Sing it, Tilly

Sing Songs Along
Tilly and the Wall

we'll wake up your mothers, we'll start a commotion
we'll take you apart, we'll swallow the ocean
and just when you've labeled us one of your types
we'll fly our flag right up up out of your sky
so puff out your chest in some weird dusty fight
we're taking no part in your cracked antique life
we're believing everything that we have heard
we're taking our turn with the kids that don't learn
you know I'm going to take my turn
let us be free, let us sing songs along
the bottoms of barrels , let us be free
so out come you clowns, all you wolves, all you martyrs
you holy rat rattlers, holy found fathers
we're selling ourselves so ourselves can find
we're living at night trying to pull out the light
we'll turn up the heat as we burn up you boxes
we'll loosen our wrists as we fill in your foxholes
you've got your bad apples to ruin your bunch
yeah we're all right here so you better eat up
oh yeah, there's nothing you can do
if you want me here, you can have me here
if you want me now, you can have me now
if you want me down, I will get really low
you better believe I'll be down by your shoes
if you want it all, you can have it all
if you want some more, come and get some more
'cause the dirt feels good when you're underground
you better believe that we're all getting down
you know that us feral kids love straying about
so start giving in, yeah you better get down

It’s as if the song were written by Wilde himself, don’t you think? Tilly and the Wall’s “Sing Songs Along” is all about breaking out of the suffocating shell of accepted propriety to be free, happy, and to do as you please. Not only that, but the speakers are achieving this feeling specifically through art- songs. They associate pleasure with singing songs, following the teachings of the Aesthetic Movement in their attempts to live life fully through the beauty of art. Through the lyrics, the speakers are escaping labels and superficiality, and in an almost threatening way, they are telling the world to follow suit. They refuse to take part in “[our] cracked antique life” and they are proud of the stand they are taking against those who repress them (“you’ve got your bad apples to ruin your bunch/ yeah we’re all right here so you better eat up”). They are forcing a new light upon those who narrowly see only a life of obligations, and they “fill in [their] foxholes” so that no one can escape the truths they are singing. One way that the song differs from the ideals of the Aesthetic Movement, though, is that the speakers do not associate a good life with a cushy, decorated one. “’Cause the dirt feels good when you’re underground,” they say, explaining that they do not need to live fancifully as long as they are living on their own terms.