There have been many strange and unusual collaborations in music. However, a collaboration between showbiz legend Liza Minnelli and emo rock band My Chemical Romance wasn’t exactly on anyone’s bingo card. Here’s how two unlikely artists came together to make music.
The emo band took a new direction on ‘The Black Parade’
My Chemical Romance took the pop-punk/emo music scene by storm in 2004 with their second album (first on a major label), Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. The record was a commercial success, and suddenly the rock band was a driving force in music.
The New Jersey-born band initially set out to make Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge a concept album. According to Loud Wire, the band’s liner notes read: “The story of a man, a woman, and the corpses of a thousand evil men…”
It was supposed to continue the story of the so-called “Demolition Lovers” drawn by the band’s first release, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (2002). Then, Gerard and Mikey Way’s grandmother died, derailing the record’s direction.
However, the idea of a concept album wasn’t completely dead. The band resurrected it on their third album, 2006’s The Black Parade. My Chemical Romance was at the top of their game in 2004, but they took a risk with the album. It would be unlike anything the band had ever recorded before.
My Chemical Romance wanted The Black Parade to be a rock opera similar to Pink Floyd’s The Wall and The Who’s Tommy. There was also a glam rock aspect. It was an unusual change of direction for My Chemical Romance. However, the album’s strangest part wasn’t its concept. Liza Minnelli on a My Chemical Romance track?
Liza Minnelli appeared on a My Chemical Romance track
Fans were shocked that My Chemical Romance changed their direction and sound on The Black Parade. However, they were even more surprised by the band’s choice of a special guest.
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Liza Minnelli, daughter of Judy Garland, appears on My Chemical Romance’s “Mama.” It comes at the album’s end and is their most Broadway-inspired song. Way wrote the tune from the perspective of “The Patient,” who is writing a letter to his mother, “bluntly pointing out her failures in raising him and his failures as a son,” Rolling Stone wrote.
Minnelli enters the song for two lines and comes through, sounding like she’s talking into an old radio. Her part honestly makes the whole song. She sings, “And if you would call me a sweetheart/ I’d maybe then sing you song.” Then, she gives a great performance of dramatically sobbing over the outro.
“I wanted a voice to finally talk back to me,” Way told Village Voice in 2011, “and I wanted somebody kind of motherly, but who was also a survivor, had been through a lot, but was rooted in theater. She was the first person that came to mind, and then [producer Rob] Cavallo had made a phone call to her assistant, and that was it. She did it for free and she was happy to do it.”
In an interview with Penn Live (per Grunge), Minnelli revealed that she agreed to help My Chemical Romance because of her curiosity. Her inquisitiveness keeps her going. “That’s why when My Chemical Romance calls me, I do it,” she said. Minnelli said the experience was “wonderful” and described Way as “smart as a whip.”
Minnelli and My Chemical Romance have never performed the song
What would be even better than recording together is if Minnelli and My Chemical Romance got to perform “Mama.” However, unfortunately, it never happened.
Still, Minnelli and My Chemical Romance’s “Mama” lives on in music history as one of the most bizarre collaborations that somehow worked effortlessly—applause for Minnelli for wanting to try new things, even singing on an emo record.
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