I Wonder Where You Are

"City Walls" Review (Part 1)

Buckle down, people, we’re about to have a wild ride.

One thing that twenty one pilots has become ridiculously good at is crafting a first song that effectively draws the listener into the album. Songs like “Heavydirtysoul,” “Jumpsuit,” “Overcompensate,” and of course “City Walls” are all in a class of their own, starting small at first and rapidly escalating into something huge—complete with fire bass lines. Basically, these are epic songs.

“City Walls” in particular has a duality to its nature. It is simultaneously the beginning of an album and the end of a story (except it’s not really, it’s just the finale), which is such a twenty one pilots thing to do.

I’ll get right into it and analyze the song section-by-section. I have to talk about the music video too, since it is a ten-minute, million-dollar piece of cinematic genius. And since the song itself is over five minutes long and is simply so epic, I’m dividing my review of it into two posts.

Square Up With Me

We begin where we left off at the end of Clancy: the raging battle between Dema and those in rebellion against it.

Almost immediately we find the Torchbearer, in the thick of battle. And despite what Blurryface would have Clancy believe, he has not forgotten about his friend. Far from it in fact, as the very first thing we see him do is drop everything and start running towards the tower where Clancy is facing down his nemesis.

This makes it even more heartbreaking when Clancy looks up to face Nico—and a “boss fight” (my brother’s words) ensues. From what I’ve heard, nobody honestly expected an actual fight between Clancy and Blurryface, but nobody’s complaining. It’s very satisfying to watch, despite the context.

The lyrics tell us what’s going through Clancy’s mind, and it’s disconcerting:

Square up with me

I can take you right, throw a left

Pair up with me

Imma take you right to the chest

With this new weapon, Clancy is certain he can defeat Blurryface all on his own. But he’s not on the island anymore. It was easy to show off his power from a distance, but now he’s back in the city and things are about to get very real.

The following lines reveal his thinking regarding the Banditos:

Warpath etched in the surface

Lines of the yellow tape

They’re movin’ quiet like a serpentine

In a formation

Buddy, that’s my team, pretty impatient

Now we are in confusing territory. Yellow tape is known to be what the Banditos wear to identify themselves,¹ and Clancy sees it taking over the city in a serpentine way. Serpents are not known for their friendliness. Nevertheless, Clancy acknowledges them as his “team,” continuing:

And now they’re waitin’ on me

It might be the furthest we’ve reached

Now move it up, move it up, it’s a breach

This is the furthest Dema has ever been breached by a rebellion, the closest Clancy has ever gotten to defeating Blurryface. But is it going to be enough?

I Wanted You to Show Me

Now to the chorus, which goes

I wonder where you are

I wanted you to show me

The way around the city walls

The way on through

Tyler’s delivery is appropriately mournful, and his tone indicates that he’s resigned. Clancy is speaking to Torchbearer; “I thought you were going to help me,” he says. The chorus continues,

I wonder where you are

I wanted you to show me

But now the night has fallen,

Abandoned by the sun

“Night vs. day” imagery shows up a lot in twenty one pilots’ music. Here, it only adds to the sense of desperation, especially the phrase “abandoned by the sun.”

This is followed by a phrase played on some instrument, I have no idea what it is. But I think it sounds amazing.

“[I’ve] Been Here This Whole Time”

An insanely cool thing that this music video does is flashback to previous music videos (“Heavydirtysoul,” “Levitate,” and “Jumpsuit,” specifically). These flashbacks are interwoven with the Clancy vs. Nico fight.

There’s a couple of differences between the original videos and the flashbacks here. For one thing, it’s nighttime everywhere. For another thing, Blurryface is present now, in all of these places.

My interpretation of this is that while the battle is happening, he brought these scenes back to Clancy’s mind, communicating in the process that he was always there. He’s always had a hold on Clancy. Also, the night thing is probably to drive home the “Now the night has fallen” line. Things are getting darker, and when they get dark, they tend to get cold, too.

But my goodness, Blurryface is powerful. Will Clancy be able to break free?

Contracts for the Long-Term

The battle continues on. This verse in particular contains several callbacks and lore references, but we begin with braggadocios Clancy again:

Square up with me

I can come to you, tell me when

Pair up with me

I can run on you

In the end, I write a promise in pencil, but my loyalty’s in pen

Okay now, what is this? “A promise in pencil, but my loyalty’s in pen?” Is this the contract we’re talking about? Maybe that deal was only a temporary thing, at least on paper, but Clancy’s loyalty ran far deeper. Maybe officially Clancy was only helping the Torchbearer win his war, but the two had an actual bond of friendship, one that wasn’t going anywhere once the fight was over.

Use a mistake as a crooked stencil, then we trace it back again

From the mainland to the island of violence

Tyler uses the same rhythm on “island of violence” as he did on “Migraine,” which is really cool. “Migraine” actually explains a lot about that particular part of the lore. We’re talking about Clancy’s journey from Dema to somewhere completely different, and yet not so different at all. This is where he was given the weapon to take out the Bishops.

But what’s this about “a mistake as a crooked stencil?” It’s making me think of “Neon Gravestones,” “use this mistake as a form of aggression.”

It was the same plan for a while

Decided to send me up and rip you out of your seat

You see, in a city with no entrance there is not a retreat

The Banditos had been waging war against Dema for, I don’t know, forever probably, and now Clancy had the potential to take them all out. That’s exciting, to say the least, at least from a Bandito’s perspective. This is an exciting plan

And the last line there only emphasizes the fact that Breach is make-or-break time. We’ve had enough fooling around. We’ve learned all we need to. Now all that matters is who wins.

I’m wonderin’ what you thought would happen, who you thought I would be

Was this a sideswipe, or did you picture this in a dream?

Buckle down, this is possibly the furthest we’ve reached

Now move it up, move it up, it’s a breach

Arrogance, just downright arrogance. “Who’d you think I was gonna be,” Clancy taunts. It’s an interesting irony, the tormentee now tormenting the tormentor.

But never forget that pride comes before a fall.

Goodbye for Now

And that’s it for this post! Next time we’ll get to the bridge and the rest of the song, where things get quiet and then build back up to insane levels of craziness.

1. It’s because the Bishops can’t see that shade of yellow. The Trench era, when we were first introduced to the Banditos, involved a lot of yellow and camo.