto the awkward teenage years, where you feel confident enough to do anything, and that no authority is justice. The sharks and snakes are merely metaphors for the rebellious acts that are regularly done by teens who feel old, but lack responsibility. Chester's part is simply growing into the early years of adolescence, where you feel helpless in an unknown, powerful world. He's looking for guidance that will lead him on the right path to a successful life. Mike's "Apaches" verse is him fully grown into the world. The "braggy" tone of the rap signifies he has found success. His rapping however dictates that you cannot find this satisfaction without plenty of sacrifice and grinding. Also with growing up you become to busy for petty things, "Ya'll, quit trippin' I don't have time for your crying". Brad's final haunting words are the look-back on life as you grow older and begin to accept death. We continuously swim against a raging current that desperately tries to push us and sending us crashing back to the shoreline. Through this constant struggle and through natural causes, we slowly grow weaker and weaker in life until we pass on. We can finally rest in peace knowing that our sacrifice created a happy life. This is just my two cents on a pretty mysterious track. Looking at it this way, I've come to appreciate Until It Breaks in a new light. Proper context gives the song a whole new significant meaning.
To be honest, I don't think the track really means much at all. I think it's just an exciting, weird, do-whatever-the-fuck-we-want song.
I think the great thing about UIB and LT as a whole is that it can be interpreted in an infinite amount of ways. However, I do think that the song is a diss to haters. Especially when Mike raps about the sharks and snakes. I always thought that the "sharks" were a term used for record executives trying to push LP in a more commercial direction, while the "snakes" represent the haters of the band.
I guess this is more how I interpret the song, if I have to assign it meaning. The line "the sharks on the left side, the snakes on the right, anything you do they wanna get a little bite" is referring to how all sorts of yes-men/greedy people try to weasel their way in on your success. And yeah, lines like "learn to respect it, cause you clearly can't stop it" and "are you in the firing squad or are you in the line-up" are definitely aimed at detractors. But overall, I don't think they wrote around any particular theme for this song. I think they just let the ideas and flow and put them all together and what resulted is what we hear. As opposed to a song like Powerless which clearly has a particular theme.
I think you've taken an awful lot of creative liberty with the lyrics here. You get an A for making some of the leaps you did though, but a C for the end result. While it's true that art does mean whatever it means to the person perceiving it, we should usually try to keep our feet grounded in the work itself rather than contorting the work to produce evidence for a theory. I appreciate the effort you've put into this because I'm an English major myself, but it's far more likely that Mike meant what he said nigh-literally. There are two anecdotes I'd like to interject here, the first being from Steven King. If you read his book, On Writing, there's a part where he talks about symbolism and how it just happens or it doesn't. When people started asking him about the symbolism of all the blood in the story he was taken aback because he didn't realize some of the things it could suggest—it just happened to work out. The second anecdote is actually that I saw a very funny graphic that demonstrated the difference between what a teacher thinks about a book vs what the author says. The info graphic says, "The curtains were blue." and to the teacher this blue symbolizes the despair and depression of the man in the story, but to the author what he was really saying is, "The curtains were fucking blue." It's OK if the song is meaningless, don't break it trying to find meaning past what the words say.
I agree with Xero and Sean. I think it addresses the haters, and tells people that we will make what we want and not change because you say too.
Hahah well I'm actually an english major as well! At the end of that I thought "this feels an awful lot like an essay..." I appreciate your in-depth answer. I fully understand the idea that the song could be about the haters, in fact it makes perfect sense. However with the amount of songs the fan base thinks are "hater" songs, it almost feels like a cope-out to say thats all its about.
Honestly, I think UNTIL IT BREAKS is supposed to be EXACTLY what Mike says it is on the track: Something for your block to black out and rock to. If I were to assign a meaning to the whole track, a common theme, it would be how hard they work to be better than the competition. That idea keeps coming back in the lyrics over and over again, and even the lyrics of Delson's lullaby seem to support it.
Listening to the lyrics it's basically saying.. Verse 1. He is dope and original. respect that shit. Verse 2. There's a whole bunch of "sharks and snakes" that want to take advantage, and when they have their teeth in, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. You can talk shit about his decision making, but he'd be dead before you were ever near him. Chester: give me the will to fight until we finally get what we deserve Verse 3. This shit is a banger. he knows who is weak and knows biters. mike switches his style, stop whining about it. he works hard because if you don't you won't last.Being a slave to the big guns will metaphorically kill you. He can do it and be iller while you quiver in your pants. You wanna be "the bank"? I will expose your corruptness. He will do this. He is real and you are a so-called artist that copies other famous works. do you understand that it is like that? Brad: You can only take so much
Between this and Castle Of Glass, I've come to the conclusion that you need to interpret every song ever.