By Eros Preston
For as long as any society has existed, there have been expectations for its members to fit themselves into the larger group. In The Normal Album, Will Wood examines these expectations as they exist in America and explores how one may go against (or with) the grain. The album’s opening track, “Suburbia Overture / Greetings from Mary Bell Township! / (Vampire) Culture / Love Me, Normally,” encapsulates The Normal Album’s message by scrutinizing the ideas of normalcy and conformity, as well as the values of each.
Encyclopaedia Britannica describes an overture as “the orchestral introduction to a musical work,” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2022). It goes on to summarize trends that overtures have followed throughout history. One in particular stands out: Christoph Gluck declared in 1976 that an overture should prepare the audience for the coming play. Other composers such as Richard Wagner, Mozart, and Beethoven followed this technique (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2022). Will Wood does as well–The Normal Album is not an orchestral piece but “Suburbia Overture,” as its title suggests, does introduce musical elements present in later songs. In an interview with SwitchBitch Noise, Wood says that, with this song, he intended to “[create] a piece of music that set the tone of the rest of the album and hint[ed] at melodies, chord progressions, lyrics, and motifs you would hear throughout the rest of it” (Garniss et al., 2020). More importantly, “Suburbia Overture” establishes the themes examined in the entire album: normalcy (in mainstream American society) and conformity (to mainstream American values).
Wood does so by breaking the song into three sections–“Greetings from Mary Bell Township!”, “(Vampire) Culture,” and “Love Me, Normally”–not unlike the three-act structure used in storytelling. Fija Callaghan on Scribophile describes the three-act structure, in basic terms, as such: “The first act introduces the central characters and conflicts; the second act explores the way the central characters react to these conflicts; and the third act reveals the repercussions of these reactions and choices” (Callaghan, n.d.).
Greetings from Mary Bell Township!
This is the first act of “Suburbia Overture.” According to Callaghan, not only is it where the central characters (in this case, ideas) are introduced, the first act also “lays the groundwork for the conflict and revelations to come” (Callaghan, n.d.). Here, Wood introduces the “normal” way of living–the culture of an American Dream suburbia–and its underlying dangers.
The first 15 seconds of “Greetings from Mary Bell Township!” set the scene: a doorbell rings and then a doo-wop inspired introduction builds into a chorus of voices that chime, “Good morning!” (Wood, 2020b). These aural cues tell the listener that they’re somewhere in 1950s suburbia, where there are identical, perfect houses and cheerful, fit-for-TV nuclear families. The first lines Wood sings after this introduction are, “White picket fences / Barbed wire and trenches” (Wood, 2020b), which both reinforce the image of suburbia and introduce a new, seemingly discordant element: violence. This theme is continued throughout the section with lines that invoke the Cold War; for instance, in the first verse, Wood sings, “You elbow the jukebox and sing ‘Duck and Cover’” (Wood, 2020b), a reference to the 1951 Civil Defense Film Duck and Cover that instructed viewers on how to prepare for a nuclear bomb (Mauer & Rizzo, 1951). By putting a jukebox–something people commonly used for fun–together with Duck and Cover, Wood shows that warfare or violence are commonplace things in suburbia, despite–or perhaps because of–its perfect nature. His image of suburbia not only represents the literal suburbs present across America, especially in the 1950s and 60s, it is also his symbol for a widespread culture that forcibly assimilates everything else into itself or otherwise ostracizes outsiders, a conflict that will come into play later in the song.
Another aspect of suburbia that Wood emphasizes in “Greetings from Mary Bell Township!” is its wariness of and lack of empathy towards others. Judit Carrera explains in an article on BBC that the setup of suburbia, which promoted individual freedom and opportunity, also “incentivised fear of the other” (Nicholls-Lee, 2024). In the second verse of this section, Wood sings,
Your ear to the playground, your eye on the ball
Your head in the gutter, your brains on the wall
Oh well
Home is where the heart is
You ain’t homeless, but you’re heartless (Wood, 2020b)
The first line references the phrases “keep [one’s] ear to the ground” and “keep [one’s] eye on the ball,” which respectively mean to gather information and to stay focused. Part of life in suburbia, Wood says, is the need to obsessively gather information about everyone else, in case someone starts acting in a way they shouldn’t. However, this way of living does not keep the community safe. To have “[one’s] head in the gutter” means to see vulgar or inappropriate meanings in innocuous statements; denizens of suburbia are so obsessed with weeding out the “other” that they start seeing anomalies that aren’t really there. Because they attack anyone deemed abnormal, this leads to the community harming itself in its attempts to force everyone to act the same, perfect way.
