Marsha, Thankk You for the Dialectics, but I Need You to Leave.
Producer
Marsha, Thankk You for the Dialectics, but I Need You to Leave. Lyrics
They could prescribe you any illness you’d like if you define the terms of your ailments
You could sing a pretty malady like a black canary, but a crow don’t know the smell of carbon monoxide
How many years have you been on that couch?
They could’ve quilt’d you in the throws by now
You draw a line in the sand where it ends and you begin
But the tide rolls in, so who knows? Oh well
[Chorus 1]
And a little identity never hurt nobody, but lately you’ve been focusing too much on yourself
So how many milligrams of you are still left in there?
'Cause back in my day we didn’t need no feel-good pills and no psychiatrists
No, we just drank ourselves to death
And god damn it, we liked it
[Verse 2]
Who makes the call?
What’s a symptom, what’s a flaw, can it be both?
Well I suppose that’s an answer
Would you give up your humanity for just a touch of sanity?
'Cause God knows it’s not like it’s cancer
And good news to the purists: they’ve discovered a cure for the symptoms of being alive
It’s a painless procedure with a low rate of failure
But very few patients survive
[Chorus 2]
And a little conformity never hurt nobody, but lately I’ve been worried that you’re losing yourself
So how many milligrams of you are still left in there?
'Cause back in my day we didn’t need no feel-good pills and no psychiatrists
No, we just bled out in our baths
And god damn it, we liked it
[Bridge]
Doctor, what’s my prognosis if the studies show that
Disease is in the eye of the beholder?
Tell me “so it goes”
We depress to impress, I guess, in layer after layer to get off our chests
It’s cold out now, we can take it off later
Better safe than sorry, and we both know the danger
So doctor, could you run another test?
Got a feeling that this time I might just pass it
Well, if you raise the average
We’ll all sing when the bell curve rings in lyrics symptomatic of the way we think
If our harmonies don’t sync, we can change our voices
A chorus on condition of our diagnosis
[Chorus 3]
Back in my day we didn’t need no feel-good pills and no psychiatrists
What can I say, except don’t heed no evil wills of moral nihilists?
I said, back in the days of lobotomies and shock therapy and mad scientists
No, don’t you make me waste my breath
God damn it!
[Outro]
Ain’t your you-dentity at stake?
Does aspirin kill you with the pain?
You’re not your thoughts, you’re not your brain, you’re just the character you’ve made
Up in your head, down in your heart, what seem like separate body parts
Come together to believe they’re you, and not just chemistry
It’s not the way that you were raised, or what the advertisements say
Not what you pay for, what you pray for, what you want, or what you say
And I see your tendency to redefine disease by what you need
And I’m afraid I can’t prescribe the diagnosis that you seek
And something tells me that you need, forgive me now if I misspeak
But something tells me that you like, and something tells me
You prefer to be sitting there flipping through those old issues of People
About
‘Marsha, Thankk You for the Dialectics, But I Need You to Leave’ seems to be about a person who views mental illness as a core part of their identity. It explores themes of identity, what ‘mental illness’ really is, and who defines what it means.
A repeated theme in the song is the issue of whether what is being labelled as mental illness is actually a normal facet of being human that is being unnecessarily pathologized, or whether going without they are useful labels that allow for treatment and useful tools for avoiding pressures toward conformity.
The singer seems to be conflicted; upset by the prospect that labels for their mental illness are constructed and dependent on how severe they judge their symptoms to be, but they also acknowledge that having labels and treatments for mental health is useful and necessary.
The Marsha mentioned in the title could be referring to the creator of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), Marsha M. Linehan. DBT is a type of psychotherapy that was originally developed to treat borderline personality disorder but is also used to treat a variety of issues, most involving emotion regulation.
The word ‘dialectics’ in the title likely has a double meaning: it could refer to dialectical behavior therapy, but it could also refer to dialectics in a philosophical context. A dialectic is a discussion involving two or more people with differing points of view on a subject, all aiming to find the truth. This ties into how the person talking in each verse of the song appears to change a few times, as if the lyrics depict different conversations or perspectives.
According to Will (in his YouTube livestream “Thanks everyone :)” from January 12th, 2023) the spelling of “thank” in the title “definitely, absolutely wasn’t a typo [he] made while selling t-shirts of a piece of art by that same title that [he] decided to lean into.”
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
- 8.Marsha, Thankk You for the Dialectics, but I Need You to Leave.
