Secrets of Wysteria (RANT)

TW: Albert Fish, who is known for being a pedophile + cannibalistic, and rapist.

I want to start off by saying that this is my opinion, not saying you have to agree with me. Yet I feel like this song grew so popular, and as someone who’s done countless research on Albert Fish, I of course have different opinions now from when I was younger hearing this song.

I think this song is extremely disrespectful. I think there’s a way to write songs about real events and make it respectful. Yet, I don’t think this song is respectful. I think it’s actually really disgusting to the victims that Albert Fish had killed.

1. Let’s start off by saying I am disgusted by the way people treat this as a “creepy” song. I get it, it’s disturbing. I’m not saying this song needs to not be disturbing, but I am saying certain lyrics and the way it’s disturbed led to it feeling more like it was fed to the “edgy” factor. I don’t really know how to describe it, and maybe im more upset about the lyrics.

2. In the song, it shows a real depiction of actual victims Albert Fish went after. The main focus being on Grace Budd. I don’t mind this, but it felt so disrespectful seeing them write about Grace Budd in a hallway, “hiding” even though she never got the chance to hide. This wasn’t a ‘game’ to her. She died crying, fighting for her life, crying about how she’d tell her mother on him. She never hid. She couldn’t, this wasn’t a game and when I saw the lyric, ‘won’t you come and play the gray man’s game?’ It wasn’t a game. It never was. She died, and Albert himself said he killed over 100 young boys. The youngest documented was four years old.

Yet if someone said this lyric and the song was more about Albert Fish’s point of view, I’d understand that. Because he was a sadistic and a masochist, he definitely did treat this more like a game.

3. The ending of the song. This is where I feel like it was more to add a “creepy” factor. The reversed audio. That audio is disturbing, but making it reversed to sound ‘creepy’ rubs me the wrong way. Maybe they did this to have people research and listen to the audio to help bring attention to this case? I don’t know if that’s the reason but if it is, I could understand that a bit more.

4. The way the lyrics are to feed into the “creepy” factor. She didn’t just find this house. He took her there after lying + persuading her parents that she’d go to his niece’s party. She wasn’t taken in, she was left outside the house to pick flowers. He called her in, and he was naked. She was then strangled to death.

On another note, I could understand the song more if someone could explain why it’s respectful. I am glad people researched this case, and I hope anyone who did understands the importance of the victims. Maybe I’m just nit picking. I do wanna say that there is no hate to anyone who appreciates it or Steampianist. This is just my opinion! I do have different opinions on the song if it’s meant to mean something else for other reasons.