Blood of the Rose Dance, dance your decay All the while unknowing that you’re led astray Sleep, sleep through your woe While your voice slowly withers and melts away
Sing, sing unto me The pleasure and the pain Reveal to me The reasons my love’s not in vain
Sangre, sangre de la rosa Sigue en paz sin el pasado Recé, recé por su alma Ella morirá en el battesimo del fuego
Sing, sing unto me The pleasure and the pain Reveal to me The reasons my love’s not in vain
The world burns, but still we breathe The iron chambered heart a sieve That sifts through honest elegance And suffers from the wrong defense The world burns, but still we breathe The iron chambered heart a sieve That sifts through honest elegance And suffers from the wrong defense
🌲🌲🌲
What happens? Hunter and Ms Leading’s relationship continues. Hunter comes upon Ms Leading with a client, and learns she is a prostitute.
What’s in a name? ‘Blood of the Rose’ — evocative but hard to grasp, isn’t it? The song as a whole is like that, where you can kinda feel the vibe but don’t have many landmarks to cling to. Our hint from Q&A sessions is ‘Blood of the Rose is about Act V.’; I don’t think that’s true in whole, though, which makes this song extremely hard to read.
Anyway, blood of the rose would be the blood left upon a rose when you touch its thorns. In the context of Hunter and Ms Leading, it represents something going wrong and someone getting pricked. Specifically, this would be Hunter discovering that Ms Leading is a prostitute.
Could have a double meaning in ‘the rose’ being Ms Leading, and ‘the blood of the rose’ foreshadowing her death.
Whose viewpoint? Hhhhhunter? It’s vague but it’s either him or an omniscient narrator. Maybe him as an omniscient narrator.
🌲🌲🌲
>0:00 – 0:18 Instrumental So right off this sounds like a tango, a tense and tragic song of more than just love, but romance. Things are not all well between Hunter and Ms Leading, and the friction will soon reveal itself…
>Dance, dance your decay / All the while unknowing that you’re led astray This line grounds us to Hunter — he was the one who was dancing when we last left him off, and he’s the one being misled in this relationship. Gives me the image of us looking down on Hunter smiling and retrieving Ms Leading from a session with a client, and though she smiles back and he remains oblivious to the truth of the situation, we know exactly what’s going on.
‘Love decays while call girls perform’. I can read this like, Hunter is losing his agency because he’s being fooled by Ms Leading (who obviously isn’t telling him anything about what’s going on), so he doesn’t have the ability to make informed decisions, but it’s probably more like… he’s falling deeper and deeper for Ms Leading and devoting himself more and more to her, so when the revelation comes that she’s not who he thought, it’s going to sting him much worse than it would have otherwise and lead him to react much more rashly, thoughtlessly, and impulsively than if this were somebody he weren’t serious about.
>Sleep, sleep through your woe / While your voice slowly withers and melts away Hunter is numbing himself to his grief over Ms Terri by pursuing this relationship. Simultaneously, because he’s using this chance to run from his grief instead of address it, he’s straying from his search to find answers to his history and letting himself be lost in that regard. The individual things that make Hunter Hunter are becoming subordinate to him being Ms Leading’s boyfriend, with no particular baggage.
Double entendre with sleep, since he’s literally sleeping with Ms Leading, still.
I can also read this line as referencing Ms Leading, but the song generally feels more readable when taking the subject as Hunter, so that’s how I’ll go.
>Sing, sing unto me / The pleasure and the pain / Reveal to me / The reasons my love’s not in vain ‘Sing’ has so far been used as a shorthand, or command, for the progression of the story. This sounds like Hunter, as a semi-omniscient narrator who has realised he’s being misled, asking for the story to continue so that he can understand why he had this relationship with Ms Leading. It wasn’t all a pointless nothing, was it? The purpose wasn’t simply for him to be fooled, hurt, and betrayed, was it?
>Sangre, sangre de la rosa / Sigue en paz sin el pasado / Recé, recé por su alma / Ella morirá en el battesimo del fuego (Blood, blood of the rose / Follow in peace without the past / Pray, pray for her soul / She will die in a baptism of fire)*
So the purpose of the relationship is revealed to Hunter: he’s to be hurt by this romance so that he can move to discard his whole self, setting into motion act IV. But following that, in act V, Ms Leading will be martyred and die in the fire that Hunter was destined to start — the burning of the Dime. The reason for this relationship is so that Hunter’s fate can be fulfilled and the Dime can be burned.
Ms Leading technically doesn’t die in the fire, though, but that’s splitting some hairs.
Mentally, I think the name for the event of the Dime’s burning is the ‘Baptism of Fire’.
*I don’t speak Spanish, so I don’t trust how I read this, but gave it a shot. Translation yoinked from Genius.
>Chorus Repetition – 2:16 Instrumental In this repetition, the process of the ‘pleasure and the pain’ is revealed; IE, the moment that Hunter realises Ms Leading is a prostitute occurs.
Ms Leading forgets her scarf in Hunter’s carraige while visiting today’s client, so Hunter helpfully follows her to return it. He is shocked to find her in the midst of sex with another man. The client kicks Hunter out, Ms Leading hastily finishes up, and upon her return, Hunter, struggling to process what he’s seen, asks her to explain herself with the desperate hope that she wasn’t just wilfully cheating on him.
>The world burns, but still we breathe / The iron chambered heart a sieve / That sifts through honest elegance / And suffers from the wrong defense First iteration of this verse feels broad, more connected to the overarching narrative than this one scene, and in that sense more focused on Hunter. I’m not sure how to read it though, so moving on to the second iteration, where we hear Hunter coming in and growing more angry as he puts the situation together.
With the discovery of Ms Leading’s infidelity, Hunter’s life feels like it has ended. Obviously it hasn’t actually, they’re both still fine, but after investing so much into this relationship, Hunter cannot feel anything but pain, betrayal, anger, and the loss of the happy peaceful future he could’ve had with Ms Leading.
Since both he and Ms Leading can be kind of closed-off, I’m not sure who the iron chambered heart is, but I think it’s Ms Leading… in which case Hunter is saying that Ms Leading has simultaneously been emotionally closed (she told him nothing) and way too romantically loose (she’s slept with tons of men).
‘That sifts though honest elegance’ -> Despite this discovery that Ms Leading is a prostitute, the fact that she’s beautiful and charming is genuine… which in itself is what facilitated her work as a prostitute. If she didn’t have those qualities, she wouldn’t have been all that successful. Really abstract line though, unsure.
‘And suffers from the wrong defense’ -> Ms Leading finally comes clean about her occupation, defending herself by informing that she was only sleeping with this man because it’s her job, and it’s not personal. But, unlike what Ms Leading may have hoped in Evicted, Hunter does not take this news well…
>3:30 – 3:49 Instrumental I like imagining this as them leaving the client’s house and Hunter flatly inviting Ms Leading into the carriage, for what proceeds to be a really quiet, really awkward drive home where Hunter is struggling to find the right angle to approach the upcoming conversation.
Evicted I have been evicted From a soul constricted By the flameless fire Can we all just go cold?
If you need a little cash you sell yourself To everything A dollar in exchange for failing hearts So loudly say
Oh, how I surely know that frame of mind Sleeping softly curbside Comfortably abroad on a stolen ticket None of this will last, all of this will pass When bed sheets are broken glass I know your hearts will skip a beat in empathy
If you need a little cash you sell yourself To everything A dollar in exchange for failing hearts So loudly say
Oh, how I surely know that frame of mind Sleeping softly curbside Comfortably abroad on a stolen ticket None of this will last, all of this will pass When bed sheets are broken glass I know your hearts will skip a beat in empathy
It’s just that easy, pick yourself up And go give the world a great big smile (Hey, hey, kid, hey, kid, get a job Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, kid, get a job) Wash your mouth out, ditch those morals Sleep your way right to, right to the top (Hey, hey, kid, hey, kid get a job Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, kid, get a job)
🌲🌲🌲
What happens? Ms Leading considers the difficult position she’s in — she’s found real affection for Hunter, and wishes to keep their relationship going, but fears it will collapse once he learns she’s a prostitute. She looks back on her life and resents how she’s come to be in her occupation, but also finds herself too poor and desperate to quit.
What’s in a name? ‘Evicted’, aka, ‘Forced out of your comfort zone’. Ms Leading has to adjust to the idea that maybe the world isn’t totally cold, and there could be worth in pursuing happiness in something other than the life she has now.
Whose viewpoint? Ms Leading.
🌲🌲🌲
>I have been evicted / from a soul constricted / by the flameless fire Once again we have a dramatic tonal shift as we return to Ms Leading’s gloomy world, though compared to before in The Church and The Dime, things now sound a little more melancholic than cynical. Well, Ms Leading’s life has had a significant change since then — she’s entered a relationship with somebody who loves her, and who has shown sincere care for her.
‘I have been evicted from a soul constricted by the flameless fire’. ‘Flameless fire’ is the feeling of anger and boiling contempt Ms Leading held toward the world back in the Church and the Dime, a mindset that she’s had for so long that it’s become her default approach to life. In other words you could call it her ‘home’. That she’s been evicted from it means she’s been forced to separate from it; she bemoaned in the Church and the Dime that the world is exploitative and that love has become sparse, but Hunter’s innocent affection has rattled that view.
She’s been enjoying her time with Hunter, accepts that he genuinely loves her, and knows that his investment towards her has zero ulterior motives — he seriously just likes her. That she says her soul was ‘constricted’ before her relationship with him is her confessing that the spiteful, cynical manner she regarded the world with before was making her distrustful, miserable, and hopeless. She could not see her life improving in any meaningful way from what it was. Now, despite herself, she is beginning to feel happy, hopeful, and excited at the prospect of a future with Hunter — or hell, even a current with Hunter. He just makes her happy.
‘By the flameless fire’ -> Since she’s been evicted from the flameless fire, we can figure that what she has now is a ‘fire with the flame’ or a ‘fireless flame’. Either way, there is a small but powerful light that partially severs Ms Leading from the City’s corruption, which Hunter has ignited inside her. It’s this flame driving the shift in Ms Leading’s worldview. She’s fallen in love with Hunter.
Narratively speaking, Ms Leading now ‘holds’ the flame.
>Can we all just go cold? But, though Ms Leading recognises herself invested in this relationship, she’s reluctant to surrender her caution and chance herself on this love. Things would be much easier if Hunter were the same as any other client, somebody who doesn’t really care about her, so somebody she could dismiss. She knows he’s not, and she’s glad he’s not, but she can’t help being suspicious. Her newfound warmth and love is overriding her doubts, but they linger, and it’s frustrating her to see herself change like this.
Because, after all, there’s no way this relationship can work.
I envision this verse as her in her room after a fun day out with Hunter, blanket balled in her hands, finally forced to recognise that there might be something to this relationship.
>If you need a little cash you sell yourself / To everything / A dollar in exchange for failing hearts / So loudly say Ms Leading recovers some of her usual edge as she reflects upon how she got here and what has made her so cynical.
Ms Leading views the world as mercenary in large part because she is mercenary: she’s given up any kind of principle, hope, or aspiration she had to instead entertain punters she loathes because flat-out, she really needs money. The world enabled this with corrupt actors as TP&P and the Dime’s clients, but ultimately she did decide to throw whatever other options she had away for those prostitution bucks.
Equally, she finds that love is rare because she’s in an occupation that presupposes there’s no real love. That is, to get the satisfaction of a lover without the commitment or responsibility is the appeal of a prostitute, so just as much as Ms Leading has enabled the withering of her clients’ relationships, she’s allowed herself to lose faith in love because she’s associated it so deeply with monetary transactions. If she finds love is cheap, it’s because she sold it for cheap.
