Aaand here’s the transition track out. I don’t want to call any song a pure transition, but I can’t imagine what this track would be narratively apart from confirmation that Hunter and Ms Terri stayed at the cabin. Image is like the camera zooming out while a montage of peaceful domestic scenes unfold inside the cabin… like them doing dishes or Ms Terri knitting, things like that. Time passes peacefully albeit with a slightly gloomy undertone, the sun sets, fade to black.
>3:00 – 4:03 Audience & Overture The prologue of the story is over and the narrative proper can begin.
What’s in a name? ‘The River North’ — because we are south of it, at the lake.
His Hands Matched His Tongue A long walk home, riddled with regret Uncommonly comfortable, but still I believe That in time I think I’ll see Just what’s been weighing down on me An unearthly void collapsed Exposing what was trapped To release this serendipitous design
The smell of smoke, the evening sky was bruised Belated conversations saturate anticipation For the answers that simply won’t come
But not I, I won’t ask Forget my place amongst the grass The leaves and the trees remember me And in my naiveté it might be seen The pail has leaks and even if You put all your water into it You end up with nothing left to drink The well has gone dry and I with it
Oh, someday she’ll be gone Oh, someday she’ll be gone Oh, someday she’ll be gone Oh, someday she’ll be gone
We’ll still have her song to sing
Sing softly, bring me to the lake Sing softly, sing me to the lake
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What happens? Hunter returns home from his outing in 1878, and decides to stay at the lake with Ms Terri.
What’s in a name? ‘His Hands Matched His Tongue’. Hands and tongues show up a lot in the acts, but speaking generally, hands represent action. If your hands match your tongue, then you did what you said you would, you kept true to your intentions, or in other words, ‘Hunter Is A Good Boy With Integrity (For Now)’.
Whose viewpoint? Back to Hunter now.
🌲🌲🌲
>A long walk home, riddled with regret Hunter is walking back to his and Ms Terri’s cabin after going out to the Tree in 1878, regretful either that he even considered leaving or that he was incapable of it (and hence cannot find the truth). Maybe a mix.
>Uncommonly comfortable, but still I believe / That in time I think I’ll see / Just what’s been weighing down on me Though he’s given up on the prospect of leaving the lake and finding the truth about himself and Ms Terri, that surrender in itself has given him some peace of mind. Still, he trusts that eventually, he will come to find out the truth that’s been troubling him, whether it’s simply by himself growing older and more experienced, or by Ms Terri eventually seeing that he’s too old to shelter anymore and divulging the truth.
>An unearthly void collapsed / Exposing what was trapped / To release this serendipitous design Unsure about this, but could be another tie back to 1878 — an ‘unearthly void’ could be a hole, its collapse could be the failure of one of Ms Terri’s secrets to stay hidden, and the rest of these lines allude to how Hunter figured out he and Ms Terri had escaped from anywhere in the first place. If so, then Hunter is highly conscious that his current idyllic quality of life is a direct result of action by Ms Terri, and not simply luck or coincidence.
Metaphorically speaking too, ‘void collapsed’ / ‘what was trapped’ may be the negative emotions of pain and anguish that Ms Terri is hiding from Hunter — he figured out this one secret during a moment where she had a slight breakdown. Perhaps she was crying?
>The smell of smoke, the evening sky was bruised Hunter comes out of the treeline and sees the cabin now, with smoke wafting out of the chimney. The sky is flush with orange and purple, and Ms Terri is cooking dinner.
>Belated conversations saturate anticipation / For the answers that simply won’t come Hunter comes inside to eat dinner with Ms Terri. They talk at the table, but Ms Terri says nothing about where she’s been or the circumstances around why they left (or where they left, specifically). Though Hunter hopes that Ms Terri will mention the elephant in the room, as might be expected after her first secrets escaped, he also recognises that this is simply his own desire, and that in every opportunity where she could pursue the topics he wants to hear about, she does not pursue them. In a way, he accepts this.
>But not I, I won’t ask / Forget my place amongst the grass / The leaves and the trees remember me Hunter has decided not to press Ms Terri for answers, or pursue the truth, respecting her wishes that he stay ignorant. He accepts himself as a creature of the idyllic lake, as he has always known himself to be until recently, and without realising it, maintains his innocence and purity by doing so. Note how he also anthropomorphises the scenery of the lake — this whole place is his home and extended family.
This decision is why his hands match his tongue. At least part of his motive in trying to find the truth was trying to help Ms Terri, and defying her deepest wish fundamentally runs contrary to that. Instead, he will help her by letting her maintain her lie. By humbling himself here, his good intentions and good actions stay consistent to each other.
>And in my naiveté it might be seen / The pail has leaks and even if / You put all your water into it / You end up with nothing left to drink Though Hunter may be ignorant, even he can tell that the charade Ms Terri is trying to maintain is not sustainable. There are times where the depression and pain below seep through, and even were it not for that, there are glaring, obvious problems that cannot be patched and that if questioned, destroy the whole tower (a big one would be, ‘who is my father?’). Ms Terri is investing all she can into loving Hunter, but not even an endless stream of pure love and happiness can subsume or substitute for reality.
