The Protagonist (The Horror of Our Love)

"I'm a killer, cold and wrathful. Silent sleeper, I've been inside your bedroom. I've murdered half the town, left you love notes on their headstones. I'll fill the graveyards until I have you."

- the unnamed singer. "Oh, the horror of our love; never so much blood pulled through my veins. Oh, the horror of our love... never so much blood..."

- the unnamed singer. The unnamed, unseen Singer is the main protagonist of the 2008 song "The Horror of Our Love" by American alternative rock band LUDO. It tells the enigmatic and wildly speculative story of a man obsessed with the love of another. However, much debate exists on what the lyrics and themes of the song really mean. The singer claims to have killed many people, but many interpret this as emotional or mental instead of physical.

Interpretations
Many have speculated that the singer is not actually a criminal and instead, the violent lyrics are symbolic of his inner crisis dealing with either the neglect or death of a person he has fallen in love with. Several interpretations of the song's themes exist, including: The most common interpretation is that the singer feels there is no possible way to express how close he wants to be with his lover. He wants to share the same life, the same being, the same energy. In order to do that, he resorts to violent extremes to express his affection towards her, though it is unknown if this affection is returned.
 * The singer has been rejected by his crush;
 * He is driven into a mad frenzy where he kills her and half the town, then himself.
 * He has homicidal and lustful thoughts towards others that he does not carry out. He eventually kills himself.
 * The singer's crush/lover has died;
 * He goes mad and goes on a killing spree and then kills himself
 * He has homicidal thoughts towards others that he does not carry out. He eventually kills himself.
 * The singer and his lover are both criminals, and he is avenging her death at the hands of law enforcement or rival criminals before taking his own life and joining her.
 * The singer has a necrophiliac relation with his lover's corpse.
 * He is stalking a person and fantasizing about how their sadomasochistic love and/or sexual intercourse could play out.
 * The singer and his lover are currently involved in a violent and sadomasochistic romance and/or sexual intercourse.

What is commonly accepted among almost all interpretations is that the crush/lover is dead, presumably drowned, as stated by the lyrics "You're a ghost love, nightgown flowing, your body blue and walking along the continental shelf; you are a dream among the sharks, beautiful and terrifying, lit and restless. We dance in dark suspension." It is also wildly accepted that the singer took his own life, as stated by the lyrics "And you bury me in the ocean floor beneath you, where they'll never hear us scream...".

Vocalist/lead guitarist Andrew Volpe responded to the many theories and arguments on Facebook, writing:

" After seeing a ton of comments online about our song 'The Horror of Our Love', I was surprised at how all over the map they were and just how passionately people were arguing about it. Some people think it's about gratuitous murder, other people think it's just a love song, and still other people think it's about sex. Many people liked it, but were still creeped out by it.

And of course, there has been quite a large contingent that thinks it's about the Twilight Saga, and then they get their heads ripped off by an even larger contingent of people for even suggesting the idea.

So I decided to type up my own explication of the song, so that anyone who cared could at least know where I was coming from when I wrote it. Take it however you want. It's quite lengthy, but I think it captures what I wanted to express. I attached it below.

'''The Horror of Our Love' is not about violence or gore. Violence does not involve consent, but actually necessitates that the destruction be unwanted, while gore is a gratuitous and unceremonious exploitation of the body's component parts, particularly the insides.''

''The only reason I consider the song to be 'The HORROR of Our Love' is because death (or compromising the structural integrity of someone's body) is considered horrifying to most people. Here though, that "horror" is welcome.''

Let me explain.

''This song is about profoundly loving (or lusting after) someone so overflowingly that it devastates you. Where your physical person cannot possibly contain your emotion, but that emotion still begs for physical expression. And even still, no affection or act or word can satisfy it.''

''Climbing a mountain, crossing an ocean, building a palace - they don't do justice to the lengths to which you would go to be with that person. Kissing, touching, making love, jigsawing your parts together - none of it comes close to closing that horribly gaping divide that separates any one person from any other.''

''We are discrete entities. We are all separate beings and in that sense, ultimately alone - incapable of permanently connecting to another as long as we exist in our bodies. Of course, our emotional bonds can transcend those constraints and connect us indelibly, but any physical manifestation of that love will always be flawed. Maybe some people don't need their complete connection to be manifested physically. I do.''