We can figure that she isn’t charging Hunter for any of their bedroom liaisons.
>Oh, how I surely know that frame of mind / Sleeping softly curbside / Comfortably abroad on a stolen ticket Though Ms Leading’s reflection of her choices and circumstances sounds accusatory, she can certainly empathise with how she got there, with a glimpse into her own past.
Ms Leading was homeless, living on the street, after illegally immigrating to the country where the story takes place (USA?) aboard a ship. Though it’s unclear what her life was like in her old country, she certainly seemed to have hopes of finding something better, or maybe safer, for herself in America. It also sounds like her initial time spent homeless wasn’t as oppressive towards her as the Dime is, or was somehow familiar; it was certainly not ideal, but not enough to make her bitter.
This makes Ms Leading another character who ended one life for another, and opens the possibility of her adopting a fake name (that of the person whose ticket she stole) to use to reinvent herself in America. I’m doubtful she did, though, because we never see her focus on her identity as a major thing, but it’s neat to see her as fitting in the death/rebirth cycle of new lives, personal reinventions, etc.
But the big takeaway from all this: Ms Leading was penniless when she came to the City, with no friends or contacts or guidance to help navigate her in this new world, having left everything behind.
>None of this will last, all of this will pass This sounds like Ms Leading breaking out of her reminiscing to urge herself not to invest too much into Hunter; she is warning herself the relationship will fail as much as her new life overseas failed. She isn’t the rich cheery socialite Hunter thinks she is; she’s a bitter prostitute desperate for money, and once he realises who and what she really is, he’ll realise that she deceived him and leave her.
I can also read this as her mindset towards joining the Dime. She wasn’t massively keen to, but figured she wouldn’t be staying there long. Well, it didn’t work out like that.
I get the feeling this is an attitude she’s had towards a lot of things in general — her circumstances won’t last, so don’t get attached to them.
>When bed sheets are broken glass / I know your hearts will skip a beat in empathy Continuing from the read of her expecting herself to leave the Dime quickly — she had the rather calculating thought that one of her clients would take pity on her situation sooner or later, and love her so much that they’d get her out of there. This didn’t happen. More generally, too, she expected to receive a lot more sympathy than she did for being so poor she had to resort to this.
This is definitely a thought she had around the time she joined the Dime, but it sounds like she’s repeating it to herself in denial in reference to Hunter despite knowing this isn’t how things worked out: maybe, when the truth comes out, Hunter will be understanding…?
>It’s just that easy, pick yourself up / And go give the world a great big smile / Wash your mouth out, ditch those morals / Sleep your way right to, right to the top Aaaand there’s the moneyshot. How on earth did Ms Leading come up with such a strange, manipulative, and mercenary plan, whereby she’d get herself off the street and become independent by becoming such a compelling prostitute, everyone would fall in love with her?
The answer is that she didn’t. The Pimp came upon her, saw her vulnerable situation, and tempted her to think that prostitution would make her powerful, independent, well-loved, and rich. If she was lonely, many men would come to adore her, and if she was wanting for shelter or food, she’d have more than finances enough for that. She could absolutely succeed in the City — she just had to clean herself up, put on a good face, and be willing to manipulate men ruthlessly.
But of course, that never happened. Nobody fell in love with her, nobody pitied her, nobody really cared about her. ‘Her history is left behind’. She was only one of many interchangeable hookers. But now she was deep in it, and she wasn’t wealthy enough to change jobs. Moreover, she’d come to doubt that there was any point in trying for anything else. The world was cold and the people were ugly. Ms Leading, too, had probably let herself become rather ugly in how coldly she used people’s hearts.
As she looks back on all those amazing possibilities she thought she’d get through this work, she angrily curses herself for being so foolish, and the Pimp for being so slimy.
>(Hey, hey, kid, hey, kid, get a job Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, kid, get a job) Driving in that this was the Pimp’s pitch to hire her, knowing she was desperate for work and somewhere to go. Also note that unlike Ms Terri, Ms Leading probably met TP&P in his Pimp guise rather than his Priest guise first.
>2:56 – 3:12 Instrumental But her anger soon subsides as she clears her mind and sets to her day, having something to genuinely look forward to…
>3:13 – 3:45 Instrumental …Ms Leading feels herself becoming more determined, and more sure, that this relationship with Hunter is bringing her happiness, and that she shouldn’t cast him aside.
Smiling Swine I woke alone, put on my coat, ran for the door Down the stairs, and made it to the second floor Stopped by the squeaky wheel, a smiling swine Stunned by the sight and fearing what’s behind
“Hey there,” he pleasantly began “Good day,” he telescoped his hand “Is there a service I can possibly propose? Ms. Leading seems to me to be a proper butterfly” “Then I suggest you pack your bags and learn to drive”
Tucked in my shirt, and finally made my way outside He broke the scene, a Machiavellian dandelion Blissfully plucked from the bloom of another
But all the while She was still fresh in my mind And though this might be premature But ambition strikes just when the mood is right The mood is right
Now all the while, now all the while She is still fresh in my mind, she’s fresh in my mind And though it might sound premature But ambition strikes just when the mood is right The mood is right Oh
Now all the while, now all the while She is still stuck in my mind, she’s stuck in my mind And though it might sound premature, oh But ambition strikes me when the mood is right, the mood is right And the mood is right, the mood is right Oh
Now all the while, now all the while She is still stuck in my mind, she’s stuck in my mind And though it might sound premature But ambition strikes me when the mood is right, the mood is right And the mood is right, oh
Now all the while, now all the while She is still stuck in my mind, still stuck in my mind And though it might sound premature, oh But ambition strikes me when the mood is right, when the mood is right And the mood is right, and the mood is right
Now all the while, now all the while She is still stuck in my mind, she’s stuck in my mind And though it might sound premature, oh But ambition strikes me when the mood is right, when the mood is right And the mood is right One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight One, two, three, four One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight One, two, three, four One, two, three, four
🌲🌲🌲
What happens? Hunter wakes up in Ms Leading’s room the morning after, but Ms Leading is absent. As he goes to depart the Dime, he is intercepted by the Pimp, who offers Hunter a job as Ms Leading’s chauffeur. Understanding that this will help him remain close to Ms Leading, Hunter accepts the job and pursues a relationship with her.
What’s in a name? ‘Smiling Swine’ — this is the Pimp, who happily takes advantage of Hunter’s attachment to Ms Leading. Hunter’s head is in the clouds through this whole song, but the image of the Pimp grinning grounds us, the audience, with the reality that things are not wonderful.
Whose viewpoint? Hunter.
🌲🌲🌲
>0:00 – 0:12 Instrumental It’s the morning (day? I get the feeling Hunter slept in) after, and we’re still in Ms Leading’s room at the Dime! Daylight is shining in through the window, rousing Hunter…
>I woke alone, put on my coat, ran for the door / Down the stairs, and made it to the second floor Hunter wakes up, still in a wonderful mood after his night with Ms Leading. She’s not here, though, and Hunter runs, eager to find where she’s gone.
We get some more description of the building of the Dime — it has at least three stories, and Ms Leading’s room is on the third or higher. Pretty big place.
>Stopped by the squeaky wheel, a smiling swine / Stunned by the sight and fearing what’s behind On his way down, Hunter encounters something that takes him aback for how wrong and strange it is — a man in a pig mask, smiling. This is TP&P, wearing the mask that cloaks his identity when he is in his Pimp guise. That he’s chosen a pig for his face says he’s aware of his own greed and proud to celebrate it. He might also be literally overweight? Unsure on that.
Anyway, seeing him stuns Hunter. He is instantly put on guard, sensing that this is not a good character. Reprise of this line from 1878 works to convey what Hunter’s feeling, but also reminds that the darkness Hunter feared back then, and the antagonist of this story, is right here in front of him.
>”Hey there,” he pleasantly began / “Good day,” he telescoped his hand And there goes TP&P, being all welcoming and friendly, this time, to Hunter. Mostly wanted to isolate this line to say how much I love the verb choice of ‘telescoped’ here.
>”Is there a service I can possibly propose?” / “Ms. Leading seems to me to be a proper butterfly” The Pimp asks Hunter if he needs help with anything, since he seems lost. Hunter responds that he’s looking for Ms Leading, who he figures to be an upper-class socialite given how busy she is visiting people, and now that he has overslept and missed her, he is unsure how to find time with her again.
Interesting that the Pimp is here to intercept Hunter with the upcoming offer — it seems he knew in advance that Hunter had become so attached to Ms Leading, and also knew that Hunter hadn’t realised Ms Leading is a prostitute. I can imagine him sussing this out with good intuition just by talking to Hunter in this hallway, but I wonder if Ms Leading told the Pimp anything (or even was the one to give him the ‘hire a driver’ idea? Either way she left this guy in her room overnight) before she left for work.
>”Then I suggest you pack your bags and learn to drive” Hunter is troubled to learn of Ms Leading’s busy schedule, but the Pimp assures Hunter he can still find time to see Ms Leading — a lot of it — if he accepts a job as Ms Leading’s chauffeur. This investment works fine for the Pimp, since the quicker Ms Leading can get to an appointment, the more appointments she can have in a day.
He can probably also smell Hunter’s naivety and see that he’s easily manipulated, which appeals in TP&P’s workforce. Hey hey hey kid, hey kid, get a job.
>Tucked in my shirt, and finally made my way outside Self-explanatory, just including it to note…
>He broke the scene, a Machiavellian dandelion / Blissfully plucked from the bloom of another …that the Pimp joined Hunter and chatted with him all along the walk downstairs and out of the Dime. Whatever dialogue ensued, it seems it was enough to give Hunter an accurate read of the Pimp’s character: charming, but invasive, manipulative, and mercenary.
‘Machiavellian dandelion’ is an incredible line, wow. Physically, it gives the image of how smoothly he departs Hunter, as if whisked away on the wind. Symbolically, it’s a great description of what he is to Hunter: a fanciful but pernicious weed, shoving himself in Hunter’s life because of his relationship with Ms Leading.
Either way, there’s definitely reason to doubt any job offered by this man, and Hunter does pause to consider before…
>But all the while / She was still fresh in my mind / And though this might be premature / But ambition strikes just when the mood is right / The mood is right …nope nevermind, he doesn’t do that at all actually. Hunter’s infatuation with Ms Leading, and desire to be with her more, pushes whatever wariness he had aside and he signs up for the job immediately.
This happy chorus repeats incessantly — both showing how fixated Hunter is on Ms Leading, but also works as a kind of montage of him going through all these steps to get hired and transition into a life as Ms Leading’s driver. Accepting the job, getting his license, his first day of work, his first paycheck, getting his own place, going official with Ms Leading, dating, falling into the routine of it, etc etc etc, all the while overjoyed that he gets to spend this time with Ms Leading. He’s deeply in love with her.
>2:19 – 3:05 Instrumental Man, listen to him floating on cloud nine. This might be him reuniting with Ms Leading as her driver, and/or them deciding to make themselves official (and/or another night together)?
>One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… Hunter’s dancing, now! Though he’s putting a lot into it, being genuine, and enjoying himself, this is our reminder that Hunter’s efforts amount to a futile performance that inherently conflicts with its stated goal. That is, we know that Ms Leading is a prostitute, and Hunter is facilitating her work as a prostitute, while Hunter doesn’t, and there’s going to be inevitable problems with this happy life as Ms Leading’s lover once the reality of her job comes to the fore.
At some point over these repetitions, Hunter and Ms Leading properly become boyfriend and girlfriend, with Hunter under the impression that he’s Ms Leading’s single dedicated partner.
