Red Hands
Even if you never strayed from me
I’d question your fidelity
There’d always be a shroud of suspicion
And my heart’s a liability
With your hands marooned so freshly red
You’d wrap your lips around my neck
Try and forced to love the thought of me
Simple motions make me ill
Was it bitter when you tossed and turned on his under cover mattress?
Did it feel so good? Hope it felt so good
Don’t know what I’d do if you lost sleep over little old me
He’s so much better, they’re all much better
Take off your sweater, your shoes, and your shirt, and get to work
Maybe this is just a work of art
Scripted players in a play of lust
Hope the end is well worth waiting for
Everything you wished it be
Was it bitter when you tossed and turned on his under cover mattress?
Did it feel so good? Hope it felt so good
Don’t know what I’d do if you lost sleep over little old me
He’s so much better, they’re all much better
Take off your sweater, your shoes, and your shirt and get to work
Oh my god, what have I done?
Now, my darling, put your clothes back on
Oh my god, what have I done?
Now, my darling, put your clothes back on
Because you can’t be caught red handed if you’re not red handed
My darling, I would never say those words to you
I was pulling out my heart so I could pin it to my sleeve
On display for you to see I’m on display
Because you can’t be caught red handed if you’re not red handed
My darling, I would never say those words to you
I was pulling out my heart so I could pin it to my sleeve
On display for you to see I’m on display
(Oh my god, what have I done?
Now, my darling, put your clothes back on
Oh my god, what have I done?
Now, my darling, put your clothes back on
Now, my darling, put your clothes back on)
Because you can’t be caught red handed if you’re not red handed (Oh my god, what have I done?)
My darling, I would never say those words to you (Now, my darling, put your clothes back on)
I was pulling out my heart so I could pin it to my sleeve (Oh my god, what have I done?)
On display for you to see I’m on display (Now, my darling, put your clothes back on)
(Now, my darling, put your clothes back on)
(Oh my god what have I done?
Now, my darling, put your clothes back on
Now, my darling, put your clothes back on)
🌲🌲🌲
What happens?
Hunter, hurt and furious, lashes out at Ms Leading for neglecting to tell him that she’s been a whore this whole time. Though he soon realises this was rash and takes it back, Hunter feels he’s crossed a line.
What’s in a name?
‘Red Hands’ – from being caught red handed, meaning you’ve done something wrong. Hunter accuses Ms Leading of doing wrong, but then realises he is the one acting poorly. Following the theme of hands from His Hands Matched His Tongue, Red Hands is where Hunter stops acting in line with his intentions or with integrity — the way he responds to Ms Leading here is the domino that bounces him to three more acts worth of wrong decisions.
Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.
🌲🌲🌲
>0:00 – 0:12 Instrumental
Right after walking in on Ms Leading with her client, and a very awkward drive to somewhere where he and Ms Leading can speak in private (probably Hunter’s place), Hunter, still numb from hearing Ms Leading’s confession, tries to find the words to start his part of this conversation.
Gives me the vibe of a hospital ward, almost (I think it reminds me of Kettering), they’re not in a hospital of any sort of course but it has that same kind of gentle-but-precarious tone.
>0:13 – 0:28 Instrumental
The words begin to cohere, as Hunter’s energy builds…
>Even if you never strayed from me / I’d question your fidelity / There’d always be a shroud of suspicion
Aaaaaaaaaaaand oh my god Hunter you idiot.
So, Ms Leading has confessed to Hunter that yes, she’s a prostitute, but her relationship with him is genuine. But Hunter, doubtful and generally insecure, is unable to accept her at her word. He cannot imagine her possibly sleeping with other men and not either liking them more, or ultimately not being serious about him.
Which is a fair thing to think when you catch your partner cheating… the problem Hunter’s missing is that Ms Leading isn’t cheating; she is destitute and this is her job. It’s been her job the whole time. They freaking met through her job. And despite what Hunter may think, she loathes everyone else she’s met through it!
