Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)

"Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)" is a song by American rock band My Chemical Romance. It is the second track and first single from their fourth and final studio album, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys.

According to lead vocalist Gerard Way, the band had struggled with the departure of drummer Bob Bryar and was dissatisfied with the progress of the sessions for their fourth studio album until the recording of "Na Na Na". A breakthrough was achieved once the chord progressions for the song were in place, with Way explaining,

"That's the moment where we said, 'This song changes everything. We're starting over right now. We're starting it over with [producer Rob] Cavallo, and we're doing it now'. Everything up to that point had felt like we had been in this kind of stasis, and as artists, stasis really equals death. So, it was so bad, the vibe wasn't good, and then 'Na Na' happened. And then, all of a sudden, there was this real, big intensity underneath us, and it was the momentum we needed to dig deep and record another album".

The song was not originally intended as a single, but due to the positive response to the album's teaser video, "Art is the Weapon", it was released and a full music video was shot

The music video premiered on MTV on October 14, 2010. The video was co-directed by Roboshobo and Gerard Way and features comic book author Grant Morrison. The music video was first previewed in the short trailer titled "Art is the Weapon" which was released on September 17, 2010. Album opener "Look Alive, Sunshine" was included in the music video.MTV posted photo previews on October 8, and a 30-second preview video on October 11. On a "Making of" video, Gerard Way expressed interest in shooting a third part to the Killjoy story.

The video features a strangely garbed outlaw gang called the Killjoys (Gerard Way as Party Poison, Mikey Way as Kobra Kid, Ray Toro as Jet Star and Frank Iero as Fun Ghoul), who are being pursued in the badlands around Battery City by the sinister executive Korse (Morrison) of Better Living Industries (BL/ind) and his vampire-masked henchmen (the Draculoids); in between battles with Better Living, the gang are indulging in pornographic magazines, fast driving, and hacking vending machines. The Killjoys have a young girl as one of their members (portrayed by Grace Jeanette), who BL/ind is out to capture. At the end of the video, after a standoff, the Killjoys lie defeated on the ground, and Missile Kid has been captured by Korse and the Draculoids. Korse tells the Killjoys to "Keep running." The music video for later single "Sing" is a companion piece and continues the story of the Killjoys and BL/ind, it includes the lyrics "keep running" which ties it to "Na Na Na"

In an interview with the band for KROQ-FM, Gerard Way revealed that members of the band Mindless Self Indulgence appear in the video, with guitarist Steve Righ? as DJ "Dr. Death Defying", and vocalist Jimmy Urine as the "main, tall Draculoid". Urine was originally intended to play the roller skater "Show Pony", but was changed to a Draculoid as he cannot skate. After the video's premiere, MTV released a "Pop-Culture Cheat Sheet" listing many of the movie and TV references in the video, including films such as Blade Runner, Easy Rider, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Ultraviolet and perhaps most prominently, the "Mad Max" franchise.

There is also a reference to their previous album 'The Black Parade' at the 1:28 marker in the video where a half buried skeleton wearing a black marching jacket at the bottom of the screen can be seen. Similarly, in one of the "Transmissions" by Dr. Death on the band's website features a Killjoy (presumably Party Poison) searching through an abandoned room, passing by Mikey Way's Black Parade uniform from the music videos Welcome to the Black Parade and Famous Last Words, and picking up one of the skull-designed masks featured in Black Parade merchandise, before finding the MOUSEKAT mask seen in the video for Na Na Na.

 On a related note, the MOUSEKAT character is featured in one of BL/ind's transmissions as a Mickey Mouse-style cartoon propaganda character promoting the drugs used to keep humans under BL/ind's influence, in the fictional reality that accompanies Danger Days.

The band won Best Video at the 2011 NME Awards for this track.

Music Video