The Bitter Suite III: Embrace Darkness, hesitation I fell into her arms Breathe in, this is amazing Breathe out, this is amazing She removed her clothes, and all of the world shined Now that we’re alone, all of the world shines
First hot breath, then cold hands Intrusion, but aware The fire inside was all light, and she bloomed And I never knew life could ever be this good The distant sighs, the clothes on the floor The bedding a mess, she sings for more
We fall beneath the sea in the back of our hearts And fail to breathe until we resurface again
She had the summer’s smile with winter’s skin And all along, with words beyond me, she welcomed me in
We fall beneath the sea in the back of our hearts And fail to breathe until we resurface We fall beneath the sea in the back of our hearts And fail to breathe until we resurface again
🌲🌲🌲
What happens? In Ms Leading’s room at the Dime, Hunter and Ms Leading have sex. Being Hunter’s first time, the experience leaves him euphoric, and he falls in love with Ms Leading.
What’s in a name? It’s some intense cuddles.
Whose viewpoint? Hunter.
🌲🌲🌲
>Darkness, hesitation / I fell into her arms Most of the lyrics here are pretty self explanatory about what’s going on, to the point that trying to un-lyric them into a flat description of what’s happening makes this intimate moment turn into some raunchy plain ol’ coitus (my voice here doesn’t help), but. I continue.
Hunter and Ms Leading are in Ms Leading’s room now, the lights low. Ms Leading has guided Hunter to tumble upon the bed, where they are now, with Hunter over her. He’s hesitating, but…
>Breathe in, this is amazing / Breathe out, this is amazing ‘Breathe in / Breathe out’ has been established as a sex motif; here I read it as Hunter’s strokes literally in and out, very even and slow. Hunter’s still discovering what this sex business is all about but so far it’s incredible, presently casting out all the doom and gloom Hunter’s been dealing with up to meeting Ms Leading.
>She removed her clothes, and all of the world shined / Now that we’re alone, all of the world shines Hunter recounts how he came to be in this situation: Ms Leading removed her clothes! Gosh. Hunter was not expecting it, but he’s happy she did. Very happy. Maybe overselling how much of a momentous thing this was, type of happy.
You get a sense of how innocent Hunter is by his reverence for this first experience of sex. He’s especially glad to be having it with this nice lady, Ms Leading, specifically.
>First hot breath, then cold hands Hot breath from Ms Leading’s summer smile, cold hands from her winter skin, both on Hunter’s body. The rhythm here picks up a bit, and Hunter sounds more confident in how to proceed with what’s going on.
>Intrusion, but aware He goes inside her. You think this could be uncomfortable, or objectionable, but she’s happy with it and welcomes it, turning this into an intimate thing. She’ll let him intrude, like this…!
>The fire inside was all light, and she bloomed ‘Magnify and maximise your inner fire’. I guess the Pimp wasn’t lying for once. Well, being fair, Hunter’s been marked with ‘the fire’ since birth, and it happens that Ms Leading works to ignite that fire into its brightest form: a euphoric, happy fire that is not damaging, but nourished as a beacon of love. Kind of a hokey way to phrase that, but fundamentally this is a ‘bright’ or ‘light’, happy form of the Fire. That it’s being invoked here is our reminder that the core of Hunter’s character was/is founded on love, the selfless love of Ms Terri, and convey that Hunter is approaching Ms Leading with that kind of familiar love.
In response to this warmth emanating from Hunter, Ms Leading ‘blooms’ — you can question how accurate of a narrator Hunter is right here, and how reliable Ms Leading’s actions in the bedroom are as a marker of her real feelings, but I think there is some sincerity in Ms Leading’s reaction to Hunter’s approach.
>The bedding a mess, she sings for more The pair have been going at it and move to ramp it up further. “More, more, more, more!” goes Ms Leading… not sure I’d call that singing, but however you want to say it went, Hunter. She’s encouraging him (as a good prostitute might), and he obliges.
>We fall beneath the sea in the back of our hearts / And fail to breathe until we resurface again Interesting lines. Basically, conveying that the sex that happens here isn’t aggressive or exploitative in the way Ms Leading is used to, but carries them both in such a great tide, that they collaboratively become immersed in the intimacy of the act. Proper love-making, as it were. The boundaries between them disappear for a moment, and in that moment they’re one, drowning in genuine love.
Rather, the genuine love’s coming from Hunter’s end, and Ms Leading’s riding and getting to feel it. (Though in turn, I can imagine her responding to a feeling of genuine love with genuine love of her own, since she seems to value love and sees it to be rare. This is also the kind of experience she needs to be selling to her clients, and having Hunter match her wavelength probably catches her off-guard). When they ‘resurface’ (separate back into awareness as their individual selves), she’s left with a flicker of that love still within her chest. Hunter for his part is full-on ‘iloveheriloveheriloveheriloveher’.
>And all along, with words beyond me, she welcomed me in Hunter still doesn’t really know what Ms Leading was trying to communicate to him, but this time is voicing his appreciation that Ms Leading trusted him to love her in this intimate way, which renders the miscommunication irrelevant.
>5:55 – 6:39 Instrumental Not as sweet, still pretty gentle.
>6:40 – 7:46 Instrumental Higher energy. Bit with the ‘ooo’s sounds almost prophetic but lol basically for all these verses I’m struggling to envision any specific actions. Hunter falls asleep and Ms Leading leaves the room sometime after they’re done with their business here.
The Bitter Suite I & II: Meeting Ms. Leading/Through The Dime She had the summer’s smile with winter’s skin; she moved A silhouette to serenade the soul She spoke with words beyond me and slowly I pulled away To receive a gesture implying an answer I didn’t have So I then smiled, responding, alarming “Yes”
Her hands were the first that I’d ever felt; she breathed Her lips hid her tongue from the world; she danced To the doors, endearing, she carried me “What’s your name?”; conceding, “Ms. Leading” She kindly suggests to her room To rest my head, so I responded, unalarming
Where’s her heart, where’s her heart? Mimicking the matriarch He’s naive; blissfully Ignorant and trusting but
Where’s her heart, where’s her heart? Mimicking the matriarch He’s naive; blissfully Ignorant and trusting but now
[Part II: Through the Dime]
Gentlemen: Presenting the very lovely ladies of the Dime
(Step right in!) Let her hips guide your desire (Hey, kid, get a job, hey hey hey hey, kid, get a job) (They have ways!) To satisfy, to satisfy what you require (Touch, taste, feel, two times, the Dime)
But the perks are more than price And the guarantee is clean (“They’re all clean!”) (We know what the men all want) And they know it isn’t free
Her history is left behind The ignorance has room to breathe They play a part and act a scene The prejudice, the guilty
(Take a chair!) You’re not alone, the bed’s your home tonight (Hey, kid, hey kid get a job, hey hey hey hey, kid, get a job) (Wait right there!) We’ll magnify and maximize your inner fire (Touch, taste, feel, two times, the Dime)
‘Cause if you boys are nice The ladies here are clean (“They’re all clean!”) (We know what the men all want) And they know it isn’t free
Her history is left behind The ignorance has room to breathe They play a part and act a scene The prejudice, the guilty
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What happens? Hunter encounters Ms Leading in the City, is lovestruck, and accidentally agrees to sleep with her. She guides him through the Dime to her room upstairs, passing by while the Pimp downstairs gives his sales pitch.
What’s in a name? ‘The Bitter Suite I & II: Meeting Ms. Leading/Through The Dime’. Two songs for the price of one, all in one suite! The song names are pretty self-explanatory, so let’s focus on ‘the bitter suite’.
A suite is a collection of musical movements that together form a single composition; narratively, all the bitter suite pieces are connected in concept, and the name of this collection is the ‘Bitter’ suite.
It’s a play on ‘bittersweet’, which likely originates from the Dear Ms. Leading demo song Satisfaction ‘The feeling of bliss is welcomed when I’m weak / Yet bliss is bitter sweet / Until you can find someone who understands / The weakness that you feel’. Not sure how much of that carried to the acts, but the bitter suites collectively are pivotal moments where people are feeling very weak, but find hope or happiness though deceptions offered to them (by TP&P and his institutions, specifically). It’s sweet because it feels like a perfect solution, it’s bitter because it’s actually not. (You could probably take ‘bitter’ as a shorthand for the idea of ‘betrayed by lies’?)
A bitter ‘suite’, with ‘suite’ being read as the room where events are occurring (so the Dime, Ms Leading’s room, etc). A lot of exploitation happens in these settings, so it’s fair to characterise the doings here as bitter, with the Bitter Suite songs providing the most archetypal example of why.
Whose viewpoint? We’re back to Hunter.
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>0:00 – 0:05 Instrumental AGUHGUHGUHGUHG OOO AGUHHH OOO OOO PRETTY LADY!! Hunter notices Ms Leading in the square, and is simultaneously dumbstruck and entranced by her beauty.
>She had the summer’s smile with winter’s skin; she moved / A silhouette to serenade the soul Lovely sibilance here. Ms Leading notices Hunter staring at her, smiles, and approaches him. Hunter is still completely gaga, unable to focus on anything except all the ways that she’s beautiful. Already we’re seeing some echoes back to Ms Terri — Ms Leading has the summer’s smile, Ms Terri was the sun (’where is the sun?’).
>She spoke with words beyond me and slowly I pulled away Ms Leading flirts with Hunter, supposing him an interested client, but being ignorant of prostitution or of relationships in general, he doesn’t understand what she’s doing. This catches him off-guard and makes him a little uneasy. That he pulls away implies he moved toward her, too — I like to go so far as to think he reached to touch her, and her flirting sparked from this.
>To receive a gesture implying an answer I didn’t have Seeing Hunter’s hesitation, Ms Leading directly but discreetly signs Hunter if he’d like to sleep with her. She’s looking at him expectantly, but Hunter has absolutely no clue what the question is, and so doesn’t know how to answer it.
>So I then smiled, responding, alarming / “Yes” That doesn’t stop Hunter from going along with whatever this pretty lady is offering, though! To his slight alarm, after a long pause, his affection pushes aside his unease and he finds himself wanting her guidance.
>Her hands were the first that I’d ever felt; she breathed Ms Leading takes Hunter by the hand to lead him along to the Dime. Hunter has never been in a relationship before, and is too busy considering the softness of her hands and being enchanted by her breathing to think about where she’s taking him, exactly. (After Ms Terri’s death, for Hunter to see someone who reminds him of her this much being alive and breathing probably feels a bit dreamlike/’is this real? This is real!’, to the point of being notable.)
>Her lips hid her tongue from the world; she danced / To the doors, endearing, she carried me ‘Her lips hid her tongue from the world’ -> Hunter’s thinking about her mouth now, for one, and probably about kissing or something, but more significant is this reference to tongues. It’s saying generally that the persona Ms Leading presents doesn’t match her actual thoughts or intentions, but from Hunter’s view the tenor is more ‘this beautiful woman has secrets, and I want to hear them all’. Like with Ms Terri.
‘She danced to the doors’ -> Ms Leading gracefully turns to present the double-doors of the Dime. As with in Inquiry, this is a dance — an invitation she’s giving with much performance and passion, but that is ultimately an act. Again, she’s mirroring Ms Terri, unwittingly endearing Hunter to her massively.
‘She carried me’ -> Ms Leading’s the one guiding Hunter into what’s happening. He’s clueless, but he’s comfortable letting it happen as he feels she’s acting in his interest. A third mirror to Ms Terri.
The takeaway from these lines is that Ms Leading reminds Hunter of Ms Terri, in her mannerisms, her beauty, and in how she’s interacting with him. Missing his mother, Hunter is weak to this and melts for Ms Leading without a second thought, glomming onto her.
>”What’s your name?”; conceding, “Ms. Leading” As they stand outside the Dime, Hunter, eager to know more about this wonderful person, asks Ms Leading for her name. Ms Leading is reluctant to divulge this, and doesn’t seem entirely used to hearing that question, but concedes. And her name… is misleading.