Note his tone — he’s not lamenting ‘I’m sorry, I wish it weren’t true but this is hard for me, I won’t be able to trust you again’, he’s very much accusing her already. If there was room for them to find a solution to this dilemma, Hunter has already slammed it straight closed.
>And my heart’s a liability
Alright, now’s time for some self-pity. Hunter’s such a sensitive, loving person, he simply can’t handle the pain of knowing he’s been cheated. He ‘wishes’ ‘he’ ‘could’ trust Ms Leading, and forgive Ms Leading, but the pain… It is too much… how could you…
>With your hands marooned so freshly red / You’d wrap your lips around my neck
He has the image in his mind of her returning from a client, still dirty, only to seduce him with affection and kisses the same way. The thought he’s nothing more to her than another punter, or another man she can exploit with her carnal charm, makes him feel like he’s dying. Same idea goes for him thinking about how he’s investing his honest love into her, and the response she gives back being the exact same one she freely sells to faceless nobodies.
>Try and forced to love the thought of me
Now he’s flatly doubting that Ms Leading even really cares about him at all, and only entered a relationship with him because it was an alternative to getting railed on call. You don’t like me, you like having a boyfriend, Hunter accuses.
>Simple motions make me ill
‘She moved’; those same easy, beautiful motions that transfixed Hunter back in Bitter Suite I now disgust him, because, well… he fell for it. Realising now that he fell for it, a note of bitterness rises…
(Note the air of yearning as he trails off on this line here. He’s crushed.)
>Was it bitter when you tossed and turned on his under cover mattress? / Did it feel so good? Hope it felt so good
DDDDDDDDNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOO HUNTER WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOOOOOOOOP aaaaAAAAAAAAAAUGH
Alright so we’ve graduated from ‘you cheated and I’m hurt, I can’t trust you now’ (fair enough, he didn’t express himself in the nicest way but if it’s going to bother him, it’s going to bother him) to ‘you are a whore, whore’. Struggling to comment on the wordplay here (not that it’s subtle lol) beyond the wall of second-hand cringe (and appreciation for how right the first breakup teenage pettiness here is, Hunter’s like 18 and sheltered) but.
Alright, yes, so of his options forward Hunter has chosen pettiness. The way he’s mocking and taunting Ms Leading here is probably him externalising his own fears and disarming them by belittling a malevolent version of her in these fantasy scenarios when the reality is, she doesn’t like her job and she’s confessed as much to him. He does not feel secure right now and is trying to find some control by damaging her weak points until she’s torn down worse than him. So two birds with one stone, he can mock his genuine fear that she does care more about her clients than him, while legitimately hurting her by hitting the accurate point that yes, she did feel bitter about it and no, it didn’t feel good, and yes, she knows this occupation didn’t give her what she wanted, but…!
The fact Hunter can bring up bitter as a keyword to use against Ms Leading suggests she’s confided her own struggles about how she’s come to be bitter. Bitter is kind of like Ms Leading’s equivalent of Ms Terri and her misery. That’s her word you sneak. All of this is a very low blow.
‘Tossed and turned’ -> emotional turmoil from deceiving hunter, but also the throes of wild fun sex
‘Under cover mattress’ -> undercover = her sneakiness in keeping it hidden, but also literally under the covers since it’s sex. ‘If you cared so much, you wouldn’t have done it.’
‘Did it feel so good?’ -> she’s confessed she’s not proud of it, so it doesn’t feel good, but Hunter is anxious that it’s good enough for her to choose it over him. Hunter, the last thing Ms Leading is thinking about when she’s working is if she likes the sex, she’s too busy making sure the client does. You realise this enough to accurately jab her for it.
‘Are you proud of the choices you’ve made, whore?’, in a nutshell. On this first iteration of the verse the mood is still somewhat subdued, so I imagine he’s saying it without it registering how mean he’s being, and doesn’t think these insults are actually hurting Ms Leading. He’s too busy babying his own ego to be thinking about her.
