Brick by Boring Brick

I think this song is about wanting your "Happily ever after" so badly, and the frustration that comes with realizing you can't always get what you want.

As someone with not a very squeaky clean past, I retreated into a world of books and movies, preferring not to co-operate with reality.

"She lives in a fairy tale Somewhere too far for us to find Forgotten the taste and smell Of the world that she's left behind"

And then my family moved. New environment, new school (I'd previously been in an all-girl school, this one was co-ed), a lot of new stuff. I ended up liking this guy ("Her prince finally came to save her") that I thought liked me back, but he was just stringing me along ("But it was a trick, and the clock struck twelve"), and I had to do a lot of rebuilding. ("Well, make sure to build your home, brick by boring brick, or the wolf's gonna blow it down")

My world of books and movies had given me a very specific idea of what I wanted my guy to be, and I'd tried to shoehorn this other guy into it ("Well, you built up a world of magic, because your real life is tragic").

Now this song turns up with this timing, and I'd swear it was written about me if I didn't know better. What with all my experiences this past year, and my about to be a legal adult in a few months, I think this song is trying to tell me something.

"Well, go get your shovel And we'll dig a deep hole To bury the castle, bury the castle"

Putting this part of my life to rest, the trauma, the fantasy, is something I'm not particularly willing to do, but maybe it's about time I did - start living in the real world with real people.

actually, this is a song about monarch slavery.

from vigilantcitizen.com:

" Right from the start of the video, the subject matter of the song is made very clear. The setting is totally unreal and synthetically created. A little girl, apparently a child version of the singer Hayley, runs towards a strange world, bearing monarch butterfly wings on her back, symbolizing that she is a Monarch slave. She almost reluctantly enters a symbolic gateway, representing the start of her dissociative state. The door violently shuts down behind her, which hints the viewers to the fact that this wonderland is forcibly induced on the child. The lyrics of the first verse describe the reality of the slave.

Well she lives in the fairy tale Somewhere too far for us to find Forgotten the taste and smell Of a world that she’s left behind It’s all about the exposure the lens I told her The angles are all wrong now She’s ripping wings off of butterflies

The girl lives in a “fairy tale”, which is her dissociative mind state. It is “too far for us to find” due to the fact that this world can only be found in the confines of her consciousness. The slave has been removed from her family and the real world to live in a confined environment. She has “forgotten the taste and smell” of the the “real world” she has left behind. She lives in a prison for kids, a human rat laboratory and she is constantly manipulated by her handlers. All of her senses are subject to constant pressure and pain and her perception of reality is completely distorted: “The angles are all wrong now“. She is a Monarch slave and is thus “ripping wings off of butterflies“.

Keep your feet on the ground When your head’s in the clouds

The dissociative state experienced by Monarch slaves is often described as a sensation of weightlessness. While her feet are on the ground, her consciousness is in an alternate reality or “in the clouds“. The girl in the video walks around this strange world filled with fairy tale characters which are reminiscent of those found in Alice in Wonderland or the Wizard of Oz, the stories most commonly associated with mind control. The blurriness of the scenes and the presence of mushrooms in the background refer to the use of hallucinogenic drugs during Monarch Programming. The girl enters a castle, representing her inner consciousness. Mirrors, reflections and the girl’s multiplication symbolize the girl’s fragmented/compartmentalized mind state. The girl stands still while an independent, alternate personality, looking back at her through the mirror brushes her hair. Mirrors and castles are triggers that are often used in Monarch Programming. The second verse of the song describes a disturbing reality of Monarch slaves.

So one day he found her crying Coiled up on the dirty ground Her prince finally came to save her And the rest you can figure out But it was a trick And the clock struck 12

This is the picture painted by this verse: the slave’s handler enters her “cell”, where she is coiled up and deeply traumatized. The floor is dirty. It has been documented that victims of mind control are forced to live rooms littered with feces (I can’t make this stuff up). Her “prince”, who is in fact her handler, comes in to “save her from her pain”. Handlers are often portrayed as the slave’s savior, who will guide them through traumatic events. The line “And the rest you can figure out” alludes to the worst: the “prince” came to rape her. It was a trick, he was not a prince, only a sadistic handler furthering the girl’s trauma with sexual abuse. During those repeated assaults, the slaves are forced to dissociate from reality. The lyrics of the song’s bridge aptly define this concept.