>The well has gone dry and I with it …And of course, Ms Terri doesn’t have an endless stream of pure love and happiness. The poor woman is exhausted, and now that Hunter’s older, keeping him happy and hiding the truth from him is significantly harder. Rather, it’s actually getting to the point where hiding things is starting to hurt Hunter, but not as much as the truth would, Ms Terri seems to judge. You could debate whether she’s correct or not — I’d say that for now, she is, and Hunter seems to trust that she is, too.
Still, Hunter knows about the lie now, and seeing Ms Terri force herself is itself a cause for pain.
>Oh, someday she’ll be gone Everyone we love will die one day. Hunter considers that he won’t be able to depend on Ms Terri’s protection indefinitely. There’s going to have to be a time where he does step up and assert himself, and a deadline on when he can get answers from Ms Terri.
This is also overt foreshadowing for Ms Terri’s death in act II.
>We’ll still have her song to sing The story will continue even after Ms Terri dies. Ms Terri’s song, since fundamentally, the conflict of the story is Ms Terri’s — she may have tried to escape evil, and may have tried to destroy evil, but failed on both counts. Hunter remains as the hope that evil can be escaped from or destroyed, and it’s because of Ms Terri that this hope even exists. Flame is gone / Fire remains.
You can also take ‘her song’ as being the ‘sing softly, bring me to the lake’ lines that follow, assuming she has actually sung these to Hunter, showing her desire for a better future.
>Sing softly, bring me to the lake / Sing softly, sing me to the lake Hunter reprises the plea from the previous song: let me have a good ending and future. Haha, oh Hunter…
Can also be Hunter comforting himself against the thought of Ms Terri dying initially, then shifts into narrative plea on repetition.
The Pimp and The Priest (Take me to the river Take me to the river)
The pimp and the priest pounce on quickened cats’ feet For the freshest young blood, innocence for the feast The book will then brew what the sinful commit While the pimp and priest prey quietly where the precious sinners sit
Confess, oh, confess In the chapel or brothel where we suffocate stress We’ve got the time if you’ve got the scratch (We’ll conquer your sins while she screams on her back)
Faster, save me How the sins remain hostage Harder, I can’t breathe
Now the priest and the pimp are already equipped With an enigmatic frontage posts “we welcome walk-ins” So we corner our pace and make quick for the door To be pardoned and passed from the bed to the floor
Confess, oh, confess In the chapel or brothel where we suffocate stress We’ve got the time if you’ve got the scratch (We’ll conquer your sins while she screams on her back)
Take me to the river Take me to the river
Faster, save me How the sins remain hostage Harder, I can’t breathe
Sing softly, sing ’em to the lake Sing softly, bring ’em to the lake
Faster, save me How the sins remain hostage Harder, I can’t breathe
🌲🌲🌲
What happens? While Ms. Terri continues working at The Dime, we are given a glimpse of the establishment’s proprietor and the story’s main antagonist, The Pimp and the Priest, whose greedy MO is divulged.
What’s in a name? The Pimp and The Priest. Here’s our main villain. But isn’t that two people? No! It’s yet another single character with a dual persona, as is prolific in the acts.
Whose viewpoint? Omniscient and/or Ms Terri.
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>0:06 – 0:23 Instrumental SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAZE!! That’s the word to describe TP&P whenever his little theme here comes up. This is not an honest person or an honest environment that we’re going to be dealing with, here…
>(Take me to the river / Take me to the river) After a hard day of work at the Dime, Ms Terri makes the same miserable request of TP&P that she always does: arrange me transport back to the river, so that I can go home to the lake and to Hunter.
Or taken more generally: ‘get me the hell out of here!’, a sentiment likely shared among many workers of the Dime.
Though she goes, we stay at the Dime, to get a peek at its scummy proprietor.
>The pimp and the priest pounce on quickened cats’ feet / For the freshest young blood, innocence for the feast Great lyrics and singing from Casey all through this song. Just getting that out of the way first.
Anyway, so here’s our villain, and aside from his dual professions, here’s the first thing to know about him: he is an opportunist who thrives by exploiting the innocent. The more innocent they are, and hence more vulnerable and exploitable they are, the better. Given the way he pounces upon such marks, with sly grace and initiative, we surmise he’s extremely practised at what he does and more than happy to do it. The specific aspect of soiling the pure, too, seems to give him a kind of satisfaction, like a pig gorging on delicacies. In other words, he’s a conman, who targets those who’ll trust him.
But before getting ahead of ourselves. He’s a pimp and a priest… geez, not a very coherent resume. But there is a thread of commonality here. These are both fields that give an individual incredible authority over others, with the Priest guise able to shape a congregation’s moral character (and self-worth, and trust, and guide ‘righteous’ action), and the Pimp guise able to lead the vulnerable or desperate to ruin themselves for ‘easy’ money. Someone who’d pursue both professions is a moral hypocrite and a two-faced Machiavellian, drifting naturally to positions where they have the power to destroy and control others.