Well, correct. That is what she’s doing and who she is, right now, to Hunter. She’s not being nice out of the goodness of her heart, she’s doing it to make some money. In general, she’s not really nice so much as practical, and her sunny attitude is definitely not a reflection of the coldness underneath.
(Like with Ms Terri and mystery, ‘mislead’ is our keyword to know when vaguer songs are about Ms Leading).
>She kindly suggests to her room / To rest my head, so I responded, unalarming / Yes Ms Leading once again discreetly but directly invites Hunter to proceed for some bedtime. Hunter, having never learnt this math, fails to put the 2 + 2 together that she does not literally mean he looks tired after his journey and could use a place to sleep, but that this is a brothel and he’s saying “yes” to sex. Completely heedless, and feeling like a nap is a good idea, he agrees.
The long pause between these lines is pretty funny — you can hear the gears in Hunter’s head trying, and failing, to understand what’s happening. Not sure if it’s Hunter appending the reason to why she’d invite him to her room, or Ms Leading supplying a reason after a period of his confused silence, but if it’s the latter I’d have to figure she’s realised Hunter doesn’t entirely know what’s going on, but is proceeding since that’s the routine and what the hell, he’s going for it. (They’re about to walk through the damn brothel too though, which you’d think would be explanation in itself…)
>Where’s her heart, where’s her heart? / Mimicking the matriarch Really strong lines. This is an omniscient narrator busting in on the scene, or given how pained it sounds, a retrospective comment on this pivotal moment by future Hunter. Kind of breaks one of my assumptions in reading to say that, but I like hearing it that way.
Ms Leading isn’t invested in what’s happening here — she’s just a professional putting on the charm with a client, same as Ms Terri. ‘But she plays fake affection, and carefully lacks objection / To her gentleman caller’s twisted desires’. There might be a literal element here, if Ms Leading and Ms Terri were ever both working at the Dime at the same time, in that she could be consciously learning from Ms Terri’s technique, but that feels like a bit weird to consider. (like, imagine the future conversations, ‘yeah, I did know your mom…’). Either way, Hunter responds to this mimicry as if it came from Ms Terri.
>He’s naive; blissfully / Ignorant and trusting but Explicitly, Hunter has no clue what’s going on here. He’s too innocent to know what a brothel is, what a prostitute is, why Ms Leading would have invited him to her room apart from for a literal nap, so on and so on. He’s just happy to have met someone so kind and so like his mother, who he completely trusts within two minutes of meeting.
>Ignorant and trusting but now Foreshadowing that Hunter will come not to trust Ms Leading.
>3:19 – 3:35 Instrumental Ms Leading and Hunter enter the Dime, where girls, patrons, and TP&P are collected on the main floor. This marks the second part of the suite, ‘Through the Dime’, recounting what Hunter sees and hears as Ms Leading guides him across the main floor to the stairway up to her room. Hunter doesn’t break away to consider anything in detail, though, so these are just passing snippets of confusing ambiance for him. We probably stick around on the main floor longer than Hunter does, to hear the whole of TP&P’s speech.
Also an illustration of what the Dime’s main floor looks like: I envision a lot of patrons, a wooden interior, a stage, a bar, smoke wafting around, a generally upbeat but scuzzy atmosphere…
>Gentlemen: Presenting the very lovely ladies of the Dime TP&P speaks here with the girls performing, giving his sales pitch to the collected patrons. Not too much to dig into with most of this, though it’s an incredibly cool scene.
Since this is also like our formal introduction to the Dime itself, might as well question what’s up with that name. Why the Dime? Well firstly it sounds cool, but it’s also in-character to TP&P. TP&P is motivated by money and greed; how fitting that he’d call his establishment after what he loves most. Love of money is the root of the evil.
It also makes me think of the phrase ‘nickel and dime’, to suggest that TP&P wants to wrench every penny he can from his customers, and work his employees for all that they’re worth, but in the opposite direction gives the implication that the product here is kind of cheap? Not sure if that works in a literal sense of the Dime’s prices, but metaphorically life and dignity are pretty cheap at the Dime.
There’s another element here — referenced several times, (’There was a silver circle sign / And she was standing at the door / We pressed our way right through the crowd’) the symbol of the Dime is a ‘silver circle’. Right, that is visually what a dime looks like. But that description is also what that (drumroll) PESKY MOON looks like.
I don’t know if there’s an intentional moon-dime connection here, but I can read that as the Dime being a place where the real self fades and fake personae (particularly self-injurious ones) become prominent, which would be extremely true of the workers here. So the implied name of the Dime: ‘where you lose your self’.
>(Step right in!) Let her hips guide your desire Alright so off the bat the stuff going on in the lobby is explicit. Ladies moving provocatively, the whole shindig. That Hunter didn’t realise there was something going on here is beyond dense, but he’s lovedumb and sheltered, we’ll forgive him.
‘Step right in’ — there’s TP&P being very welcoming, forcefully welcoming, as always.
>(Hey, kid, get a job, hey hey hey hey, kid, get a job) And he’s hiring! What a good suggestion. Could always use some cash. (Sounds like business is booming, too, and TP&P is looking to expand his little empire).
>(They have ways!) To satisfy, to satisfy what you require You’re aching for something, right? There’s something you need that’s missing, right? Whatever you’re deprived of, no worries, let our pretty nurses do their stuff…
>(Touch, taste, feel, two times, the Dime) A reprise that formerly described how awful and degrading the Dime was — now it’s a cheeky advertisement. Indulge in these pleasures… they’re so good, one taste and you’ll always come back!
>But the perks are more than price / And the guarantee is clean / (“They’re all clean!”) Yeesh, but this place is kinda expensive! Of course, of course, but that’s just the guarantee of high-quality, trustworthy product in a high-quality, trustworthy establishment. Even in his Pimp guise, TP&P is invested in keeping the reputation of his business high, to inspire confidence in his customers while simultaneously having more reason to charge them greater prices. Important for keeping on the good side of the authorities, too, I’d imagine. (There were laws against the trafficking of persons into America for use in brothels, but no legislation forbidding brothels themselves at this time — doesn’t mean that local govts enjoyed being known as whore hotspots).
Also, raise your hand if you’re buying what TP&P is selling about the ladies all being clean. I’m not. Certainly makes the place feel like a smorgasbord, to imagine that they are, though. (You can feel the uproarious “WOOOO!” and raised glasses after the pronouncement that YEAH THEY’RE ALL CLEAN!!!)
TP&P’s little ‘conning’ theme plays through this verse — the crowd is excited, energised by his every promise.
>Her history is left behind / The ignorance has room to breathe / They play a part and act a scene The individual personhood of the workers disappears in the Dime, and the clients regard them as nothing but props to use for their fun. The elements that may lead a person to hesitate before buying a room — perhaps knowing how the girl came to work in the Dime, who her family were, or her old likes or dislikes or goals — are gone, facilitating more business.
In line with the moon idea, the workers are forced to assume fake personae and lie every minute they’re in the Dime. TP&P knows full well the psychological effect this loss of self has on the girls, and how empty are the falsehoods he sells to the customers — and encourages it.
>The prejudice, the guilty TP&P’s judgemental side slips out here. For this equation where people are willing to mistreat each other to work out in such a profitable way, there has to be an element of disregard for the personhood of the other — that is, a feeling of prejudice or moral justification for mistreatment toward an inferior. ‘She’s a whore who signed up for this, so what does it matter anyway,’ kind of mentality. I think TP&P is indicating both parties as guilty, though. ‘He’s a brute who chose to come here, so why should I give a shit?’
>(Take a chair!) You’re not alone, the bed’s your home tonight He’s already addressed that you should totally pay for a girl because it’ll feel good, and disarmed the risk of illness, now he’s pressing on the angle of belonging and loneliness. You have plenty of friends right here, and a special companion for the night…
>(Wait right there!) We’ll magnify and maximize your inner fire Feeling cold or empty? No worries, we’ll light that hearth inside of you. The use of ‘fire’ anywhere in the acts draws attention, but here’s it’s probably pretty straightforward. The Dime will ignite you with blazing, obsessive, violent passion, lingering after a warm loving encounter. Guys, it is really good sex.
>’Cause if you boys are nice / The ladies here are clean Man TP&P is charismatic. As front of house, he’s great at corralling the patrons and getting a sense of fraternity going to just make it an appealing hangout spot, before even getting the girls in the picture. Because come now, we all know that the boys haven’t been nice, and we know you don’t mind that as long as you get your cash. Very funny joke, Pimp. Those girls are not clean.
Gotta keep those appearances going, huh.
Main floor’s having a wild fun time right now, what a character.
The Church and The Dime She prayed to the man with the twin in the mask But the world is numb and cold And the boy all alone casually wandering home Unaware of sobering reality
Faster, save me, harder, I can’t
Breathe in, breathe out Let them all fold, let them all fold Breathe in, breathe out Let them all fold, let them all fold
Hearts finish here, love decays while call girls perform He waits alone, playing roles to suit lovers flue
The lust and the sighs, the church and the dime The cryptic clientele all careening inside The puzzling façade steers pure from the divine
Breathe in, breathe out Let them all fold, let them all fold Breathe in, breathe out Let them all fold, let them all fold Yeah
Many wishes of hunger were wronged By the pimp and priest’s thirst for a fault All the anger from a lover’s lament Force fed in the stomach of sin Welcome to the world
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What happens? We’re introduced to our second main character, Ms Leading, who gives us a stark view of the City. Like Ms Terri, she is a prostitute employed at the Dime, and her disgust for how it degrades the warmth of the world has made her view life cynically.
What’s in a name? ‘The Church & The Dime’ — it’s what it says on the tin, pretty much. Ms Leading gives her thoughts on how these institutions, and their wicked owner, have corrupted the City.
Whose viewpoint? Ms Leading. “Wait, not Hunter?” I feel some people questioning — this is one of those songs where most readings I’ve seen of it reads this as Hunter, but I’m sceptical about that, and find it makes a lot more sense if you read it as Ms Leading.
My rationale:
The narrator of this song is far more personally bitter towards the City than Hunter, and aware of its shady practises, even though he has only just got off the train and sounded to be pretty okay with the City so far as of the end of Oracles, then is happy as of Bitter Suite I. The tonal shift of this song is very severe.
The narrator of this song knows what a prostitute is, and the effect prostitution can have on relationships, while Hunter is so ignorant you can walk him through a brothel and he still won’t understand that he’s bedding a hooker.
The narrator of this song knows that the Priest is also the Pimp, while Hunter is deceived by the Pimp in his Priest guise in act IV.
Themes established in this song are raised again in Evicted, which is confirmed to be from Ms Leading’s viewpoint — particularly the world being ‘cold’ and a focus on the degradation of love to hookers.
The Faster / Save me reprise and breathing motif are illustrations of the same thing they were in The Pimp & The Priest. Back then, it was to show Ms Terri hooking — here, it’s to show Ms Leading. How do we get to see that unless we’re following her?
It’s also thematically/structurally nice for us to get a view of what such an important character is like, as we have with TP&P and Ms Terri, before showing how they interact with Hunter.
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>0:00 – 0:23 Instrumental WOOOOOOW what a transition out of Oracles on Delphi! Exact same passage as we left off on there, only now it’s much angrier and bitter. Because we’re in the exact same moment and place, but have swapped heads into the viewpoint of someone much angrier and more bitter than Hunter in this moment — Ms Leading.
I imagine this transition as them both passing by the main square of the City (neither noticing the other yet), with one of them on one side of the square going in one direction, and the other going the opposite way, and the camera breaks off Hunter’s half-lost wandering to lock onto and follow Ms Leading, who strides with purpose.
