SOAD is known for making each song very different from the last, and this one is probably on their more "mainstream" side, but it's really good. For some reason, the guitar in the intro just does something emotionally to my brain that very few songs do.
Then the vocals come in, and Serj as always uses his voice to the fullest, not just sticking to one type of singing like many singers unfortunately do nowadays. He shapes his voice both dynamically and tonally to really fit each part of the song, and it really works in making a human connection to the listener.
During the verse, the guitar plays quite a simple riff, but it's incredibly heavy, and just as good as the intro. However, the energy quickly dies down again into the chorus, reflecting the feel of the lyrics.
The second time around, the band goes into an even heavier riff just before the chorus, which is just the main melody but with distortion. That's heavy as it is, but what makes it one of the heaviest riffs of all time is probably the drumming and guitar rhythm. The guitar is syncopated in just the right way to make it really really heavy, and it also leaves some breathing room every other bar, with the drums just playing an open hi-hat, giving a sort of floating sensation before the riff hits you again.
The song ends with some beautiful vocal harmony, and not just the usual singing the same melody at an interval. Rather, they sometimes drift apart slightly in the melody, making it incredibly beautiful.
Looking at the lyrics, despite SOAD sometimes making very obfuscated lyrics, I feel like this is relatively easy to decipher, but it can still mean multiple different things. I take it as being about life in general, about finding what actually makes you happy, instead of what superficially makes you happy. It could of course also be taken to be about being famous, but I think that would kind of also work together with the other interpretation, so I like to choose the most general interpretation so you can adapt it to your own life.
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