Additionally, the last two lines quoted in the above paragraph state that, not only is suburbia wary of and violent towards outsiders, it also does not care about them. “Home is where the heart is” is a phrase that means that “home” is not necessarily a place, it is where whatever one loves is. However, by following this with the line “You ain’t homeless, but you’re heartless,” Wood argues that, while suburbia is physically a place to live, it is not somewhere that provides comfort. Everyone there is “heartless,” meaning they do not care about anyone that is not themselves or those like them; they do not care about outsiders or any harm that suburbia itself may cause to them. This is another conflict addressed later in the song.
The central theme of “Suburbia Overture” is that being the same as everyone else is ideal in mainstream culture; anyone outside of this norm is expected to change themselves to fit in. However, when someone is “abnormal” (i.e. they don’t fit in with suburbia culture), then they will be ostracized or forced to conform to suburbia’s ideals, image, and way of life.
(Vampire) Culture
If “Greetings from Mary Bell Township!” was where possible conflicts against or within suburbia culture were set up, then “(Vampire) Culture,” the second act, is where those conflicts play out. This section is much more overtly violent than the previous, and Wood likens suburbia culture to something vampiric in how it drains outsiders of their own way of life in order to assimilate them into suburbia.
“(Vampire) Culture” opens with an instrumental break reminiscent of rock songs–unlike the piano and horns mainly featured in the previous, doo-wop inspired section, there are now heavy drums and electric guitar (though the other instruments still feature). Wood’s vocals are also much more guttural. The first verse of “(Vampire) Culture” begins, “I dropped my eyeballs in the bonfire, we fucked on a bed of nails,” a line which Wood said in a Genius lyrics annotation was meant to be a tone setter rather than a profound statement (Wood, 2020b). Together, all of these elements evoke something like the Satanic Panic. As Kier-La Janisse explains to Vice,
The 1970s popularized the idea that occultism was prevalent even in suburban neighbourhoods, so that made it easier for people to buy into the hysteria when it happened [in the 1980s]. […] If [parents] didn’t believe in the wider conspiracy, they at least believed in the existence of self-identified “Satanists” (usually teenagers) that were bad influences on their own kids. (Kelly, 2015)
The Satanic Panic and of the beginning “(Vampire) Culture” both seem to go directly against suburbia’s perfect, idyllic image. However, Wood has already established in this song that suburbia has a violent underside; “(Vampire) Culture” actually works to bring it to the surface. Wood uses the rock genre and Satanic Panic influences to deliberately contrast this section against the previous.
The vampire metaphor regarding suburbia culture actually begins in “Greetings from Mary Bell Township!” not “(Vampire) Culture.” In the first verse of the first section, Wood sings, “And breed out our incisors, feed on white wine and Pfizer” (in an annotation on Genius lyrics, Wood adds, “I got canines/fangs and incisors confused, and then couldn’t part with the rhyme scheme”) (Wood, 2020b). Here, he implies that suburbia denizens used to be monstrous, but now they’re “civilized” and use (socially acceptable types of) alcohol and drugs to survive instead of someone else’s (metaphorical) blood. However, in the third verse he says, “I can tell that you know where paradise is / Where parasites don’t care what your blood type is,” (Wood, 2020b) which shows that suburbia’s life-draining tendencies do still exist. In fact, the culture does not care what an outsider’s lifestyle (blood type) is; it will take it from them and force them to join suburbia (become a vampire) no matter what.
