Songfacts®:

• During the recording of The Black Parade, MCR stayed in the Paramour Mansion, a historic estate and present day recording studio, located in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, California. The building is thought to be haunted and during their time there, a number of spooky events freaked out the band. Singer Gerard Way described a "night terror" he experienced as if someone was strangling him and he couldn't wake up or move. Also bassist, Mikey Way became so severely depressed his bandmates had to get him out of the house. Gerald Way had a Dictaphone by his bed and he wrote this song when he was working out how to overcome the nightmares.
• Papa Roach also claim to have experienced night terrors and weird goings whilst recording The Paramour Sessions at the mansion.
• Gerard's sleep calamities were partly caused by his obsession with Joan of Arc, a French peasant who believed God gave her a mission to help her country defeat England near the end of the Hundred Years' War. She successfully helped the French troops land a crushing victory at the Siege of Orléans in 1429, but after being captured by the English, was burned at the stake for witchcraft and heresy. Gerard stayed in his room poring over books and films about the heroine, leading to dreams of witnessing her fiery death, hence the line, "Sometimes I see flames."