>Don’t know what I’d do if you lost sleep over little old me
Haha, you funnyman, Hunter! (Genuinely a fun line though lol)
‘Lost sleep’ continues the string of double entendre jibes; mocking the idea of Ms Leading being worried about how Hunter would take the news (which she was, for justified reason, so this stings), and of her perhaps not taking so many jobs because Hunter’s existence was an obstacle impeding her (Hunter’s actual fear, which is stupid).
>He’s so much better, they’re all much better
Hunter explicitly voices his insecurity that he’s not good enough for Ms Leading, and that she must think he’s a boring easy lay sheltered gullible idiot.
>Take off your sweater, your shoes, and your shirt, and get to work
Not much to say, just wanted to highlight it for being a fun line. Carries a kind of bitter resignation that feels like Hunter properly realising that Ms Leading does this as a job, all the time, for money.
>Maybe this is just a work of art / Scripted players in a play of lust
Now Hunter’s getting meta. Or existential? Either way now he’s starting to try and downplay the pain of the cheating by framing the whole relationship as one big joke, not serious or consequential at all, while maintaining that aloof, condescending air where he gets to decide if the emotions involved were love or lust. He’s denying now that he even loved her.
>Hope the end is well worth waiting for / Everything you wished it be
Well Ms Leading, hope you like the punchline. (Hint: the punchline is you. Hunter will rub in how badly she messed up then dump her.)
Carries a feeling of genuine questioning too. Hunter probably hasn’t thought far beyond that and is unsure of what he’ll do once he doesn’t have Ms Leading. (Going by his track record though, the answer is, ‘run to somewhere less painful’.) Same as before, he seems to be figuring whatever he goes towards next can’t be worse than this, but if he does find himself facing misfortune he’s ready to blame that on Ms Leading (he could’ve had a happy ending if she didn’t cheat).
Since these lines are also meta, I read it simultaneously as an invitation to look forward to the climax of Hunter and Ms Leading’s story overall in Act V, while hinting that this is not the ultimate end of things between Ms Leading and Hunter.
>Chorus Repetition
Having conceived that Ms Leading is to blame for the end of Hunter’s happy life, Hunter’s anger ramps up. He’s not just venting to comfort himself now; this time, he’s aiming his energy outwards to attack Ms Leading, taking her as a Jezebel who he’s justified to hurt, humiliate, and punish.
Guess I’ll note here to say, Hunter was using this relationship as a bandaid for his Dead Mom problem. More than just the pain of being cheated on (though it’s still 90% that), Ms Leading’s probably getting hit by the splashover of his earlier resentment for Ms Terri’s suicide, even if that aspect’s not conscious. In general I think Hunter (at this stage) is touchier than most would be about losing relationships, especially when the other person loves him, especially because the other person lied, and that’s part of why he jumps to these extremes so quickly when dealing with Ms Leading here. He’s terrified of losing her too, the idea of her cheating is stressing him, and Hunter being immature when he’s overwhelmed has his emotions set to ‘KNIFE’. (’happiness is a knife / when the world rolls on fire’; ‘the world burns / but still we breathe’).
Fun to have a bit of a power high, isn’t it? Hunter’s really bad at reining himself in once something bumps him into an emotional ‘flow’. He’s just not thinking.
>Repetition: Take off your sweater, your shoes, and your shirt, and get to work
…And this time, this jibe isn’t a jibe, it’s an order. As the ultimate humiliation, Hunter decides to get his revenge and put himself back in control by treating her like what she is: a whore. He throws some money at her, instructs her to strip, and fucks her.
>2:59 – 3:12 Instrumental
…Or, well, the words leave his mouth at least. Given how undramatic this passage is, and that Hunter’s able to even try taking this back, I don’t think things escalate that far before Hunter snaps out of it. (If they do, then bro, Hunter).