There’s more to say about TP&P being a priest specifically as opposed to say, a generic life coach or a politician, due to the weighty element of religion. But I’d principally take it as a warning that immoral people can and sometimes will place themselves as moral authorities, to enable their immorality.
>The book will then brew what the sinful commit / While the pimp and priest prey quietly where the precious sinners sit Aaand here the dual meanings begin! Hokay!
‘The book’ is both the Bible and a pocketbook — the Bible determines the actions of sinners by codifying what are sinful acts, while the pocketbook determines the actions of sinners by how it guides TP&P. That is, TP&P is motivated by profit, and has found substantial profit to be made in selling vice. Thus, he has entered the sex industry, and will drag others into it, too.
TP&P both ‘prey’ and ‘pray’ in the church, as he both has a predatory nature and… well, is a priest, but is also dependant upon the existence of these victims to sustain himself. Were he to lose the veneer of legitimate authority that leads people to fundamentally trust him, he would quickly be destroyed. That’s his vulnerability, and that’s the one thread of weakness that might lead him to pray. I don’t imagine he’s much of a believer in what he preaches, otherwise.
Hence, sinners are precious to him, as he is only able to get away with his con, and sell his product, when the moral character of the society he victimises is weak. By the fact he is the city’s Priest, though, he himself is the one able to dictate whether visiting the Dime is morally excusable, and encourage the demographic that should most loudly call for its closure (those concerned with doing the morally right thing) to say nothing at all. He quite actively uses his position as Priest to encourage his followers to act sinfully, and excuse sin, while strengthening his own position.
Also note that he doesn’t see his congregation as misguided people of virtue, but as sinners, zeroing in on their flaws. If he’s devout about anything, it’s probably about being judgemental.
Can envision this shot as him standing at the pulpit, hands in prayer amid a sermon, as he looks analytically over his congregation.
>Confess, oh, confess / In the chapel or brothel where we suffocate stress TP&P calls for you to confess to him. He very desperately wants that — to hear your most intimate secrets, your most wicked thoughts, your most shameful deeds, your most sensitive doubts… so that he can use them against you, of course. He’s a blackmailer.
Why on earth would anyone tell their deepest secrets to someone as sleazy as the Pimp! Well a lot of people do, routinely, and there’s two good reasons they would.
One: he’s the Priest. Moreover, he’s a Catholic priest. That is to say, his church practises the sacrament of the confessional. He naturally accrues overwhelming blackmail on his congregation from the things they confess to him in the confessional. This is the confession in the chapel.
Two: he’s the Pimp. People are much more liable to say (and do) compromising things when they figure themselves in equally compromised company, or when they’re bedding their favourite mistress and their guards are dropped to zero. Such information then filters to the Pimp. This is the confession in the brothel.
‘Suffocate stress’ — great phrasing. A visit to a brothel or a confessional principally is meant to feel good, as a release from the burden of holding on to a sin, or as a release in a more physical sense. But since the confessional is really a blackmail booth, and TP&P doesn’t guide those who have sinned to stop, visiting it is really a way to get a cheap hit of moral rectitude before you sin again and inevitably wind up back in the booth. Equally, visiting a brothel feels good, but isn’t a long-term solution to whatever discontents may be going on in one’s life, and rather adds the baggage of knowing you’ve done something bad or shameful. The stress in either case is never resolved, just suppressed.
This is the principle of how addictions work. The high initially feels good, but eventually one’s body becomes so accustomed to the aroused state that the hyperarousal becomes ‘baseline’. The actual baseline, which is your body in absence of the arousing stimulus, then feels wrong. It’s escaping this wrong feeling of unease, withdrawal, or stress that drives the addiction, and though probably not as intensively (or even intentionally) as would a proper drug, TP&P has set up a cycle to yank people in and out of stress states in a similarly self-perpetuating manner.
Finally note how carelessly he appends ‘or brothel’ on this line — whatever method suits you suits him, as long as he profits from it.
>We’ve got the time if you’ve got the scratch ‘We’ll tend to your needs if you pay us’. The framing of TP&P offering an exclusive service, as though it’s so desirable you need to be booked into it, begins here with the implication that said service is greatly beneficial. Simultaneously, it’s callous: TP&P won’t waste a second on your ‘needs’ if you won’t front up and pay him. ‘Got time, got time’.
>(We’ll conquer your sins while she screams on her back) Through your sin you will be a saint! That’s the kind of backwards world TP&P is selling. Specifically, go rail a whore in the Dime, come be absolved in the confessional, and know in the end you’ve made your effort and have your licence to do it all again tomorrow. If you hadn’t committed the sin, you wouldn’t be absolved now, would you?