Well you built up a world of magic Because your real life is tragic Yeah you built up a world of magic

She has built, brick by brick, a wall in her consciousness that dissociates her from reality. She escapes into a world of magic due to the extreme trauma she has to live through on a daily basis. Probably because the girl’s curiosity concerning her own mind has lead her too far, the world of wonders quickly becomes nightmarish. Creepy puppets make their way out of the mirrors. The characters of her fairy tale world suddenly become terrifying. An evil-looking character, dressed as a thief holding an ax, approaches her. Is she being reprimanded by her handlers for “not following the script” of her programming? The girl is understandably freaked out and runs away. The lyrics explain this difference between reality and fiction.

If it’s not real You can’t hold it in your hand You can’t feel it with your heart And I won’t believe it

But if it’s true You can see it with your eyes Or even in the dark And that’s where I want to be, yeah

The girl runs out of the castle and falls into the grave dug by … Paramore? That is not really cool of them. Hayley gets up, throws the girl’s doll into the grave and they start burying her. At face value, this can interpreted as the burial of the “young irresponsible girl” living in a fairy tale. On a second level, this can be seen as the burial of the innocence of a child after experiencing traumatic events. Whatever the meaning one attributes to the burial, the message of the video is not to sympathetic to the girl’s quest of self-knowledge and emancipation. Seems like they’re saying “This is what you get for trying to know your real self”. "

the article says that paramore is supporting monarch slavery. my opinion is that though i do believe that brick by boring brick by paramore is about monarch slaverly, i do not believe that they are supporting this or trying in any way to portray the worlds it is said some slaves see in a way to control minds. i believe that its more a warning about this cause, as it says in the song "if it's true, you can see it with your eyes and even in the dark and thats where I want to be." paramore is a christian band associated with the warning of many topics teens go through such as suicide and depression, child sex slavery, and yes, monarch slavery. just my opinion, though.

ngl, this is one of the songs im most excited to hear. i understand most people think the lyrics are cheesy, but i like it :) and a music video for this song would RULE. dont even try and deny it, you all want to see hayley in a big princess's dress and the guys dressed as princes.

i love this song.

It's basically about someone who's life sucks and so they live in a fantasy world and the singer is telling the story and repeatedly telling them that they should just ditch their fantasy world because it's not real.

I love the way Hayley wrote this song. To me it's about how you can get so caught up in what you think is this fairy tale of being so madly in love and then have it suddenly taken away, even if the person/thing taking it away is what you thought what your fairy tale was.

The "Burry the caste" thing is kind of like covering up something so beautiful that you built up and wanting to get rid of it. It's like the caste is what was built up over time during this fairy tale she was living and shes kind of giving up on it. Kind of like she just wants it gone and to no want to remember it.

I think this song is fantastic and the lyrics tell a story you can really follow if you know a lot about the band and their past. I can tell the rest of Brand New Eyes will be simply amazing.

People that have heard this from the MTV Unplugged Paramore performance awhile back say that the lyrics are a little misleading to what the song will sound like. I hear the song is NOT going to be some soft rock thing, but a hard fast beat.

Hayley's vocals on this track are said to be the best yet.

And yes, this is a Brand New Eyes song.

i want to correct a line... im pretty sure its "keep your feet on the ground when your heads in the clouds"

and i think this song is about realizing the reality of life and "dig a deep whole" may mean that the fairy tale she was living was a big part of her life and its going to take alot to let it go

i agree with ahaa. it's about the letdown and heartbreak of reality. we all want so badly to live with our heads in the clouds, but there's always something that will cause us to come crashing back down, and force us to "bury the castle".