>She prayed to the man with the twin in the mask Much calmer and more sombre now. Ms Leading is in the church, which is finishing up its proceedings, well aware of the true nature of the Priest. If she knows the priest is corrupt, why go through the formality of attending church or praying?
>But the world is numb and cold Perhaps it’s to try and feel something, anything, of the world’s essential goodness besides the Priest’s individual deviancy. But that doesn’t work, and no flash of warmth, strength, or inspiration comes to Ms Leading from attending these rituals. That being so, seeing the congregation pray so fervently to this conman is likely cause to regard the world as even emptier than it already feels. Everything is cold.
Ms Leading is jaded. You can hear the gloomy tenor in her voice and see through her eyes with a kind of washed-out low-contrast filter. She does not view the world as a good place, but rather a place where people are perpetually in some cycle of exploiting others or being exploited. The exploiters always win and whatever avenues look hopeful to escape them are traps. In her mind, people generally just don’t care, can’t be trusted, will believe what they like, and will use you.
Unlike Ms Terri, Ms Leading is probably more inclined to be an atheist in the sense of not believing God exists, or that if He does, it’s not in any manner that humans can meaningfully interact with. Her concern, and character, is more focused with the fidelity of individual relationships and people than the personal ramifications of spiritual good or evil. So before she’d worry to think about if her actions are right, (not to say she doesn’t care about that kind of thing, she just has less hangups about it), she’d worry about finding at least one person she could trust.
These two lines can also be saying more generally that she trusted TP&P, but she didn’t benefit from him in any fulfilling way.
I envision this line as her pausing to stand outside the church, over the street, watching people going about their day, and feeling that it’s all fake or empty.
>And the boy all alone casually wandering home Meanwhile, Hunter is still wandering around the City. Ms Leading can’t know that this is his ‘home’, so this is omniscient knowledge slipping in, but I can envision her spotting him here and discerning just from how lost he looks/how he’s still ‘exploring’ the place that he doesn’t have any friends or company with him. On one hand this is sad, on the other he may be a good mark.
>Unaware of sobering reality From omniscient viewpoint, it’s saying that Hunter is ignorant to what’s going on in the City and how badly the things he’ll uncover here will affect him.
Reading it from Ms Leading’s viewpoint, it’s basically the same thing but a little more meaningful. The way the Hunter is innocently wandering around the City strikes Ms Leading with a kind of… not contempt, but clearly this is not someone experienced with navigating the reality of the world, which she’s familiar with. Again, this seems to strike Ms Leading as sad, but only vaguely so. Another grain of grist for the mill…
>Faster, save me, harder, I can’t Leaving Hunter aside for now, Ms Leading returns to her work at the Dime. This is the sobering reality — the wicked, tempestuous cycle of the Church and the Dime, where everyone involved is a pawn (and the girls especially get a bad straw). As we’ve seen with Ms Terri, it’s enough to wear even the strongest and most purehearted individuals down, break them, smother them, and in the end…
>Breathe in, breathe out …NO! Ms Leading will not allow herself to suffocate and shatter before this cruel world. Unlike Ms Terri, who felt herself completely ripped down by the Dime, Ms Leading has found a perspective that almost seems to give her strength, and power…
>Let them all fold, let them all fold …and its name is, total contempt! If these people will be corrupted, then so be it, let them be corrupted! Ms Terri begged her clients to treat her nicely — Ms Leading has no such expectation or demand, and instead lets her clients’ behaviour validate her perspective of them as human garbage, and the world itself as wicked. Understanding this seething vengeance as what Ms Leading’s really thinking when meeting her clients, all while she wears her summer smile and tends to them so sweetly, drives home how Hunter (naivety aside, and many others I imagine) got misled.
We’ll see the motif of folding, in the sense of a poker game, appear again through the acts — I read it as shorthand for people giving up any attempt of fighting TP&P or evil/corruption in general. The second they reach Ms Leading’s bedroom, certainly, most would become complicit…
>Hearts finish here, love decays while call girls perform Buttoning herself back up after a session with a client, Ms Leading gets up to depart the bedroom. As she does, she considers the nature of her work and its wider implications.
Ms Leading feels that prostitution cheapens love. People will fool themselves into thinking an easy relationship with a prostitute is the same thing as committed love, when for Ms Leading it’s just a job with people to whom she has no attachment, and who don’t really know or have any meaningful attachment to her. Simultaneously, people will betray the real relationships they have with partners or suitors for the secretive relief of indulging themselves on a proficient hooker. Everyone involved is using each other, yet some delusion persists that a lay substitutes for love? If the client doesn’t simply devolve into preferring women as sex dolls, they’ll fool themselves into thinking that the lust they feel truly is love.
Ms Leading, we can figure, has never felt genuine love from or for anyone she has bedded during her time at the Dime, and this grates at her. She is starved for it.
>He waits alone, playing roles to suit lovers flue Tricky. I’d assume the ‘he’ is TP&P, and Ms Leading sights him while she makes her way downstairs at the Dime. If so, she has a couple interesting observations of him.
For one, she zeroes in on him being alone, which is a weird frame to regard TP&P through, though it’s true. He doesn’t have anyone intimate or special to him, and doesn’t involve himself in groups except to prey on them from a distant position of superiority. Combined with the ‘buh-buh-buh’, I get the image of TP&P chatting up some patrons all friendly and jovial-like, but Ms Leading sees through this and knows the charm is totally fake, and what’s underneath is cold. Hence, seeing him act like that makes her regard his life as empty, too. (That she’d care to think this of TP&P of all people is really giving the feeling that Ms Leading is very, very lonely (and very, very cynical).)
‘Playing roles to suit lovers flue’ -> TP&P will adapt himself and say whatever it is his conversation partner wants to hear, provided it justifies them to patronise the Dime. The Pimp’s job when he’s front of house is disarming whatever scruples a john may have about sleeping with a prostitute. It’ll be fun, nobody will know, we’re a trustworthy establishment, plenty of people do it, it’s healthy for you, just once won’t hurt, these ladies are incredible, your wife sounds like a shrew. Whatever pitch works.
Flue is an interesting word choice — the opening through which smoke escapes from a hearth. I read that as TP&P is either stoking patrons into resentment against their existing partners (fire), or convincing them that the Dime girls make the best special lovers (flame). But the result of listening to him is not flame or fire, just smoke. Presenting the prostitutes as a means for the clients to vent.
The ‘buh-buh-buh’ in the back of this line is reprising something/pointing to something, but I’m unsure what. His Hands Matched His Tongue?
>The lust and the sighs, the church and the dime / The cryptic clientele all careening inside Lovely word choice on that second line. Not too much to say here, just giving us a view of the main floor of the Dime and underscoring that Ms Leading is aware of its relationship to the Church. ‘Cryptic’ might denote that patrons of the Dime have some means to hide their identity, probably with aliases if it’s not a literal thing of wearing a mask like the Pimp.
>The puzzling façade steers pure from the divine Ms Leading comes to her final conclusion about all this business. Using his charming tricks, TP&P is actively twisting good or well-intentioned people away from any kind of godliness, and instead into evil.
There’s an interesting distinction here between what’s good and what’s holy. If people were able to be holy, they could probably be good in a manner that isn’t corruptible, but the Priest obviously prevents that. The ‘essence’ of holiness isn’t something necessarily accessible through the church, though that begs the question of how else a regular joe could hope to touch this unpervertable goodness.
Secondary meaning applies to the building of the church itself — this church is the last place to find virtue or God, but you wouldn’t know that from the outside.
>Chorus Repetition. Ms Leading gets back to work, letting her resentment power her through this dark reality.
Given that Hunter’s able to sign on as her driver later, we can figure she has regular clients booked to particular timeslots whose homes or getaway-houses she’ll travel to for work, as well as receives calls to summon her out to clients’ abodes, rather than always staying at the Dime. Further, Hunter is able to encounter her before entering the Dime, so either he catches her on her way back, or she spends her time when she doesn’t have a dedicated client outside the Dime, finding customers to invite in.
>Many wishes of hunger were wronged / By the pimp and priest’s thirst for a fault Really nice verse. Ms Leading furiously condemns TP&P and the horrible world that lets his schemes thrive.
‘Wishes of hunger’ -> People have desires and needs, many of which are innocent and genuine, that they perhaps can’t fulfil by themselves. They either turn to TP&P, or he finds these weak points of his own accord, only for him to exploit them and hold these desires over the person’s head as a way to manipulate them. If someone doubts they’re a good person, TP&P will tell them they can be. If they are lonely and looking for love, TP&P will hook them on a prostitute. If they are literally hungry and have no money for food, TP&P will employ them so they are dependant. Basically, he finds people’s drivers, and fulfils them in an easy way that serves him at their expense. Routinely. (Literally.)
‘Thirst for a fault’ -> But even more vigorously than these people pursue their needs, TP&P pokes and prods to find leverage. He sees a person, he becomes desperate to find their weak point. Whatever makes an individual frail, vulnerable, or indefensible is the golden key that will keep them in TP&P’s grip, too scared or powerless to resist his exploitation, even should they come to know him as evil. He both enjoys having this power, and is anxious about not having it, hence his desperation to find it.
>All the anger from a lover’s lament / Force fed in the stomach of sin TP&P encourages people to resent their partners, exacerbate the discontents they have with them, or relieve the frustration of having no partner through plain sex, so that they’ll instead try a prostitute. This feeds into a loop that only makes existing relationships degenerate further into lovelessness.
>Welcome to the world And that’s life, baby! Pretty bad gig, huh? The bad guy just wins? Well get used to it. That’s how reality is. You adapt to the mud on your boots or you shatter.
These are Ms Leading’s thoughts, but the line works as a powerful pronouncement of the environment Hunter’s in, now that he’s left the River and the Lake.
>3:42 – 3:55 Instrumental Reprised somewhere?
>4:00 – 4:58 Instrumental Ms Leading finishes up with her client and sets to walking back to the Dime, when…
The Oracles on the Delphi Express Stick with us, throw your morals out the door You aren’t in the land of the river and the lake no more Makeshift schemes, we’ve got plenty here for you Lock away your dreams and throw away the key
You’ve been stuck in the middle of patience and animosity With a lust for solidity, and a cryptic history, your luck’s running thin
Crimson hands brandish wounds which masquerade If you flee from grace, your souls cannot be saved Big steam ships, exits illustrate the flaw Don’t be ashamed of your amour faux pas When the bombs go off you’ll know right where you are
You’ve been stuck in the middle of patience and animosity With a lust for solidity, and a cryptic history, your luck’s running thin
You’ve been stuck in the middle of patience and animosity With a lust for solidity, and a cryptic history, your luck’s running thin
🌲🌲🌲
What happens? On the train into the city, Hunter encounters a group of Oracles, who warn him of his perilous future and urge him to turn back. But Hunter doesn’t listen.
What’s in a name? ‘Oracles on the Delphi Express’ — Delphi is a reference to the Greek city that was famously a home to mythological oracles. Within the story, it’s also the name of the train.
Whose viewpoint? Hunter.
🌲🌲🌲
>Stick with us, throw your morals out the door / You aren’t in the land of the river and the lake no more The Oracles start by giving Hunter a fat dose of reality: that sheltered, idyllic life of his is gone, and if he’s going to survive out here in the grittier world, he shouldn’t expect things to be as pure as they were back at the lake. If someone does something shady, don’t totally condemn them out of turn, and if you find yourself making wrong moves, don’t torture yourself over it. The Oracles will guide him, if Hunter will accept their help.
Let’s just take a moment now though to say hello to the Oracles, and ask, what’s their deal? How do they know all this stuff? Are they ghosts? Psychic? Real? Why are they here and why do they hang around to care so much about Hunter?