This comes into play in the chorus of “(Vampire) Culture.” There, Wood sings, “Blood, didn’t they want your blood? / So don’t apologize for being blue and cold?” (Wood, 2020b). Here, the listener is an outsider to suburbia culture–someone abnormal–who has been forced to conform. Their own culture and uniqueness have been taken away, leaving them as another cookie-cutter, “normal” member of suburbia. They are literally “blue and cold,” like a vampire, but also in the metaphorical sense, as they are now as apathetic as everyone else in suburbia. In a Genius lyrics annotation, Wood adds, “Aren’t these people the vampires who chose to hurt you in the way that made you all messed up? So fuck ‘em, don’t seek their approval or forgiveness for your dysfunction’” (Wood, 2020b). He points out that suburbia is what caused the listener’s own apathy, so therefore the listener–and any other outsider or unwilling participant in suburbia culture–should not listen to what suburbia is preaching.
This defiant stance against suburbia continues in the following verse. There, Wood sings, “Culture’s not your friend / Hey, fuck your culture, I ain’t got no culture / It’s only culture, and it’s more afraid of you than you are of it” (Wood, 2020b). “Culture’s not your friend” continues Wood’s statement from the chorus: suburbia is not something that will treat anyone outside itself kindly, no matter how nice it may present itself. He outright rejects suburbia when he says, “I ain’t got no culture;” he does have his own lifestyle and values, which would otherwise constitute as a “culture,” but he does not hold any of suburbia’s values, nor does he want to. Finally, the verse ends with Wood saying, “It’s only culture, and it’s more afraid of you than you are of it” (Wood, 2020b), a phrase used to assure someone that whatever creature they’re scared of won’t actually hurt them. This statement also ties back to suburbia’s wariness of outsiders; people in suburbia are so afraid of someone “other” than them that they’ll attempt to force that person to conform to suburbia’s culture, but they can’t do anything if no one gives them that chance.
“(Vampire) Culture” is Wood’s challenge to suburbia’s culture of perfection, assimilation, and apathy. He brings its violence into the light and points out the effect it has on anyone outside what is considered “normal.” This act is also the part of the song where he decries the culture of suburbia and encourages others to do the same.
Love Me, Normally
Since Wood clearly does not agree with the lifestyle and values of suburbia, and The Normal Album aims to scrutinize normalcy and conformity, then it would not be a bad assumption to think that “Suburbia Overture” ends with him discussing a happy life free from suburbia’s strict guidelines. This is not what he does. As Callaghan explains, “the third act reveals the repercussions of these reactions and choices [from the previous acts]” (Callaghan, n.d.), and in this final act of the song, Wood explores what happens when someone tries to be “normal” and fails.
“Love Me, Normally” shares a title (mostly) and a melody with the penultimate song of The Normal Album, “Love, Me Normally.” This is another place where Wood uses “Suburbia Overture” to set up the rest of The Normal Album. In “Love, Me Normally,” the narrator reflects on their life and wishes that they could be normal, a desire summarized in the song’s chorus:
And I’d rather be normal, yes, so normal
I suggest that we keep this informal
‘Cause a normal human being wouldn’t need
To pretend to be normal, to be normal
Well I guess that’s the least that I owe ya
To be normal in a way I couldn’t be
C’mon, c’mon, and love me normally (Wood, 2020a)
They want to be accepted–loved–without having to put on an act. However, if they live in suburbia, then they will always have to conform to that culture in order to fit in. Additionally, “Love, Me Normally” is, as stated above, the narrator reflecting on their past actions and wishing they could have been “normal” to fit in instead of trying to act against what was expected of them. “Love Me, Normally” is not only the conclusion of “Suburbia Overture” but also the prequel to “Love, Me Normally,” because it sets up the dissatisfaction that the narrator of the latter song feels.