>Faster, save me Great juxtaposition. This line gets reprised a lot, and for now probably represents Ms Terri back at another day at work, while also generally representing the contradictory, whirling cycle of the Church and the Dime. ‘Save me from sin, quickly, hallelujah’ but also, ‘Fuck me faster big boy! (Oh my god, get me out, let it end!)’.
>How the sins remain hostage The sins people commit at the Dime will never be absolved because there is no legitimate Priest who could do so. Instead, there’s just TP&P, who enables and encourages people to continue in their vices, then controls them with addiction and blackmail. Equally, once he has led someone into vice, it’s extremely unlikely they’ll ever get away from sin or corruption. A ‘hostage’ is how it feels to be in TP&P’s orbit.
>Harder, I can’t breathe Same as faster/save me, but harsher. The strength Ms Terri had in Inquiry has broken down considerably by now, especially when she’s mid-work. TP&P’s whole regime is suffocating. First appearance of the breathing motif around sex.
>Now the priest and the pimp are already equipped / With an enigmatic frontage posts “we welcome walk-ins” The position of ‘priest’ and of ‘pimp’ is now flipped. Call him a Priest moonlighting as a Pimp or a Pimp daylighting as a Priest, either way’s arbitrary.
‘Enigmatic frontage’ alludes to like four things at once. One: when acting as the Pimp, TP&P wears a mask, concealing his identity. Two: even when he’s acting as the Priest, and not wearing a mask, his true thoughts are hard to read. Three: The outward facade of the Church conceals the corrupt nature of the Priest. Four: The outward facade of the Dime does not make it immediately obvious that it’s a brothel.
Same for we welcome walk-ins. Referring to TP&P, it means he projects an accommodating, friendly demeanour to basically everyone he comes across. Referring to either establishment, it simultaneously means he doesn’t turn anyone away (welcoming everyone as a potential mark/patron), while also inviting passersby to try either establishment as a therapeutic option for solving what ails them.
>So we corner our pace and make quick for the door / To be pardoned and passed from the bed to the floor TP&P’s MO is stated explicitly: he encourages people to patronise the Dime as the Pimp, then forgives them for doing so as the Priest, so there is no moral safeguard against indulging obsessively in vice. This, of course, gives the Priest great blackmail and makes his profit margins shoot up.
>Take me to the river / Take me to the river This repetition is likely more than Ms Terri going home: everyone caught in TP&P’s schemes is thinking, ‘get me out of here!’.
>Sing softly, sing ’em to the lake / Sing softly, bring ’em to the lake A general plea for those caught in TP&P’s schemes to find a better future, and for a good end of the story with TP&P defeated, but maybe also Ms Terri mentally soothing herself in the midst of (and after) getting railed by detaching herself from the scene and reminding herself that this is for Hunter’s future. Sounds a bit like a lullaby, and given that Hunter reprises it later, she may have sung it to him.
1878 We’ve got a way we got away and survived Stunned by the shock and fearing what’s behind
Everything you thought you’d live and die for Every reason leading you to hear all of the sounds That trickle past your introspective ear An attempt to discover what’s behind
Branches twisting reaching for the sky Hands extending reaching for the…
Fell in another hole (For the knife, for the knife) Loss of control (For the knife, for the knife) I’m in another hole (For the knife, for the knife) Bleed myself dry (Save my life, save my life)
The river The lake…
Fell in another hole (For the knife, for the knife) Loss of control (For the knife, for the knife) Hands conflicting clearly point their way Stunned by the sign and fearing what it says
Everything you thought you’d live and die for Every reason leading you to hear all of the sounds That trickle past your introspective ear An attempt to discover what’s…
Fell in another hole (For the knife, for the knife) Loss of control (For the knife, for the knife) I’m in another hole (For the knife, for the knife) Bleed myself dry (Save my life, save my life)
The river The lake…
Fell in another hole (For the knife, for the knife) Loss of control (For the knife, for the knife) I’m in another hole (For the knife, for the knife) Bleed myself dry (Save my life, save my life) The river The lake…
Fell in another hole (For the knife, for the knife) Loss of control (For the knife, for the knife)
🌲🌲🌲
What Happens? Hunter, having discovered there are things Ms Terri isn’t telling him, considers leaving the Lake up the River to find answers. He goes to the bounds of the Lake, but ultimately turns back, intimidated by vastness of the world outside.
AKA, ‘Hunter Tries To Figure Out Everything About The Dime (The Source Of These Troubles), Without Knowing Anything About The Dime (Including That It Exists)’.
Whose Viewpoint? We’re in Hunter’s head now! First of many times that’ll be true. He’s finally old enough to be having some independent thoughts and opinions about things, hence why we’re able to hear his narration, though he’s still a child.
🌲🌲🌲
>We’ve got a way we got away and survived So! To begin, Hunter’s figured out some things about where he came from. Whether he’s put clues together on his own, or whether Ms Terri let something slip (feels more likely this, as the intonation feels like someone repeating information told to them), Hunter now knows that he and Ms Terri relocated from elsewhere to escape from some kind of troubled situation. (He might specifically know the ‘elsewhere’ is the city, as he beelines to it on the Delphi Express, but I’m not certain).