Well the story has no fantasy or sci fi elements — so the Oracles aren’t ghosts or magical entities, but the only confirmed word on what they are instead is the very vague ‘Constants’. That almost sounds like they’re some force of the universe, but that’s not quite it…
Firstly, I think the Oracles are real, and physically exist in the world of the story. However, what they are is a narrative device for Casey, to establish story beats/themes to the audience, and to be a mouthpiece through which he can advise his stubborn character, Hunter. Digressing for a moment into my own experiences when writing, I’m often stricken with the urge to bash my characters over the head with advisories that they’re messing up and are going to cop big consequences for their behaviour. Of course, their behaviour won’t change until I put them through the circumstances that I know will mess them up, and I love them for that because that’s who they are and if they weren’t like that there wouldn’t be a story, but man. Yes you little rascal I will slap your hand from the cookie jar. No no no you absolute fool don’t do tha—goddamn it. I get the impression that the Oracles are a similar thing.
That said, the Oracles are their own characters. They’re not Casey, there’s no greater in-universe mystery or secret to them, they’re just a medium to tell things to Hunter. But couldn’t any character be that? Why use Oracles, with Casey’s foreknowledge of Hunter’s fate, rather than mundane figures who’ve been in similar situations and can opine? Say, ‘the Guy Who Regrets His Bad Break Up’, or ‘the Guy Who Got Blackmailed When He Tried Fighting Evil’? Well those get messy, you have to think of circumstances for them that disturb or distract from the real story here, which is Hunter’s. Plus for these warnings to mean anything, they can’t be opinions, they have to be facts with the writer’s authority — hey Hunter, this is what is coming for you.
So why the Oracles?
It’s to give Hunter the unambiguous option to turn away and quit the narrative. The story won’t continue as ‘Hunter thought about the advice from some guy on the train, and decided to join the circus instead’, it just ends. Casey’s hands are clean and all the mess Hunter gets himself into is on him. Casey let the character off his chain, showed him where he was going, and Hunter just replies: ‘???? Gee you know a lot. Now, anyways…!’
If this sounds a bit schizophrenic, it kind of is — when a character has a strong internal voice, they can sometimes feel like they’re reacting on their own. I’m making some big presumptions about Casey’s creative process here, and his personal relationship with his characters, but myyyyy God I cannot help but hear the Oracles songs as that kind of dialogue, externalised. That Casey can give Hunter this option only for him to go elsewhere doesn’t just contribute a lot to him feeling ‘real’ (I’m not sure conveying this was intentional), but underscores what a strong foundation Hunter has as a character… you can let him off his chain and he’ll prefer to gravitate to the right beats Casey wants for his story, and resist when the beats are wrong. I think. Again, presumption.
Finally their purpose is to clarify that yes, Hunter is messing up. There are other ways he could respond to these problems, which would be in all regards better ways that would give him better outcomes, but he’s not going to pick them, Because He Is Hunter. If you’re ever in a pickle analogous to any of Hunter’s, don’t listen to Hunter. Listen to the Oracles.
(I also wonder if there was some relation/influence on the appearance of Oracles in Razia’s Shadow and of them here, but that’s just an aside)
Alright this got pretty meta so to ground us again in the scene, Hunter is on the train, perhaps in a booth with nice old (slighty weathered) plush red seating, and the jazzy band of Oracles are crowded around advising him as the big black steam train chugs onwards.
>Makeshift schemes, we’ve got plenty here for you / Lock away your dreams and throw away the key The Oracles offer alternatives to Hunter’s plan of going to the City and perhaps uncovering the secrets of himself and his mother, a course they urge him to utterly abandon. They also point out that Hunter’s plans in going to the City are haphazard, and he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.
>You’ve been stuck in the middle of patience and animosity / With a lust for solidity, and a cryptic history, your luck’s running thin The Oracles hear Hunter’s situation and the drivers of his heart. They note these to Hunter probably more accurately than Hunter can himself: he’s been torn between the ‘patience’ of waiting for Ms Terri’s secrets to calmly reveal themselves, trusting her judgement that he stay passive and innocent, and the ‘animosity’ of resenting Ms Terri for hiding things so long to the point that she commit suicide, while hating that he didn’t move sooner, to destroy the thing that was troubling his mother.
The descending ditty (unsure what the term is) on this line is reprised frequently in association with TP&P — ‘they’re all clean’ in Bitter Suite II, transition between Bitter Suite IV and V, The March, and Blood. I think of it as his ‘entry theme’, but also as his ‘conning’ theme, when he’s actively manipulating others and in total control. It appears here in Oracles to indicate that TP&P is the thing Hunter’s animosity ought to fall on, and the root of it, though he doesn’t realise this yet.
‘With a lust for solidity’ — Hunter’s looking for something to ground him again, and a course to pursue, now that Ms Terri’s death has thrown his life into turmoil. He can’t be sure that his past wasn’t some factor to that death, and wants to face it to reclaim some control.
‘And a cryptic history’ — In part of his search for solidity, Hunter’s going to brush against the secrets Ms Terri tried to hide from him. He’s going to discover more of himself…
‘Your luck’s running thin’ — …to an ultimately bad end.
>Crimson hands brandish wounds which masquerade / If you flee from grace, your souls cannot be saved Clearly referencing Red Hands. ‘Brandish wounds which masquerade’ is a bit tricky, but probably in the line of, ‘You’re going to commit wrong, feeling justified in the name of an injury that really isn’t as bad as you’ll act like it is.’
‘If you flee from grace, your souls cannot be saved’ — Kneejerk true of Hunter leaving the lake in the first place, but with the plural, references both Hunter and Ms Leading. They’ll be able to break away from the corruption of the city, but only if they stay true to their love for each other and work together, instead of messily and petulantly (on Hunter’s end) breaking up over the first hurdle.
Ditty on this second line is reprised in Smiling Swine, on the repeated verse of Hunter’s pure happiness and genuine elation to be with Ms Leading. Appears here in Oracles to point to that love as the grace he shouldn’t flee from.
>Big steam ships, exits illustrate the flaw / Don’t be ashamed of your amour faux pas / When the bombs go off you’ll know right where you are Hunter’s going to leave the city on a steam ship in VVV. This is, again, him messing up by running away from Ms Leading. You messed up in love, Hunter, it happens to everyone, and fleeing into war is not the solution. It’s the furthest place you can get from a solution, actually, if the intention was to get away from negative experiences. Hunter will finally figure out just how dark the world can be, how far he is from home, and what a mistake he’s made, in the war.
I think there’s a reprise on the first two lines here, but can’t identify it. VVV probably.
>2:06 – 2:37 Instrumental Unsure but interesting. Maybe a heated dialogue between Hunter and the Oracles?
>Last chorus repetition. The Oracles give their final warning for now, before departing and leaving Hunter to think.
>2:55 – 3:00 Instrumental This little buildup is definitely reprised somewhere. Where…?
>3:00 – 3:25 The Procession Reprise ‘She’s inanimate; bloodless elegance / Fatal fascination breeds a bloom of misery’. Though Hunter has been warned, his sadness over the death of his mother, and his desire to know what killed her, is too strong for him to turn away now. Hunter gets up to leave the train.
>3:31 – 3:42 Instrumental Scene change: Hunter exits the train station and comes to the square of the City, our first time seeing it. People are bustling about, horses lead carriages along, and church bells are ringing in the distance.
>3:43 – 4:18 Instrumental Hunter wanders through the crowds and the streets, mystified by the sights of the city, but they less overwhelm him than entice him to explore. His impression of things so far is a bit nervous, but altogether interested and hopeful…
The Lake and The River Everything you’d live and die for Reasons leading you through here Perished matriarchal bonds, failing innocence of love When the world beckons your approach, it swallows you whole
You’ll believe what you’re meant to believe In the hands of ghosts, we’re never responsible Wait to see what you’re meant to see The veil lifts when you expose your soul
Prayed I would leave this place someday Joined to alarm from long ago, now unconcerned Euphorically floating upon wax wings, where is the sun? I still see her face; her beauty, her grace Transfixed like a light in front of me It follows my soul, and swallows me whole
You’ll believe what you’re led to believe In the hands of ghosts, we’re never responsible Wait to see what you’re meant to see The veil lifts when you expose your soul
Left, right, left, right Left, right, left, right Left, right, left, right (unintelligible vocalizations)
His branches reached so far before His leaves were bold extremities with great control Wasted along; he died alone
You’ll believe what you’re meant to believe In the hands of ghosts, we’re never responsible Wait to see what you’re meant to see The veil lifts when you expose your soul
She’s inanimate, bloodless elegance Fatal fascination breeds a bloom of misery Helpless hiding tongues, bathed in revulsion Here lies possibility, wilting premature
But the right hand hates the left And the sea’s upset with the sky So we press on, press on, press on, press on In spite of the spite Happiness is a knife When the world rolls on its side And your mind’s on fire Don’t you know that happiness is a knife? When the world rolls on fire
Trying to find the trouble with the trouble I’ve found Begging my god to make the wheels go round Eat so much but I never get full Earth opened up and swallowed us whole
Trying to find the trouble with the trouble I’ve found Begging my god to make the wheels go round Eat so much but I never get full Earth opened up and swallowed us whole
🌲🌲🌲
What happens? Hunter, determined to learn more about himself and still shaken by the death of Ms Terri, leaves the Lake and boards a train to the City.
What’s in a name? It’s the process of going from the lake up along the river. Last time we’ll be at this setting, short of something bringing us back here in act VI, so for Hunter’s story it’s nice to acknowledge the place with a goodbye.
Whose viewpoint? Hunter.
🌲🌲🌲
>0:00 – 0:46 Instrumental Main melody feels like it’s referencing something from 1878, but can’t pinpoint what. Either way, Hunter packs his bags and sets out along the road to leave the Lake, with the sky bright and water shimmering.
>Everything you’d live and die for / Reasons leading you through here Now we’re definitely referencing 1878, and Hunter’s angsty mood is ruining the pleasant ambiance. Previously, these lines coincided with Hunter’s realisation that he knew himself and his mother less than he thought. With the absence of ‘…you thought…’ in this reprise, now he absolutely knows why he is taking the action he is: he is making not a passive, but an active effort to find what he let escape from him in 1878, the real identity of himself and his mother, and to that end embarking up the lake as he did in 1878.
The element of him doing things for Ms Terri becomes bitterly ironic now — she’s already dead. What’s left to live and die for there? May still carry the implication that he’s looking to vindicate her, or uncover whatever force it was that brought her to misery, but fundamentally, ‘It’s time to be true to who I really am.’
>Perished matriarchal bonds, failing innocence of love Of course, his principal reasoning in departing is his mother’s death. ‘Failing innocence’ suggests that the end of Ms Terri’s life, and the actions she took out of love for Hunter, did not end on any note that would keep his life as clean as she desired. Reading this as another nudge towards the idea it was a suicide. Could also be a general statement that she wasn’t able to keep things hidden from him in the end, but given he still doesn’t really know anything… what could reveal everything, but tell nothing?
From Hunter’s end, suggests that his feelings towards Ms Terri have become very complicated. He presently isn’t able to subsume his resentment towards her beneath his innocent adoration for her, which would let him to defer to her judgement and stay at the Lake. Rather, deep spite blocks him from trusting that judgement.
>When the world beckons your approach, it swallows you whole Hunter doesn’t feel like he was bullied against his will into the course he’s taking, so much as given a high-profile summons into darkness (a suicide driven by factors in the outside world) that he’s not able or inclined to refuse. He can see the option of staying at the Lake, but to do so would defy his own desire for answers, deny his own fated dark link to the outside, and undermine his desire to grow into a more ‘complete’ person as he didn’t in 1878. Still, now that the current of intrigue and possibility has caught him, he can’t step away from it. His potential has obsessed him.