''To satisfy the need to physically express that profound love, that perfect hunger, it seems as though nothing short of actually exploding into each other, alternating molecule for molecule, would suffice. You long to destroy your physical self and theirs, that in tearing down those terrible walls, you might finally cross that divide and become one - trading particle for particle as your bodies disassimilate, leaving only your melding energies.''

''In death, this seems possible, if you believe that what makes you "you" is in fact tied to your physical self. To me, it feels like the soul, what makes us human, remains in your particles, even as you disintegrate - that your individual physical bits do not, in fact, lose their meaning just because they no longer combine to form a complete "you."''

If you and your love could be dead together, if you could be buried together, wrapped around each other in the same coffin, it seems your particles could finally mix - that in death, you can finally be, after a lifetime of solitude, perfectly one with another being, forever.

''How do you express that to someone? How do you use your hands or your mouth or your body to tell them that's how close you want to be to them? You can't.''

''How do you satisfy the vicious, unbearable lust? You can't eat someone. That's demented: they will die and it's disgusting. You can't tear them open for the same reason. You can't live inside them. You can't share their bones. You can't crush yourselves into blendable pieces, because once again, you will both die, and it's sick and wrong. Besides, you need to live. You need to taste all the living world has to offer, to breathe air, to be human.''

''But still. You want their blood in your veins. And yours in theirs. You want one beating heart, one backbone, two souls, one body. Your love is desperate, but massive like the sea, unchanging as it heaves. It makes you crazy, stuffed full of energy, without any socially acceptable recourse for dealing with it.''

''So what do you do? Do you stay up all night, tearing through the woods, howling at the moon? Do you obsessively reorganize your kitchen? Do you just have sex over and over again? You will still be alone in that metaphysical sense, and though it dissipates, that wild energy inside you will always return. So what do you do?''

''I don't know. All I could do was write a song. And it brings me only up to that edge of myself, never beyond. And I always fall away when it ends.''

''Salvador Dali once said of his true love: 'I love Gala so much, if she dies, I will eat her.'  I understand feeling that intensely for someone. That inspired me to write this song. I - like you and everyone else - am alone. And it's all I can do to try and reach a little further through the veil.''

It has nothing to do with Twilight."

Villainous Merit
With all interpretations noted, the singer could very well be a villainous character depending on the themes or story interpreted. These villainous acts include, but are not limited to:
 * Mass murder. The singer claims to have "murdered half the town". It is unclear how many people "half the town" would imply, but given the general size of cities and towns, it can be assumed that this could constitute dozens of people. This could also possibly include the murder of his crush/lover, though he also claims to be "cold and wrathful", implying that he is seeking vengeance.
 * Suicide. In several interpretations, it is assumed that the singer kills himself at the end of the song to join up with his crush/lover, as implied in the line "And you bury me in the ocean floor beneath you where they'll never hear us scream..."
 * Stalking. It could also be interpreted that the crush is not aware of the singer's existence or affection, and the singer is stalking the crush and even breaking into her home. This is supported by the lines "Moonlight walking, I smell your softness; carnivorous and lusting to track you down among the pines. I want you stuffed into my mouth..." and "Silent sleeper, I've been inside your bedroom...", though the latter could imply sexual intercourse.
 * Perversion. The singer makes many references to wanting to "grind against your bones until our marrows mix" or "I want you stuffed into my mouth, hold you down and tear you open, live inside you...". Some of this could be interpreted as sadomasochistic, rape, or even necrophilia if the lover/crush truly is dead.

Personality
Through the lyrics, it can be assumed that the singer is absolutely obsessed with the subject of his love, enough to be at least willing to kill for her. He is also clearly perverted in his nature, though it is unknown if this perversion is aimed at a consensual lover or an unfortunate crush. Regardless of interpretation, it is also obvious that the singer is extremely mentally ill. He also refers to himself as "cold and wrathful".

Trivia

 * The song has gained a massive following thanks to its dark themes and ideas. That is the main reason that so many interpretations exist of the character of the singer.
 * The song has been covered many times, a popular one being by Jayn, the singer of "Smoke and Mirrors", which involved another yandare character who kills for love.
 * A short film was released in 2010 titled The Horror of Our Love, which was set to the song of the same name. In this version, the singer is portrayed as some kind of monster.