>Stunned by the shock and fearing what’s behind Of course, this information is a shocking revelation to Hunter. Up until now he’d have no reason to think he was born anywhere except the lake, and the idea that there’s some kind of darkness to his and his mother’s life, and what exactly it could be, scares him.
>Everything you thought you’d live and die for Now here’s a tricky line that gets reprised a bit. Not diving into any particularly involved rumination, my basic kneejerk thought is ‘Hunter does things for his mother’, that is, Hunter loves his mother and will do whatever he can to support her and make her happy. Though he may have figured that (or not had to consider that) the things he does for her — hunt, grow, be happy, and play — are already enough, it seems that’s not quite true. He may need to make a more concerned effort, and go out of his comfort zone, if he’s to help his mother with the darkness she faces.
It might also be like, ‘you can’t know the purpose to anything you do if you don’t understand yourself’, and Hunter is realising that maybe, he doesn’t know himself.
>Every reason leading you to hear all of the sounds / That trickle past your introspectiveear / An attempt to discover what’s behind Hunter is paying attention to the subtle cues Ms Terri unconsciously gives that things are not entirely right — maybe a sigh, a stifled groan, any offhand allusions to foreign places. Though he’s scared of the darkness and secrets, he’s also curious, and eager to know what exactly it is that’s troubling his mother, so that he might fix it, and for clues to his own identity.
>Branches twisting reaching for the sky / Hands extending reaching for the… Hunter stands before the Tree that marks the northern bound of the lake, gazing up at its sprawling branches. Going past this tree will bring him towards the city, in the direction Ms Terri goes every time she leaves, but she’s forbidden Hunter from crossing this boundary. The great size of the tree, too, is so awesome as to be intimidating to young Hunter, and in itself feels to tell him to turn back, which he cannot help but heed.
Hunter considers the vastness of the world outside his little corner, stricken with a desire to reach out and claim it. However…
>Fell in another hole / (For the knife, for the knife) Every time it feels Hunter is coming close to the answers he seeks, he finds himself at a dead end. Any direct questions he asks of Ms Terri lead nowhere or are smoothly deflected, and any other clues he could follow don’t particularly cohere into anything. Though he’s pursuing as many leads as possible, he feels stuck in a state of ignorance, and his inability to resolve answers out of the clever tracks that he pursues with hope only underscores to him how ignorant he really is.
When he actually does leave the lake, this principle still holds true. His overwhelming ignorance of the world’s evils leads him to get more and more deeply stuck in difficult situations.
The knife here is two things: first, the knife works as a symbol of Hunter’s ability to provide for Ms Terri. He is in part pursuing these answers out of concern for Ms Terri. Second, the knife works as a symbol of Hunter’s ability to provide for himself — his self-agency. Hunter is thirsty for more independence and to take more control over his life.
The constant repetition of this line (with variations, and this verse in general) illustrates Hunter’s obsessive pursuit of answers, continuous preoccupation with these thoughts, and repeated attempts and failures to find the truth. It also makes for a very nice song.
Also depicted in the comics as Hunter literally falling into a trap-hole after dropping his knife into it.
>Bleed myself dry / (Save my life, save my life) Less sure about this line. Does Hunter feel his life (or ‘self’) is in danger if he can’t achieve more strength and agency? He might be feeling like he’s not able to be who he wants to be, and a bit helpless.
>The river / The lake… Hunter imagines himself at the junction of the river and the lake. He looks up north, along the river, then back south, to the lake, weighing each as an option.
>Hands conflicting clearly point their way Shaky on this, but Hunter knows that the only way to get proper answers will be to leave the lake and go north. Maybe he’s looking at a signpost, with lots of different directions coming off the pole.
‘But the right hand hates the left,’ maybe it’s also that he can see what his two choices are: stay or go, and the broad implications of each. He can stay coddled in safety and ignorance with Ms Terri at the lake, or go into danger and truth all alone up the river, and is torn between these options.
>Stunned by the sign and fearing what it says Unsure on this too. If it is literally a signpost, I’m not sure why it would scare him. Maybe he’s intimidated to learn that so many places exist outside the lake, how large the world is, and how small he is in comparison. I think there’s more here but can’t figure it. (’There was a silver circle sign?’).
>4:06 – 4:42 Instrumental Unsure but interesting. Sounds nice too. Same for the next instrumental passage to the end.
Lots of stuff on this song gets brought up again in the Lake and the River — this song is setting up that’s he’s considered the option of leaving the lake, but didn’t, so when he does finally do that, it’s nice to see the same images come up again.
