30 Seconds to Mars- Kings and Queens
Into the night,
Desperate and broken
The sound of a fight,
Father has spoken
We were the kings and queens of promise,
We were the victims of ourselves
Maybe the children of a lesser God
Between heaven and hell
heaven and hell
Into your eyes
Hopeless and taken
We stole our new lives
Through blood and pain
In defense of our dreams
In defense of our dreams
We were the kings and queens of promise,
We were the victims of ourselves
Maybe the children of a lesser God,
Between heaven and hell
Heaven and hell
The age of man is over
A darkness comes and all
These lessons that we’ve learned here
have only just begun
We were the kings and queens of promise,
We were the victims of ourselves
Maybe the children of a lesser God
Between heaven and hell
We are the kings
We are the queens
We are the kings
We are the queens
Analysis of song
30 Seconds to Mars
In the song, “Kings and Queens” by 30 Seconds to Mars, the band’s lead singer talks about how corrupt humanity has become when it comes to seizing goals on a personal level.
A band that I would say has greatly influenced TSTM’s sound would be the GooGoo Dolls. They were kind of a punk and grunge band, and thats sort of music that 30 Seconds to Mars tends to lean towards.
When thinking about the lyrics, I noticed a lot of personal meanings on them. In their lyrics, they talk about how humanity were, to say it in their words, “kings and queens of promise”(5) how things were supposed to be so good for everyone. “We were the victims of ourselves”(6) talks about how people’s selfishness and corruption has slowly killed all that we’ve lived for as humanity. It’s slowing poisoning minds of people throughout humanity into thinking that what THEY want matters most, not what is good for the common good. In another spot of their song, they talk about how mankind is starting to become more of a materialistic society rather than a religious one. “Maybe the children of a lesser god, between heaven and hell” (7-9)
One thing about this band that strikes me is their word choice. They display superb diction in many of their lyrics. Most of their songs tell a story, which makes them very interesting to listen to. In “Kings and Queens”, they basically tell a story of how humanity started off being great and living in peace and harmony with each other, but over time, how as they started to become more self absorbed and individualistic, their society as slowly but surely crumbled and is no longer the great shining point in their lives like it once was. Irony is also big in this song, as in the chorus it says “we were the victims of ourselves” (6) This is ironic because by saying we’re the victims of ourselves, the artist is implying that we could change it. Which, is very true. If you look at the broad overview of this song, it seems to have a very elegiac tone. It seems down cast about how humanity has caused its own down fall by its selfishness.
Post modernism is very apparent in this song. One of the ways that I see this is the whole post modern idea of surfaces, because this song can be taken so many different ways. It’s just about how you view some of the lyrics that could be taken multiple ways Combination and interconnection was big in this song too. It keeps referencing a lesser god, so it’s saying that humans are trying to connect with something lesser than the higher power of the almighty God. There is a big deconstructionist backdrop in this song. The chorus tells of how we’re the cause of our own destruction as a well functioning society. “We were the victims of ourselves” (6) is basically talking about how we had everything going great until we decided to focus on ourselves rather than the community.
The song is extremely deep, and I feel like many of this band’s songs have very powerful and impacting meanings to go along with them. This one specifically hit home for me because I notice all the corruption around me, and we always talk about how culture tells us to “do what feels good to us”. It’s disheartening, really, because that is exactly whats destroying society and what will be the downfall of humanity.
The song is not all negative though, at the very end, instead of saying, “We were the kings and queens or promise”, the song says, “We are the kings, we are the queens” (29, 30) So, maybe at the end the writer is saying that we still have a chance to save our society. Maybe there are people who really do want to see the best in others, so they decide that they will work to better the community, not just their own lives. I feel the end of this song challenges everyone to be more like that, and I like that challenge and plan to take them up on it.