Rather, I think it’s more like this: Ms Leading suppresses her anguish and strips, so now Hunter has to properly… do something to turn it into sex, or has to let Ms Leading touch him so she can turn it into sex, and that’s where Hunter realises hey woah he doesn’t want this. I could also imagine that Ms Leading starts crying or is otherwise obviously distressed/not her usual bedroom self during this.
>Oh my god, what have I done? / Now, my darling, put your clothes back on
Hunter snaps out of his vengeful arrogance as the realisation of how terribly he’s hurt Ms Leading hits him. Horrified at himself, and remembering that he loves her, he guides her to get dressed so as to humanise her again, as herself, Ms Leading.
These lines repeat a lot over the rest of the song — Hunter is mortified by his actions and cannot stop thinking about it. He’s always been rather emotionally volatile, and prone to animosity since Ms Terri’s death, but this is the first time that’s ever translated into him trying (doing?) something so unambiguously wicked. This is not what a good person acts like, not how Ms Terri raised him, and moreover, not how he should treat anybody, especially his girlfriend.
Equally, narratively, this is where Hunter crosses the line into no longer being totally innocent. Hence, red hands. It won’t be until Act III that misdeeds like this start becoming routine, so were he to stop and properly address this first error, that would probably course-correct him away from a boatload of trouble. Of course, since forgiving himself for this mistake is something the Oracles advised him to do, he won’t do it. He thinks he’s screwed this relationship irreparably.
>Because you can’t be caught red handed if you’re not red handed
Because Hunter finally realises — Ms Leading wasn’t cheating!!!
Which is she’s been saying, the whole time. She wasn’t lying about the job just being a job. As it follows, others may have had her body, but she was honest when she said her heart belongs only to Hunter. The entire basis for him getting so mad at her that he’d reduce her to meat, without ever pausing to think ‘wait’, was completely unfounded.
Because let’s be clear. Ms Leading’s actions haven’t been spotless, but the thing about her confession that bothered Hunter so much wasn’t that she waited so long to divulge her occupation (the actual wrong thing that she did), it was the prospect that her love wasn’t exclusive to him, that she didn’t care, and that she only kept him around because he was too naive to know better.
What really makes this line hit as hard as it does, though, and what it represents when it’s reprised, is that aspect of empathy for Ms Leading’s situation. It’s not necessarily that Ms Leading has not done anything wrong, but more that her circumstances are such that she couldn’t have reasonably done anything different.
>My darling, I would never say those words to you / I was pulling out my heart so I could pin it to my sleeve / On display for you to see I’m on display
Hunter tries to take back all the terrible things he’s said, scrambling to find some excuse to justify the fact that he did say them. What he settles on is ‘I was trying to be open about how I felt’… which I’m sure is basically true, but there’s a difference between emotional openness and emotional incontinence. Hunter did the latter, getting completely swept up in and carried away by his feelings, to the point of doing things he regrets. Still, his ego’s still far too tender to cope with such a blow as admitting that, so he spins it like it’s some kind of positive. (It’s also more important right now for him to comfort Ms Leading than pontificate on whether he’s a good person — you can still hear him straining to convince himself of what he’s saying, though).
I suppose the last thing to say about Red Hands is that it’s the place where we see one of Hunter’s bigger but less ‘loud’ personality traits on open display — he’s really selfish. I don’t mean that to say, he’s cruel, or uncaring, or exploitative, or cold, but rather to say that he has a strong, automatic drive to consider things in terms of their effect on himself, and from there do what’s most convenient for him. I don’t think that’s an inherently negative thing (it saves his life from the Tank later), but combined with him being reactive and quite sensitive, it does make him prone to impulsively doing or saying things purely to avoid feeling hurt, which in this case manifested as him dumping that pain on someone else, to his shame. Hunter does not seem sure how he can even show his face to Ms Leading, now.
>5:43 – 6:08 Instrumental
The conversation ends, and Ms Leading, dressed again, leaves to go home alone.
空劫罰 祟りネコ | JP -> ENG / TDH 