The Inquiry of Ms. Terri A home removed, a life resumed right here The Priest and the rosary The book and the bond between he and me has long since broken A boy who’s grown, too short to see A tale unfolds, too tall to be A life once lived behind closed doors, the irony of the pensive whore
Touch, taste, feel it ripping me down A reprise, two times, the Dime, burn it to the ground Ohhhh, on the ground
The inquiry of Ms. Terri The expiry of misery The table turns the sun long The river bed, and he’s alone The object of affection Conflicted by convictions of indecency, sorority Corrupted by impropriety The cavalier, she hopes of him In dissonance with experience A boy who grows, with knife in hand To fend for her, becomes a man But she plays fake affection, and carefully lacks objection To her gentleman caller’s twisted desires
Touch, taste, feel it ripping me down A reprise, two times, the dime, burn it to the ground
We dance around the room My love, I’ll carry you And I’ll teach you how to treat That Leading lady that you’ll meet We dance around the truth My dear, I lie for you But when I lie down I’m simply lying to them too
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What Happens? Ms Terri and Hunter have settled at the Lake, but without enough resources to sustain herself and Hunter for long, Ms Terri resumes prostituting. Realising that this lifestyle will affect Hunter, she chooses to work at the Dime again, so that she can at least keep her professional business separated from him.
She lives a double life as a prostitute in the City and as Hunter’s mother at the Lake, taking care to instil him with good morals, but sheltering him from learning the truth of her work or the evils of the world.
What’s in a Name? ‘Ms Terri Introspects’ AKA ‘Ms Terri Questions What She Should Do, Morally’ AKA ‘Ms Terri Goes Full Spanish Inquisition On Herself’
Viewpoint? We’re in Ms Terri’s head for this one!
🌲🌲🌲
>0:00 – 0:24 Instrumental This feels like it’s reprised somewhere but I can’t put my finger on where. ‘One life for another’? Yes, that’s it. Ms Terri was seeking to end her life as a prostitute to begin one as Hunter’s mother, and to that end has successfully left the City behind.
Ms Terri and Hunter are living at the lake, and though it’s a better environment than the City, things are not all well, and a critical decision needs to be made…
>A home removed, a life resumed right here hhhhhhhhhhhooooLY CRAP, she is SAD!!! Let’s ignore the lyrics for a moment and focus on how absolutely miserable that voice is. Ms. Terri, is everything okay? No? Here’s a hotline if you need to talk…
Anyway, how to start here. The ‘life resumed’ is the life of prostitution she tried to erase in City Escape – ‘a harlot’s life’. Off the bat, we’re being told that she’s still working as a prostitute.
Which means things didn’t go exactly to plan, which might be why she sounds so sad. She did manage to remove herself a significant distance away from the City, her last home, and she has managed to cut it completely from her life, removing it as a home… but, literally, ‘re-moved’. That is, a home ‘exchanged’. She’s swapped her location, but continued doing the same things she was before.
This isn’t a read I’ve seen too much, but let’s think about Ms Terri’s options. She escaped the city on foot, so how much money or food could she have brought with her to the lake? One of her first priorities after settling (she and Hunter find an isolated, unoccupied cabin to live in) would be finding employment, though as a woman in the late Victorian era, any job offerings would be sparse and ill-paying. We can figure by The Procession that there is a community around the area of the lake, though Hunter and Ms Terri’s residence is somewhat distanced from it. Ms Terri’s first option would’ve been to look for employment here.
But she fails to find work, or fails to find work that pays well enough for her and Hunter to live on. Equally, she’s either unable to find a suitor who could support her (I imagine her past as a prostitute and existing child makes things extremely difficult in this regard), or does not consider such a relationship as a feasible/desirable option. So she returns to the occupation that she’s experienced in and that pays well: prostitution. This is where she’s at now, contemplating the implications of this choice.
(Also to note, about her sadness: I’d wager it’s also depression. She feels very, very powerless in her life, and likely has for a long time.)
>The Priest and the rosary / The book and the bond between he and me has long since broken Innnteresting lines. I think we get a strong look at some core elements of Ms Terri’s character here.
First of all: she is (was) Catholic. Very, very Catholic. Moreover, she is a guilty one, who seems to have persistently struggled with seeing herself as a good person largely because she failed to adhere to, or did not feel she intrinsically met, the doctrines of her religion. This has likely been true since even before she joined the Dime, and her view of herself has likely always been negative for it. (We can see how important religion is to her from: the fact she’s thinking this at all, the fact she regards TP&P as a Priest first (she cares about moral judgement from his Priest guise more than exploitation from his Pimp guise – she likely also first approached him as a Priest than as a Pimp), with the longstanding oppressiveness of it showing in how the rosary appears where we’d usually see ‘the Pimp’.)
We can also figure how Ms Terri came to work at the Dime. She confessed her moral anxieties to the Priest, turning to him as an authority for guidance in rectifying her sins and mending her relationship with God. This is the bond between her and the Priest. Seeing her vulnerable position, instead, he convinced her to work in his brothel.