At the start of “Love Me, Normally,” Wood sings, “Do you know the difference between blazing trails and slash-and-burn? / Going against the grain and catching splinters? / You pull out your Rorschach like a paint-by-numbers treasure map” (Wood, 2020b). According to Psychology Today, the Rorschach test is a psychological assessment of someone based on what they see in a series of inkblots (Psychology Today Staff, n.d.). By likening the test to a “paint-by-numbers treasure map,” Wood posits that the listener will not get any real insights about themself via the Rorschach; they instead answer the test in a way that will get them what they want to hear. Thus, his question in the first two lines is whether or not the listener is truly finding their own, unique lifestyle by acting outside of the norm; if they know and dislike how they are expected to act in suburbia, then they will act contrary to that, whether or not either attitude aligns with their own beliefs. The listener in “Love Me, Normally” becomes the narrator of “Love, Me Normally;” with hindsight, they realize that how they acted was not genuine, nor did it help them feel “normal.”
The verse continues, “The Lord looked down, said, ‘Hey, you’re only mortal’ / Giveth and taketh away ‘til things come out a certain way / Leave you wondering when they might go back to normal” (Wood, 2020b). In a Genius annotation, Wood explains that oftentimes, it feels as though some cosmic force–God, in this case–is forever nudging things around until everything has changed, “and all you want to do is go back to the time before the damage was done” and everything was normal. However, Wood thinks that there was never really some perfect, “normal” time–it was simply the past, “before things got hard” (Wood, 2020b). This, too, ties into the narrator’s desires in “Love, Me Normally;” they look back on their life and wish they could have been normal so that they would have fit in, but there was no such thing as “normal.” Perhaps suburbia culture is the mainstream and expected way to act, but it is only one way of living, and there are plenty of happy people outside of it (despite suburbia’s best efforts).
In “Suburbia Overture,” Wood questions what “normalcy” really is and whether one should conform to that way of living. As the first act of the song, “Greetings from Mary Bell Township!” introduces suburbia–uniform and quietly violent–as the “normal” way to live; anyone who does not conform to this culture is either shunned or forcibly assimilated. “(Vampire) Culture,” the song’s second act, both elaborates on suburbia’s inhospitality and urges listeners to not conform with its draining, apathetic culture. Finally, “Love Me, Normally,” introduces the question of if there truly is a normal way of living; the answer is no, but people nonetheless desire to fit in. “Suburbia Overture / Greetings from Mary Bell Township! / (Vampire) Culture / Love Me, Normally” says a lot of things, but its most important message–one that is echoed throughout The Normal Album–is that society’s expectations are an unhelpful guideline; one should live by their own ideals, not by what everyone around them is doing.
Works Cited
Callaghan, F. (n.d.). The Three-Act Structure: How to Write the Oldest Story (With Examples). Scribophile. https://www.scribophile.com/academy/what-is-the-three-act-structure
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2022). Overture. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/overture-music
Garniss, J., Brant, A., & Wood, W. (2020, September 8). Interview: Genre-defying artist Will Wood discusses latest album, mental health, and the challenges of livestreaming. SwitchBitch Noise. other. Retrieved April 30, 2025,.
Kelly, K. (2015, July 3). Revisiting America’s Satanic Panic: When Heavy Metal and the Devil Himself Stalked the Earth. Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/satanic-panic-interviews/
Mauer, R. J. (1951). Duck and Cover starring Bert the Turtle. Archer Productions. Retrieved May 3, 2025, from https://youtu.be/IKqXu-5jw60?si=s65LonNUkOhGmBWb.
Nicholls-Lee, D. (2024, May 22). How the American Dream came to represent both a utopia and a dystopia. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240521-how-the-american-dream-came-to-represent-both-a-utopia-and-a-dystopia
Psychology Today Staff. (n.d.). Rorschach Test. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/rorschach-test
Wood, W. (2020a, July 10). Love, Me Normally. Genius. https://genius.com/Will-wood-love-me-normally-lyrics
Wood, W. (2020b, July 10). Suburbia Overture / Greetings from Mary Bell Township! / (Vampire) Culture / Love Me, Normally. Genius Lyrics. https://genius.com/Will-wood-suburbia-overture-greetings-from-mary-bell-township-vampire-culture-love-me-normally-lyrics