Life and Death

Life and Death
When we dance, it looks just like fire
When we sing, it sounds the same tone
We all have hearts, we all have homes
But when we die, we die alone

Oh, what a mess, as everything descends
Oh, what a mess, but everything amends

Such it was so long ago
We always tried but failed
And now with new found consciousness
We stand here waiting, waiting to die

Oh, what a mess, as everything descends
Oh, what a mess, but everything amends

One of these days, you will learn to love again
One of these days, he will learn to love again
One of these days, he will learn to love again
One of these days, he will learn to love again
One of these days, he will learn to love again
One of these days, he will learn to love again
One of these days, you will learn to love again
One of these days, he will learn to love….

When we dance, it looks just like fire
When we sing, it sounds the same tone
We all have hearts, we all have homes
But when we die, we die alone
When we die, we die…

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
The war ends. Commentary is given on the nature of war and its effect on Hunter.

What’s in a name?
‘Life and Death’ — the name of the album. This song exemplifies all the ideas the album wants to get across, principally on the nature of war. As for what these words actually mean, that’s a little more nuanced and hard to decode.

Well, first of all, war is a place of just that — life and death. It’s an environment where people have to face their ever-present mortality. Soldiers go into battle knowing they could die, and frequently with the resolve to, with survival in many cases leaving you with the question ‘Why did I live? Why did they die?’. But these ideas also tie into the overall theme of rebirth in the acts, especially Hunter’s present killing of his own identity and adoption of the life of the Son. In that way it has the kind of tenor of, ‘war changes people’, but mostly I think it’s about the mortality.

Whose viewpoint?
Omniscient.

🌲🌲🌲

>When we dance, it looks just like fire
BEAUTIFUL. This is where we first see the power of the lexicon Casey has established truly flexing its muscles. Using such simple words, it’s able to convey an extremely precise and and detailed idea with an elegance I can’t overstate.

So, we know that a ‘dance’ is something you put a lot of passion and genuine investment into, but that fundamentally conflicts with its stated goal. Ms Terri’s attempt to shelter Hunter was a dance (inherently doomed because she was still prostituting), Hunter’s attempt to pursue an untroubled relationship with Ms Leading was a dance (inherently doomed because Ms Leading was a prostitute), etc etc.

And we know that ‘fire’ represents a powerful force, born from love, that can and wishes to destroy evil. Flame is gone / Fire remains and all that.

So when you put this together, the ultimate sentiment is like, ‘we put a lot of investment into fighting in war, though we know that doing so is fundamentally a ruinous thing, with the attempted belief of doing something good and defeating evil’. Both sides of the war carry this sentiment — they fight to defend their country or uphold some kind of principle, but all war really does is bring ruin, traumatise those caught in it, disrupt societies, etc. But at least it’s ostensibly just.

>When we sing, it sounds the same tone / We all have hearts, we all have homes
Both parties involved in a war have the same sentiments behind why they fight. The soldiers involved are individuals who love their families, values, or cultures and wish to protect them.

>But when we die, we die alone
Underlining how soldiers die miserably on the battlefield, miles away from those things that they treasure, often without feeling that they did die for a cause that was worth it or felt loved by the institution they had trusted themselves to. Death is impersonal and does not care about what you treasure or what makes you you.

>Oh, what a mess, as everything descends / Oh, what a mess, but everything amends
Here’s the life and death — though war brings great destruction, it doesn’t last forever. Periods of great downturn will be followed by stabilisation, security, and dare I say prosperity, though what that stability looks like might not be what the country was before. Rebirth on the scale of nations.

As it goes for Hunter, pointing to his prospects of a happier life as the Son.

>Such it was so long ago / We always tried but failed / And now with new found consciousness
This must be Hunter speaking — really the earlier verses were probably Hunter’s takeaway from the whole war experience too. Hunter accepts that his previous attempts at happiness were failures, with his ‘new found consciousness’ being the maturation he’s been forced to have over the war as well as his new consciousness as the Son.

>We stand here waiting, waiting to die
Hunter is in an inbetween state right now, waiting to return to the City so that he can properly assume the Son’s life and kill Hunter once and for all.

Shades of ‘scream at the sky and beg, beg for a reason’ in this?

>One of these days, you will learn to love again / One of these days, he will learn to love again
Hunter’s experiences in war have destroyed his… not quite his capacity, but his faith in love. He is currently cynical and withdrawn from the principles that make Hunter who he is, but we are given assurance that Hunter will one day come to experience love as he had with Ms Terri or Ms Leading again. Rather, despite how Hunter’s turning away from it right now, love is still fundamentally what Hunter wants, hopes to find, and what powers him.

Poor Hunter. This whole experience has severely damaged him, so much that he can’t trust in the single thing he values most.

Father | Act III
Act IV | Rebirth