This line of work exacerbated her moral complex and tanked her self-esteem further, while also being generally rough and degrading. Working in the Dime showed her TP&P was corrupt, which dashed her hopes of moral redemption through him, but simultaneously left her wondering if she deserved this mistreatment on account of being a sinner. The Dime broke the promise that TP&P could put Ms Terri right with God, and Ms Terri’s confidence that she was inherently worth a benevolent God’s favour. So it’s not that she doesn’t believe in God — it’s that she doesn’t think she’s a good enough person to be Christian, and isn’t one, inevitably. (Moreover, it’s completely destroyed her trust in the church as an institution).
City Escape gave her a flash of hope for redemption, though. ‘Free, pardoned by the flame’. She took this as a sign that God had maybe not completely forgiven her, but had allowed and was encouraging her to pursue the reinvention of herself as something other than a sinner.
But, here she is, still the same. Reflecting, she resigns that she will never become a good person in God’s eyes.
Also, there’s been a timeskip since City Escape. She’s been prostituting herself at the lake for a while now.
>A boy who’s grown, too short to see Hunter’s not a newborn anymore, but he’s still not more than a toddler. His brain is full of giggles and his main concern is finding new things to shove in his mouth. As such, he’s not able to question what Ms Terri’s doing. Also note the intonation in her voice for this line, and the uptick in energy: Ms Terri brightens (slightly) the second she thinks of Hunter. She loves him.
>A tale unfolds, too tall to be Ms Terri thinks the actions she’s taking are insensible. If she were to recount her decisions thus far, and the decision she’s about to make, the listener would think it so outrageous that it would have to be false. All the same, she’s resolved to continue working as a prostitute while raising Hunter at the lake, specifically with a double-life.
>A life once lived behind closed doors Her work as a prostitute used to be within the confines of the Dime — here at the lake, though, she’s a street walker. That she’s the local whore is common knowledge and has complicated her ability to integrate. It will also make things difficult for Hunter later, knowing his mother is the town whore.
>the irony of the pensive whore Man, listen to her voice tremble on ‘whore’. That’s how Ms Terri sees herself, and how she knows others see her — as a brainless, dirty whore who’ll never be anything more than a hotbox of sin. Despite that negative self-judgement, she’s obviously smart enough to be contemplating the implications of her actions on a moral/philosophical level, but also selfless enough to put aside any fear or spite or pride she may have to simply do what is right for her child.
Because, if she’s a whore, then she might as well…
>Touch, taste, feel it ripping me down / A reprise, two times, the Dime, burn it to the ground …go back to the Dime.
In classic Dime fashion, the clients are brutal, much more than anyone at the lake. Here she isn’t a person, or even the local whore — just flesh. Ms Terri loathes this place and this job, and can feel it destroying her, but this is the best choice for Hunter.
Also foreshadowing the burning of The Dime in act V.
>The inquiry of Ms. Terri / The expiry of misery We have an uptick in energy and confidence here. Ms Terri has come to her solution, and feels that her choice is the right one. By quarantining her sin in the City and the Dime, she can keep its influence away from Hunter and afford him the chance, which she didn’t have, to live happily at the lake in peace and innocence, by which he might become a better and less troubled person than her. It also allows her to develop a dual-life with well separated dual-identities to facilitate raising him, that she may cast off her sins more easily around him and assume the guise of Only Hunter’s Mother. The Dime may be terrible, but Ms Terri feels assured.
>The table turns the sun long / The river bed, and he’s alone Ms Terri feels she’s the one with the agency in how she’s approached the Dime, this time. She wasn’t conned into it, and she has a proper core of purpose and conviction to help her maintain her confidence despite how she’s treated there.
Meanwhile, as evening falls after a long day at work, Hunter waits at the river for Ms Terri to return. Ms Terri has that image of Hunter in her mind when she’s away.
>The object of affection She is doing this all for Hunter.
>Conflicted by convictions of indecency, sorority / Corrupted by impropriety Still, Ms Terri is torn. She regards what she’s doing as degrading and morally wrong, and the wrongness of it grates against the pure intentions she has in doing her best for Hunter. A schism is starting to form between these dual identities, and the need to hide her life as a prostitute, so that she can keep her identity as Hunter’s Mother clean, is becoming more pronounced.
>The cavalier, she hopes of him / In dissonance with experience She hopes her clients will treat her well, and show her basic kindness, even though the reality is they’re all brutes. ‘Please be soft and sweet to me.’ She’s starting to crack, wanting mercy — the Dime truly is horrific.
>A boy who grows, with knife in hand / To fend for her, becomes a man Time passes with this arrangement. Hunter is now a child capable of handling tools, and Ms Terri gives him a knife to use to hunt animals. Though he may not realise it, Hunter’s hunts likely allow Ms Terri to spend less time at the Dime — meals that he can get on their plate translate to money she doesn’t have to earn, and clients she doesn’t need to sleep with.
>But she plays fake affection, and carefully lacks objection / To her gentleman caller’s twisted desires Still, he’s not the breadwinner here. Her work at the Dime continues, with great and deceptive professionalism.
