“RAWFEAR Lyrics” by twenty one pilots

RAWFEAR (stylized in all caps) is a track by twenty one pilots from their eighth studio album Breach, released September 12, 2025. It appears early in the record (track 2) and arrives inside a larger conceptual arc that the band has maintained across Blurryface, Trench, Scaled and Icy and the Clancy storyline: a blend of personal confession, allegory, and anxiety-facing narratives. Critics and fan commentary quickly framed RAWFEAR as a direct, urgent portrayal of persistent anxiety and momentum — fear as both engine and trap — which fits the album’s mood of cyclical struggle and confessional intensity.

Lyrics

[Intro]
Raw fear
Raw fear

[Chorus]
Raw fear moves me, sounds of empty Uzis
Life is just forever nipping heels, never slowing down
Raw fear moves me, sounds of empty Uzis
Life is just forever gripping feels, never slowing down

[Verse]
You know what scares me? Nah, it's stupid
You've met my fears, they're all regulars
Wait, who's the new kid?
You know what kills me? Not getting stronger
And now I can't seem to sit still any longer

[Chorus]
Raw fear moves me, sounds of empty Uzis
Life is just forever nipping heels, nevеr slowing down
Raw fear moves me, sounds of еmpty Uzis
Life is just forever gripping feels, never slowing down
(I can't seem to sit still any longer)
Raw fear moves me, sounds of empty Uzis
Life is just forever gripping feels, never slowing down

[Post-Chorus]
(Never slowing down)
(Never slowing down)
(Never, never slowing down)
(Never slowing down)
(Never, never slowing down)
(Never slowing down)
(Never, never slowing down)

[Bridge]
Learning all that really matters is a slow and painful lesson (Never slowing down, never slowing down)
It is not pass or fail, but a poisonous progression (Never slowing down, never slowing down)
Try to micro-dose to immunity but you'll never, ever get it (Never slowing down, never slowing down)
And I go, ah, ah, ah (Never slowing down)
"What's the matter?" isn't helping (Never slowing down)
You go, ooh, ooh, ooh (Never slowing down)
I wish her parents would stop yelling (Never slowing down)
I could build a tower with the times I was pretending (Never slowing down)
Try to micro-dose to immunity but I'll never see the ending (Never slowing down)
And I go, ah, ah, ah (Never slowing down)
"What's the matter?" isn't helping (Never slowing down)
You go, ooh, ooh, ooh (Never slowing down)
I wish her parents would stop yelling
You know what scares me? (Ah, ah, ah)
Nah, it's stupid
And you go, ooh, ooh, ooh
Wait, who's the new kid? (Never slowing down)
And you go, ah, ah, ah
Not getting stronger
And now I can't seem to sit still any longer

[Chorus]
Raw fear moves me, sounds of empty Uzis (Ah, ah, ah)
Life is just forever nipping heels, never slowing down
Raw fear moves me, sounds of empty Uzis (Ah, ah, ah)
Life is just forever gripping feels, never slowing down
Raw fear moves me, sounds of empty Uzis (Ah, ah, ah)
Life is just forever nipping heels, never slowing down
Raw fear moves me, sounds of empty Uzis (Ah, ah, ah)
Life is just forever gripping feels, never slowing down

Highlighted / block-quoted lines (key imagery)

“Raw fear moves me, sounds of empty Uzis”
“Life is just forever nipping heels, never slowing down”
“Try to micro-dose to immunity but you’ll never, ever get it”
“Learning all that really matters is a slow and painful lesson”

Step-by-Step Breakdown — line / phrase meanings (short, direct)

Intro

• “Raw fear” — sets the song’s central subject: unprocessed, immediate fear.

Chorus

• “Raw fear moves me” — fear as motivator: it propels action, thought, and compulsion.
• “sounds of empty Uzis” — an image of threat without effective violence; noise, adrenaline, alarm but perhaps no concrete resolution (danger that’s psychological).
• “Life is just forever nipping heels” — constant pursuit by anxiety; never catching a break.
• “never slowing down” — relentlessness; anxiety’s perpetual motion.

Verse

• “You know what scares me? Nah, it’s stupid” — minimization of fear (common coping: downplay).
• “You’ve met my fears, they’re all regulars” — fears are routine, familiar — they show up often.
• “Wait, who’s the new kid?” — new anxieties keep appearing.
• “Not getting stronger / I can’t seem to sit still any longer” — fear undermines growth; restlessness.

Post-Chorus / Repetition

• The repeated “never slowing down” is rhythmic insistence — the song sonically and lyrically mirrors the cycle.

Bridge

• “Learning all that really matters is a slow and painful lesson” — maturity and insight are gradual, uncomfortable.
• “It is not pass or fail, but a poisonous progression” — life isn’t binary; it’s corrosive when anxiety loops.
• “Try to micro-dose to immunity but you’ll never, ever get it” — attempts to blunt anxiety (small fixes) fail to produce real immunity; short-term coping doesn’t cure.
• Other lines (parents yelling, building a tower of pretending) point to interpersonal stress and the energy spent hiding.

Final Chorus / Close

• Restates that fear both moves and traps the narrator; the song ends in the same unresolved orbit — anxiety persists.

Side-by-side annotated lyric sheet (representative lines + meaning / emojis)

Song Details (compact table)

Theme — central ideas (brief)

1. Anxiety as motion: fear pushes you forward but also traps you in cycles.
2. Relentlessness: repeated phrasing (“never slowing down”) dramatizes inescapability.
3. Masking & pretence: building façades (“tower of pretending”) at personal cost.
4. Ineffectiveness of quick fixes: “micro-dose” image — small coping strategies don’t cure chronic fear.
5. Learning vs. speed: meaningful growth is slow and painful, not a quick fix.

Meaning — overall interpretation (short)

RAWFEAR presents fear as a dual force: it moves the narrator (motivates action or fight/flight) but also binds them to a perpetual state of alarm. The song argues that anxiety is not solved by surface-level remedies; it accumulates (new fears, old fears), consumes energy used for pretending, and requires slow, painful work to change. The repeated chorus leaves the listener in the same anxious orbit — intentionally unresolved.

FAQs (concise)

Q: Is “RAWFEAR” about literal violence?
A: The “empty Uzis” image is metaphorical — it evokes threat and adrenaline more than direct physical violence; the focus is psychological alarm.

Q: Does the bridge suggest medication use?
A: “Try to micro-dose” functions as shorthand for any quick coping strategy (micro-doses, distractions); the lyric says those won’t grant true immunity.

Q: Is this part of the band’s Clancy/Dema storyline?
A: Breach continues twenty one pilots’ conceptual arcs; RAWFEAR fits thematically (internal conflict, cyclical struggle) even if its images are more personal than explicitly lore-driven.

Q: What is the song’s emotional takeaway?
A: Recognition that fear is both driver and prison — and that addressing it takes slow, uncomfortable work.

Conclusion (brief + emojis)

RAWFEAR is a compact, urgent portrait of chronic anxiety: its imagery (empty Uzis, nipping heels, micro-dosing) turns inner alarm into a physical, rhythmic experience. The song refuses tidy resolution — it demonstrates how fear can both animate and erode life, and it stakes hope on slow, hard learning rather than quick remedies. 🎧⚡🐾🛑