Songfacts®:

• This 29-second track opens New Jersey rock band My Chemical Romance's fourth album, Danger Days: True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys. Frontman Gerard Way told Billboard magazine: "Danger Days kicks off with 'Look Alive, Sunshine,' and I really like to think of the song as contributing to the idea of the album as this really crazy ride - like someone holding your hand on the way up the roller coaster, and then at the top he sort of lets go and he checks in on you from here."
• The song was inspired by Anthony Burgess's 1962 dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. Way explained to Billboard magazine: "'Look Alive, Sunshine' is heavily inspired by the language of A Clockwork Orange. I wanted all these phrases that you didn't know what they meant but you got a sense off of just what the phrase was that you could guess what it means. I think it's a good kind of introduction into Danger Days."