A Toast to From Under The Cork Tree

From Under The Cork Tree turned 21 this month. Here’s to you Fall Out Boy; champagne to my real friends, real pain for my sham friends. I think back to CD’s from the library that my older brothers would burn onto our original Xbox, the tune of lyrics I pondered over the meaning of carrying me through watching them take turns playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 and GTA Vice City. Fall Out Boy is bathed in nostalgia for me. Take This to Your Grave was embedded in my psyche before PBS. If there was a fascist regime hunting me down and I was hiding beneath the floorboards all they would have to utter is, “Keep quiet, nothing comes as easy as you…” and I will shout out uncontrollably, “...can I lay in your bed all day? I'll be your best kept secret and your biggest mistake, hand behind this pen relives a failure every day”. Don’t be shy if you know the next part. 

Apart from the deep childhood connection to that golden age of pre-hiatus Fall Out Boy, I rack my brain on what it is that separates them from their class of Pop-punk and Midwest emo. Why is it that I scoff at Panic!, MCR, American Football, and The All-American Rejects as intolerably whiny (sorry) yet revere FOB as emo gods? Taste is subjective, of course, but let us dive a tad deeper on this discrepancy of mine. 

*editor's note: I probably alienated anyone who had interest in reading this with that last line. But the fact Pete Wentz signed Panic! At the Disco to his imprint label with Fueled By Ramen yet they got their Rolling Stone Cover first is always funny to me.

Formed in the suburbs of Chicago in 2001 by lyricist/bassist Pete Wentz and guitarist Joe Trohman, vocalist Patrick Stump and drummer Andy Hurley joining along with this rag tag ensemble of straight edge teens soon thereafter. The magic ingredient in their sound that sets them apart from their contemporary peers is the range of Patrick Stump. Originally auditioning for the drummer spot before becoming the band’s lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and principal song composer, Patrick Stump brings to Fall Out Boy a gospel-like command of his octaves. A soul voice in an emo world. His masterful vibrato carrying Pete Wentz’s confessional poetry and tastily-wicked wordplay is the foundation of my life-long affinity for them. Andy and Joe are such tight and consistent instrumentalists, behind some of my favorite ever riffs and drum fills.

We could spend an entire 2,000 word essay tracing the significance of each of album releases from their debut to Folie á Deux, but today’s spotlight belongs to their 5x platinum sophomore classic From Under the Cork Tree. It’s named in reference to the children’s book The Story of Ferdinand about a fighting bull in Spain who would rather sit beneath the cork tree smelling flowers than take part in the brutality. A fitting title for a group of soft boys, well read and poised.

13 tracks of pure existentially charged energy. The song titles are some of the best in the angst business and truly Pete’s finest handiwork: “Nobody Puts Baby In the Corner”, “Of All The Gin Joints In All The World”, “A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More ‘Touch Me’”. The momentum only takes a breather halfway through with “I’ve Got A Dark Alley And A Bad Idea That’s Telling You To Shut Your Mouth (Summer Song)”, a song both haunting in its title as it is depressing in its chord (that title was always too edgy for my liking). Even the B side is straight bangers with “Music Or The Misery” and “Snitches and Talkers get Stitches and Walkers” giving breakneck ballads that Pete Wentz said he felt needed to be left off to let the main side of the record breathe. 

This is the album that made Fall Out Boy, for all intents and purposes. When someone can only name one song of an artist and it's their commercial hit that got played into oblivion, I call that the “Sugar, We’re Going Down” effect. 

Oh you like Nirvana, what’s your favorite song? “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. 

Oh you like Fall Out Boy, what’s your favorite song? “Dance Dance”. 

So get busy living or get busy dying, because this has been said so many times that I’m not sure if it matters.