This Is the End (For You My Friend)
| "This Is the End (For You My Friend)" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by Anti-Flag | ||||
| from the album For Blood and Empire | ||||
| Format | Digital download | |||
| Recorded | 2006 | |||
| Genre | Hardcore Punk, Punk Rock | |||
| Length | 3:12 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Writer(s) |
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| Anti-Flag singles chronology | ||||
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"This Is The End (For You My Friend)" is a song by the punk rock band Anti-Flag, which is taken from the album For Blood and Empire. The song was part of the soundtracks for Madden NFL 07 and NHL 07 and as of 2016 is their highest selling song on the iTunes store.
The song is about how media drives self-hatred and mutilation. It claims that most media is powered by money, and that media entities try to make people feel worthless to help sell their product.
Essay
Found on the inside of the cover booklet of the C.D., there is an essay by Jean Kilbourne. It reads as follows:
"Advertising is an over $250 billion a year industry. We are exposed to over 3000 ads a day and will spend two years of our lives watching television commercials. Yet, remarkably, most of us believe we are not influenced by advertising. Ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth, love, and sexuality, popularity and normalcy. They tell us who we should be ... Sometimes they sell addictions."
"Hollywood and the fashion, cosmetics and diet industries work hard to make each of us believe that our bodies are unacceptable and need constant improvement. Print ads and television commercials reduce us to body parts -lips, legs, breasts- airbrushed and touched up to meet impossible standards. TV shows tell women and teenage girls that cosmetic surgery is good for self-esteem. Is it any wonder that more than 80% of fourth grade girls have been on some sort of fad diet"
Music video
The video features the band playing the song in the small Downtown Los Angeles Mexican bar La Cita (on 5th and Hill St.). The filming of the music video was originally going to be one free show, but so many fans showed up to the concert that the band played two shows for benefit of the fans and the convenience of the small club venue. There are black title cards in between clips of the band, upon which are written facts about the influence of mass media on the self-perception of consumers. After each fact, there is a few seconds of the band playing, then another title card saying 'This is the end... of-' followed by something the band hopes to bring the end of.
The title cards say:
- More than 8.5 million people have cosmetic procedures in the U.S. per year
- This is the end... of self mutilation
- The average weight of a model is 23% lower than that of an average woman.
- This is the end... of insecurity
- Approximately one million men and boys suffer from anorexia
- This is the end... of self-hatred
- Clinical depression affects at least 16% of the population at least once in their lives.
- This is the end... of hopelessness
- As many as 10 million women and girls suffer from an eating disorder
- This is the end... of self doubt
- 80% of 4th grade girls have been on a fad diet
- This is the end... of marketing disease
- Americans spend approximately $12.4 billion on cosmetic procedures per year
- This is the end... of insanity
- By age 21, the average person will have watched 1,000,000 commercials
- This is the end... of exploitation
- Billions of dollars are spent to make YOU feel worthless
- THIS IS THE END
Sources
- http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:3pfexq9dldke
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVEa-7QPARs - Music Video for This Is the End
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeNyW9ORtiA - Anti-Flag interview on IMF
- http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/antiflag/thisistheendforyoumyfriend.html - Song Lyrics