Black Me Out

Album: Transgender Dysphoria Blues (2014)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Group leader Laura Jane Grace told NME: "It's an angry song, 'Write me off, f---ing forget about me.' It's really just a 'f--- off' to negative people. The 'f--- you' attitude is what attracted me to punk when I was 13 years old."
  • Do you hear a Bruce Springsteen influence in this song? Bruce does. He told NPR: "'Black Me Out,' it's a fantastic song, you know. And so, any time where you feel you may have dropped a seed or two that someone picked up in any way is, it's just a pleasure. I mean it's like, 'Oh yeah, I did that little part of my work well,' in that this was an assistance and someone went and made something beautiful of their own or crazy of their own about it or whatever, however it comes out."
  • Grace explained the song's meaning to Spin magazine: "It's an angry song," she said, "and it's about feeling like you have certain relationships in your life where you have to fake the person that you are and be inauthentic and compromise yourself to people you work with or people you see out at a bar who corner you - who make you the kind of person that you aren't, really - and feeling like you're so angry that you just want to be like blacked out from someone's existence, like, 'F---ing forget about me, don't think about me anymore, I do not exist to you anymore.' That kind of feeling."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Paul Williams

Paul WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

He's a singer and an actor, but as a songwriter Paul helped make Kermit a cultured frog, turned a bank commercial into a huge hit and made love both "exciting and new" and "soft as an easy chair."

Jack Blades of Night Ranger and Damn Yankees

Jack Blades of Night Ranger and Damn YankeesSongwriter Interviews

Revisit the awesome glory of Night Ranger and Damn Yankees: cheesily-acted videos, catchy guitar licks, long hair, and lyrics that are just plain relatable.

Glen Ballard

Glen BallardSongwriter Interviews

Glen Ballard talks about co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill album, and his work with Dave Matthews, Aerosmith and Annie Lennox.

Randy Newman

Randy NewmanSongwriting Legends

Newman makes it look easy these days, but in this 1974 interview, he reveals the paranoia and pressures that made him yearn for his old 9-5 job.

They Might Be Giants

They Might Be GiantsSongwriter Interviews

Who writes a song about a name they found in a phone book? That's just one of the everyday things these guys find to sing about. Anything in their field of vision or general scope of knowledge is fair game. If you cross paths with them, so are you.

Mike Rutherford (Genesis, Mike + The Mechanics)

Mike Rutherford (Genesis, Mike + The Mechanics)Songwriter Interviews

Mike Rutherford talks about the "Silent Running" storyline and "Land Of Confusion" in the age of Trump.