It’s also overwhelmed him: if his first taste of ‘reality’ outside of his sheltered glen is the death of the person he loves most, how bad could the rest of it get? Worse than Hunter thinks, is the answer, but for now he’s asserting it won’t break him.
>You’ll believe what you’re meant to believe / In the hands of ghosts, we’re never responsible Tricky lines. Hunter is resenting that he was never told the truth, and resenting that Ms Terri opted to kill herself before she would confess anything to Hunter (there’s no conscionable response to that but to forgive, forget, and be mournful, as if this wasn’t a massive issue that was eating at Hunter for years — she’s escaping responsibility), but also showing contempt at himself for even thinking of going along with Ms Terri’s charade. Sure, he could go back to life at the Lake and pretend Ms Terri’s death was some random tragedy, totally unrelated to him, entirely on her hands, nobody would blame him, he could be innocent…
But it was this exact line of thinking that might have killed Ms Terri in the first place. What if he had pushed harder, and left the lake in 1878? What if he hadn’t humbled himself, by leaving matters to her in HHMHT? If the truth had come out sooner, would she had killed herself to hide it? There was an onus of responsibility on him, once he realised things weren’t right, to act. He didn’t. He hates that he didn’t. So now he is.
He was never really innocent. Ms Terri’s attempts to bring him up otherwise were a lie.
>Wait to see what you’re meant to see / The veil lifts when you expose your soul But of course, the truth comes out in the end. Lies can only last so long, and though you might craft an intricate life under a deceptive persona, everything that false self built will crumble the instant the real you shines though. This is true of Ms Terri, and true of Hunter later. (And Ms Leading too).
>Prayed I would leave this place someday / Joined to alarm from long ago, now unconcerned Hunter thinks back on the feelings he shelved in 1878: the desire to self-actualisation, and desire to see more of the world. His alarm back then was the fear of a threat to Ms Terri, and fear of a mysterious darkness, but now that she’s already dead, and the darkness has already battered Hunter over the head, that’s not a concern anymore. Plus he’s still standing, so he can handle it, surely.
>Euphorically floating upon wax wings, where is the sun? In that lack of concern, there’s an element of intoxicating power and freedom. Finally he can indulge in reality, gorge upon the world, build himself, find himself, be himself… but, fatally as it will come to be, Hunter doesn’t know his limits. He has never had to face danger or darkness before, nor even been told of what to look out for, and so cannot defend himself against it. Ms Terri was the one who always did that, and now, she’s not here. How can he be expected to do this?
>I still see her face; her beauty, her grace / Transfixed like a light in front of me / It follows my soul, and swallows me whole For all of Hunter’s mixed feelings about Ms Terri right now, fundamentally he loves her. The image of her haunts him, and the loss of her torments him. Why, why, why did Ms Terri die? What was this darkness so strong, it was able to destroy someone so beautiful? Who was she? Where is she?
This is the first time we’ll see Hunter make references to lights as guides of where to go towards. That it’s Ms Terri’s face appearing denotes something he desperately runs to pursue, like a lost child seeking comfort. Hunter might be making these bold claims of freedom and near-omnipotence now that Ms Terri’s not here, but the reality is he’s a dumb sheltered kid who very, very desperately wants his mom back and thinks throwing himself into the unknown might solve the pain of losing her. That’s maybe underselling Hunter a little, but given how he drops everything he’s doing once he finds a mother surrogate in Ms Leading, (and then gets tossed around like a pinball on his own impulsive responses when that goes south), whatever ‘life mission’ or ‘journey’ he feels like he’s embarking on now is not one he’s entering in any kind of composed or confident way. He has ideas of where the problem starts, but he’s fundamentally running from pain.
The relative softness of Hunter’s voice all through this verse gives me the impression that this is him being very honest, and very in tune with his ‘self’.
Also going by one of my assumptions in reading, I’m cornered into saying he’s literally hallucinating Ms Terri. In the absence of an opium den, I’m not sure I really want to put all my chips into that, but what the hell. Sure.
>You’ll believe what you’re led to believe Noting the repetition change from ‘meant’ to ‘led’ on this line as maybe foreshadowing for Ms Leading, and how she accidentally mirrors Ms Terri to Hunter? Also carries the stronger implication of being purposefully mislead.
>Left, Right Mirroring the dichotomy of ‘the river / the lake’ in 1878, though far more pronounced, aggressive, and angry. While letting his anger march him past the junction of the lake and the river, Hunter remembers his old dilemma as he passes the sights he did before: does he go back towards the lake into safe ignorance, or up the river into the hazardous unknown? Unlike the last time he did this, this time he forces himself to think that there isn’t a question, that he isn’t at all scared, and scorns his past self as an idiot for stopping. (HEY, HEY!)
>(unintelligible vocalizations) lol thanks genius. It’s true though, these sound like lyric-y but I can’t make them out
>3:58 – 4:26 Evicted Melody ‘I have been evicted / From a soul constricted / By the flameless fire / Can we all just go cold?’ — Evicted is Ms Leading’s announcement that her view of the world as a harsh and empty place has been shaken, while fearfully trying to process her breakaway from longheld cynicism (and futilely rationalise herself back into it). Applied to Hunter here, he’s managed to shake off the longstanding fear he had of leaving the Lake, commit himself to the possibility of purpose outside it, and successfully leave despite lingering pain/reservations. (Or well he will in the next stanza.)
>His branches reached so far before / His leaves were bold extremities with great control Hunter stands again under the Tree that marks the northernmost bound of the region of the Lake, as he did in 1878. This time, though, Hunter’s older, and the tree looks far less impressive or imposing. Rather, it’s a bit feeble and scraggly. Certainly, not strong enough to bar Hunter in anymore.
>Wasted along; he died alone Or beyond feeble and scraggly — the tree is actually dead.
Note Hunter’s anthropomorphisation of the tree again, and the mournful admiration he has for it: the tree is an actual person for him. The thing’s his father figure, and though this obviously doesn’t hit as hard as Ms Terri’s death, it’s sad that Hunter lost his mom only to find his ‘dad’ dead and looking miserable too. Everyone in Hunter’s life is feeling a grim wind, huh? Boy’s certainly fixated on death.
After that moment of emo contemplation, he shoulders on past the tree, going into completely new territory.
If the first chorus was applied to Ms Terri, and the second Ms Leading, I wonder if the third one here might be applying to the tree. Hunter’s life is so full of liars!?
>5:29 – 5:37 Left/Right Instrumental Hunter continues marching on, forcing himself to think of nothing but the hurt and anger propelling him onward…
>She’s inanimate, bloodless elegance / Fatal fascination breeds a bloom of misery / Helpless hiding tongues, bathed in revulsion But the pretence doesn’t last, and the emotions of sorrow and grief below come through in a small breakdown. He misses his mom so much, why did she go, where has she gone…
(Note the spike in contempt on ‘bathed in revulsion’ specifically, he hates thinking of people even implicitly badmouthing his mom).
>Here lies possibility, wilting premature …and why wasn’t his happy life with her allowed to be?
>But the right hand hates the left / And the sea’s upset with the sky WONDERFUL lines. Hunter collects himself, reminding himself why he’s leaving in the first place. He tried the option of listening to Ms Terri, trusting Ms Terri, and giving himself to her lies, but where did that get him? That’s why he lost his goddamn mother and why he’s feeling this terrible pain. It’s her fault she killed herself anyway. It’s her fault she protected that lie so much anyway.
May also be telling himself that his options here are mutually exclusive — he can only have one or the other, and the simple fact that his life’s not innocent inherently excludes him from any kind of peaceful lie at the lake. (Hunter has no idea what he’s getting into).
>So we press on, press on, press on, press on / In spite of the spite So let’s try the contrary option, it surely can’t be any worse.
>Happiness is a knife / When the world rolls on its side / And your mind’s on fire Love this. Lots going on here. ‘Happiness is a knife’ — again, the knife is metaphorically his ability to provide for himself (self-agency) and his ability to provide for Ms Terri. It’s also literally an implement he uses to kill things, and a keepsake from Ms Terri. ‘Fell in another hole / for the knife.’ Hunter has the ‘knife’ now, which is to say the ability to do something about his problems, while literally clutching almost maniacally to this connection to his mother and the possibility of violently killing whatever it was that caused him this pain (made Ms Terri so miserable she killed herself). Hunter himself is probably not conscious to this entire thought process, but he is finding a twisted comfort in the idea of vengeance over this horrible world, and of doing so on his own terms.
Further, the proposition that he is capable of doing things is probably cathartic, after being powerless to save Ms Terri in her death scene.
‘When the world rolls on its side’ — Hunter’s entire life has been upended by Ms Terri’s death, and he doesn’t have anything to ground him anymore but the ‘knife’.
‘And your mind’s on fire’ — ‘flame is gone/fire remains’. Hunter is in full Fire mode right now (and a very immature version of it), barely controlled, seething, looking for something he can destroy that will fix the death of his mother and fulfil the unfinished business of his birth. The whirling energy of his mind is forcing him not to submit or stay stationary.
Absolute hatred and pain in this whole verse. Delicious.
>7:20 – 7:50 Instrumental Having successfully stoked himself with a sense of purpose, Hunter calms down a bit and continues through the peaceful, scenic forest, where he comes upon an old train station…
>7:50 – 7:56 Instrumental …and hears a train approaching!
>Trying to find the trouble with the trouble I’ve found Love this whole verse. Not sure there’s too much to go into here with the train’s thoughts except setting up the work song format and foreshadowing the trouble that’s coming for Hunter.
>Begging my god to make the wheels go round Not the last time we’ll be seeing a machine’s operator be referred to as its god. Extremely evocative image.
>Eat so much but I never get full Oh baby, he’s guzzling that coal. Shovelful by shovelful. Backs sweating. Endless. Blazing.
>Earth opened up and swallowed us whole The train passes through a tunnel. On first instance of the verse, the train comes to a stop at the station. Hunter boards between verses, and it departs on the repetition.
The train’s passage through the tunnel on the repetition marks the last Hunter (or we) will see of the lake, effectively severing us from the setting with the image of a black pit. The idea of the earth opening up to swallow someone, too, evokes the idea of descending into hell, which is apt for what’s coming for Hunter.
Finally, the phrasing mirrors all the things that have been ‘swallowing (Hunter) whole’ during this song — the world he’s entering is going to overwhelm him, and there’s no turning back…
>9:08 – 9:30 Red Hands Violin Subtle but it’s there — Hunter is doing the wrong thing, but can’t be blamed for it, since he couldn’t have done anything different. The high tension/chaos denotes that this is a particularly doomy ‘wrong thing’.
>9:30 Death and the Berth bweee-BOOOP RIP Innocent Hunter. Kind of interesting to have Red Hands right before this though, is TDATB playing backwards and there’s a bitter suite melody hidden under there? Not entirely sure on this one.
The Procession The blood, how it paints such a scene Foul routine, pedigree Mouth agape, stuttered hands attempt to flail, and finally agree Her heart ceases its rhythm Somewhere, trumpets decay In the front by the well, wishing wishes that deny the stale smell in the hay
There, no one cry Place these over her eyes We are broken, alone We are broken, alone
She’s inanimate; bloodless elegance Fatal fascination breeds a bloom of misery Helpless hiding tongues, bathed in revulsion Here lies unfinished beauty, wilting premature You can’t be too sure No, you can’t be too sure
Reserved, always playing the part of a boy left alone He proceeds to the road beyond the home he’d learned to call his own
She’s inanimate; bloodless elegance Fatal fascination breeds a bloom of misery Helpless hiding tongues, bathed in revulsion Here lies unfinished beauty, wilting premature You can’t be too sure No, you can’t be too sure
One life for another
She’s inanimate; bloodless elegance Fatal fascination breeds a bloom of misery Helpless hiding tongues, bathed in revulsion Here lies unfinished beauty, wilting premature You can’t be too sure You can’t be too sure
🌲🌲🌲
What happens? Hunter comes upon Ms Terri dying, but can do nothing to save her. The community of the Lake then holds a funeral for Ms Terri, but Hunter remains troubled by her passing. Tormented by Ms Terri’s secrets, he sets out to leave the Lake.
What’s in a name? ‘The Procession’. This is the aftermath of Ms Terri’s death, including Hunter’s reaction and a funeral. That there’s enough people around to hold a funeral procession for Ms Terri suggests there is a community around the Lake.
Whose viewpoint? Hunter.
🌲🌲🌲
>0:01 – 0:15 Instrumental Broken out of his routine, Hunter realises something is wrong and rushes to the scene of Ms Terri dying.
>0:15 – 0:32 Instrumental Through absolute panic, Hunter tries to intervene, but…
This feels like it’s reprised somewhere, but I’m unsure where.
>The blood, how it paints such a scene Gee, I assert I’ll read things literally and then run into this. The literal read would say that the scene of Ms Terri’s death is bloody, so we could figure she sustained a violent injury.
Metaphorically, which I think this line is more pointing towards, it says that the scene of Ms Terri’s death is graphic. There may not necessarily be blood all over the walls, but what Hunter comes upon here is so traumatising that there may as well be.
Also, with this being the first line from Hunter since act I, note the remarkable change of tone in his voice. Time has passed since act I, of course, and he’s now in his late teens, but sheesh Hunter where’d all that spite come from! Oh is it something to do with your dead mom? Took it pretty hard, didn’t you…
>Foul routine, pedigree So how did Ms Terri die?
Murder, right? She was afraid in City Escape that pursuers might… well, no. Casey’s gone on the record to say Ms Terri wasn’t murdered, so we can shelve that idea. That TP&P gave her job back without a fuss, too, suggests he doesn’t hold very hard feelings about City Escape.
So what are the other options.
An illness? She conceivably could’ve caught something in her line of work, or had an underlying illness that was never treated, but with her death characterised as graphic and without warning, it likely isn’t something that would progress slowly or that she would have advance warning about. Perhaps a heart attack, or a bad fall could’ve done it…
Or an accident? Extremely possible, but there’s something here that makes me want to instead suggest my favourite pet theory…
…I think it was suicide.
To start, Ms Terri’s always been characterised as someone who struggles with a life of profound ‘misery’. She thinks a lot — ruminates a lot — and is prone to questioning whether what she’s doing is right. She has moral compunctions around prostitution period, and likely has low self esteem. This is without touching the hellishly rough treatment she’s been enduring at the Dime. The strength she had to face this brutality in Inquiry has long faded, such that even Hunter recognised it in His Hands Matched His Tongue. Finally, she’s been suppressing her pain for years, been living dual lives and dual lies for years, to the point it’s been having spillover effects on Hunter. It would not be surprising if Ms Terri had fallen back into depression and flirted with the idea, or simply reached a limit where she couldn’t take it anymore. This also works as an explanation to the appearance of Red Hands in the Death and the Berth.
I can also envision her becoming so depressed or self-loathing that she could rationalise her presence as a ‘stain’ on Hunter’s otherwise pure life, now that he’s old enough to be looking after himself and doesn’t ‘need’ her as an essential provider. How can she keep her lies going when he’s not a little kid anymore?
So consider this line, ‘foul routine, pedigree’. There is some heritable or cyclical element to Ms Terri’s death — how does Hunter die? Well, he commits suicide.
If this reading is right, and both Ms Terri and Hunter’s deaths were suicides, then I also wonder if there was a history of suicide in Ms Terri’s family, too. It would tie in to her references to how miserable her life has seemingly always been. Wouldn’t put too much into that idea but it’s interesting.
I’m going to be going ahead with this reading, warning because if so then it influences a lot of Hunter’s mindset/motives going forward. Particularly, the noticeable edge of contempt and spite Hunter seems to have towards Ms Terri (and himself) while recounting her death now (and thinking about it later) makes a lot of sense if it was a purposeful action. Why mom? How could you do this to us?
I will note though. I could be completely, 100% wrong about this and the read is way more straightforward: she just had a genetic illness. ‘Foul routine’? People from this family die from this illness a lot. ‘Pedigree’? Literally, it’s in their genes. It works to kill off Ms Terri without being too garish. But let me say, the music is garish. Very, aggressively so. THE BLOOOOOD HOW IT PAINTS SUCH A SCEEEENEEE… I call that the stuff reserved for walking in on your mom hanging by a noose in the living room.
>Mouth agape, stuttered hands attempt to flail, and finally agree Reading the subject as Ms Terri, she is gasping for breath and reaching for something, only for her hands to slump lifeless.
Reading it as Hunter, his jaw drops in paralysed shock, and he reaches to intervene to help Ms Terri, only for him to resign that he’s too late.
>Her heart ceases its rhythm Hunter is able to recognise the moment she actually dies, so she’s still alive when Hunter comes on the scene. He may be attempting CPR, he might otherwise be touching her body and be able to feel her pulse, he might be able to see her bleeding slow as her heart stops pumping, or to be less literal he may just be able to see the last vestiges of life generally leave her as her body becomes just that, a body.
Note the tenor change — Hunter isn’t thinking about his anger towards her death anymore, but sadness.
>Somewhere, trumpets decay The joy in Hunter’s life dies with Ms Terri. Hunter is somewhat dissociated as the reality of what’s happened sets in.
>In the front by the well, wishing wishes that deny the stale smell in the hay Hunter brings Ms Terri’s body to the front of the house and lays it on a bed of hay, begging God or the universe to bring her back to life, or to let her not actually be dead in the first place. Tough luck, Hunter…
Also gives us a bit of detail to Hunter and Ms Terri’s residence: they have a well in the front garden, and hay lying around. Not sure if he’s literally using the well as a wishing well but if he did then that’s rather cute/sad/whimsical. I wonder if he threw a dime in the well first? Kind of darkly funny if so.
>There, no one cry / Place these over her eyes Trying to console himself through the immediate grief, Hunter falls back into simple routine/tradition as a guide of what to do, quietly cursing his impotence. These lines sound like something someone’s told him in the past, when he was much younger.
>We are broken, alone / We are broken, alone When did you become a king, Hunter? He’s probably still a bit dissociated, and extending the ‘we’ in a general sense, if not to himself and Ms Terri. Characterising both of them as ‘broken, alone’ would be Hunter conceding some awareness (as in HHMHT) that Ms Terri was a far more troubled person than she wanted him to believe.
Hunter feels absolutely lost in the world now, without anything to cling to. Can envision the ‘camera’ zooming out and tilting, looking down at the scene of Hunter and Ms Terri’s body in the front garden, or of it cutting to him assembled at the funeral procession.
>She’s inanimate; bloodless elegance / Fatal fascination breeds a bloom of misery Ms Terri’s body has been cleaned and her funeral service proceeds. The image of her beautiful, pristine corpse in the casket sticks with Hunter, being the first time he’s seen her since her death, and the last time he will ever see her.
‘Fatal fascination’ — How come Ms Terri killed herself? Contemplating this thought makes Hunter edge into depression (’bloom of misery’ is a very Ms Terri phrase, and if Ms Terri was prone to depression, it wouldn’t be surprising if Hunter was too. May also be him coming to realise just how depressed Ms Terri was), but he instead channels this pain into anger and action. YEEE-AAH!
>Helpless hiding tongues, bathed in revulsion Hunter asks people of the Lake why Ms Terri might have killed herself. They know that she was a prostitute, and that circumstances around that were likely the reason, but are reluctant to tell Hunter anything.
>Here lies unfinished beauty, wilting premature Hunter stands at Ms Terri’s grave, resentfully contemplating her death. Hunter was and is convinced that Ms Terri had a good long life ahead of her, and the fact she’ll never experience the idealised life Hunter envisioned for her angers and depresses him. He may also be feeling a bit snide that the lake people would give her the formality of a proper funeral, eulogies, and headstone, but become disgusted when directly questioned about her.
Likely has a double meaning in ‘lies’ — the woman was full of them, chief of those being her happiness in the weeks or months before the suicide.
Also note how he has no spite towards the idea of Ms Terri being ‘unfinished beauty, wilting premature’ — though he’s touchy and hurt right now, he still adores, idolises, and misses his mom.
>You can’t be too sure / No, you can’t be too sure Hunter questions if he was a factor in Ms Terri’s death. That is, if there was anything he could have done that would’ve prevented it, or something he should have noticed earlier that would have let him intervene before she was actively dying.
>Reserved, always playing the part of a boy left alone Slight timeskip. Though Hunter is truly brimming with anger and spite, his outward mannerisms have become quiet, meek, withdrawn, and rather self-pitying. He feels pressured to behave in this way, either to conform to how the Lake people see him, as ‘the poor boy whose mother died’, or to conform to Ms Terri’s implicit desire that he stay in the cabin.
Hunter deeply resents this. Living in this way is emphasising thoughts that he’s been abandoned, that nobody can help him, and that the damage done is irreversible. It is bending his self-concept into something powerless, pitiful, and self-pitying in a way he can’t stand.
>He proceeds to the road beyond the home he’d learned to call his own Dismissing the possibility of moving past Ms Terri’s death by integrating with the people of the Lake and leaving the matter be, Hunter instead decides the Lake holds nothing for him anymore, and sets out to leave.
‘Learned to call his own’ — Hunter’s awareness that he was not born at the Lake has been rekindled, and more than just find answers (with resentment for the fact Ms Terri never told him anything), he may naively be looking for somewhere where someone as ‘dark’ as him ‘truly’ fits in (or just for something that’ll take the pain away).
>2:27 – 2:33 Instrumental Reprised somewhere? Main chorus rhythm sped up and isolated. Interesting but not sure what this is. Might just be Hunter being angry and emo, or thinking back and hating his impotence during Ms Terri’s death.
>One life for another Ms Terri’s death facilitates a new life for Hunter, where he is the one calling the shots. It marks the end of his sheltered childhood and the start of his life as a self-determined man, whose identity will be shaped by his own actions and decisions. Hunter is declaring that he is free to start a new life as himself (and before that, find out who he is).
This cycle of death and rebirth is also a major general theme for the acts, hence why it’s repeated so much, aside from this moment’s extreme personal importance for Hunter. One thing dies, and a new thing can be born.
>Final chorus repetition Hunter decides his first mission after leaving the Lake will be looking for the answers that Ms Terri never told him — Who am I? Who were you? What brought you to this? Could I have done anything? Why did you hurt me, and choose to leave, without telling me anything?
What’s in a name? Ms Terri dies — ‘berth’ might be a hint as to the manner in which it happened (something to do with the lake?), but it is definitely a play on words with ‘birth’ leading in to the acts’ overarching theme of death and rebirth. With Ms Terri dead, Hunter’s life can begin.
🌲🌲🌲
>0:00 – 0:03 Instrumental With a dramatic flourish to welcome us to the album, Ms Terri’s death sounds to be sudden.
>0:03 – 0:10 Bitter Suite I Piano The melody associated with Hunter going gaga at the sight of Ms Leading plays very faintly. In this context, it may represent Ms Terri bleeding out or the light otherwise seeping out of her after the initial impact – ‘beauty wilting’.
>0:12 – 0:38 Red Hands Violin ‘Because you can’t be caught red handed if you’re not red handed’. The realisation of misplaced blame? In this context, it may be indicating there’s reason to think Ms Terri is at fault for her death, but ultimately is not to blame and could not have done any different.
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