>We dance around the room / My love, I’ll carry you Here’s our first mention of dancing, which we’ll come to see used a lot in the sense of putting energy and belief into what is likely a futile or doomed performance. The dance might not achieve what it’s setting out to do, and there may be something about it that intrinsically conflicts with the idea behind it, but the passion involved is indeed real. Ms Terri reestablishes that she’ll protect and guide Hunter, but also that she’ll keep him entrenched within the dance: that is, she will keep him blind to her second life, and lead him away from clues that could expose him to the truth. The truth she’s hiding is horrible, though, and that she distances him from it is out of love.
Also I imagine that Ms Terri is literally dancing with Hunter, enjoying the simple gaiety and levity of an activity with her son, despite the knowledge that she’s lying gnawing at her every time she acts carefree.
>And I’ll teach you how to treat / That Leading lady that you’ll meet Ms Terri is determined to raise Hunter as a good young man, with an empathetic sense of right and wrong and a compassionate approach to women. You could also say she’s teaching him to be soft and sweet, not like patrons of the Dime, and not like his father.
We also have our first reference to Ms. Leading, who we’ll meet in act II. The specific wording of ‘leading lady’ is a pun, as she’s the story’s primary love interest and the only woman Hunter will fall in love with, his leading lady. Though we know it’s a specific reference, Ms Terri definitely doesn’t, so the way the phrasing works as a generic term she might use to say ‘whoever your future wife is’ is pretty satisfying.
>We dance around the truth / My dear, I lie for you / But when I lie down / I’m simply lying to them too Powerfully, Ms Terri’s solution is stated. She’ll shelter Hunter from the world’s evil, and give him a chance at a happy life of peace and innocence, even though doing so means lying to him. She has also committed to these separate, dual identities of Ms Terri the Prostitute and Ms Terri the Mother, neither of which are the ‘true’ Ms Terri — in a sense, as she knows, destroying her ‘self’ for Hunter.
>4:48 – 5:10 Instrumental Ms Terri’s dance of these dual lives continues, but a note of stress and anxiety rises…
>5:11 – 5:30 Instrumental The dissonant emotional turmoil behind Ms Terri’s dual facades is building, and the dance of this secretive lifestyle is becoming harder to maintain…
>5:30 – 5:57 Instrumental The building stress overwhelms Ms Terri, and the determined optimistic nature of the dance breaks down as Hunter begins to ask questions.
City Escape Please, what happened to the flame? (It burned down the sides) With a fondness for cooking history Revealing thoughts of Ms. Terri
In the heat of the night A woman wealthy of a parous plight erased a harlot’s life
(With the moon at her back, unaware of what could be)
Plagued by practical and a mercenary lust, they tear at her skin (Oh, the trouble began, but it never ended) Clawing at her throat with a smell of desperate and a lack of regret (Oh, the trouble began, but it never ended)
Free, pardoned by the flame (That burned down the sides) Her feet began to bleed between the seams But she persisted to the streets
In the heat of the night The river rendered the chance she surely needs to stay alive
Plagued by practical and a mercenary lust they tear at her skin (Oh, the trouble began, but it never ended) Clawing at her throat with a smell of desperate and a lack of regret (Oh, the trouble began, but it never ended)
Oh, but her breath escapes her Oh, but the pulse remains Oh, but her breath escapes her Oh, but her pulse remains
Places, People, the stage is set Places, People, the stage is set
Plagued by practical and a mercenary lust they tear at her skin (Oh, the trouble began, but it never ended) Clawing at her throat with a smell of desperate and a lack of regret (Oh, the trouble began, but it never ended)
Plagued by practical and a mercenary lust they tear at her skin (Oh, the trouble began, but it never ended) Clawing at her throat with a smell of desperate and a lack of regret (Oh, the trouble began, but it never ended)
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What Happens? Ms Terri sets her room in the Dime ablaze and, following the river to the lake, escapes the City with Hunter.
What’s in a Name? You tell me.
Whose Viewpoint? Omniscient
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>0:00 – 0:13 Instrumental The flame is started, and Ms Terri goes to exit the brothel.
>0:13 – 0:24 Instrumental Ms Terri quickens her pace, putting distance between herself and the flaming brothel, only to glance behind her and see…
>Please, what happened to the flame? …the flame is gone, and the brothel’s not burning! She no longer has such a potent distraction to cloak her and Hunter’s escape from the City.
>(It burned down the sides) We get a description of Ms Terri’s room in He Said He Had A Story: ‘Our pace was quickened to her floor / There was a single feigning light / And there was silk all on the walls’. Unfortunately for Ms Terri, real silk doesn’t burn that easily, and this is before the advent of polyester. The silk curtains on the walls of her room smother the flame before it can spread to the building’s foundations, or anything else more vitally flammable.
Note, also, that Ms Terri’s room is above ground level, and this is before the advent of fire escapes, too. She had to go downstairs and use a back exit, hop out the lowest window she could find, or traverse the main floor where the patrons and TP&P hang out.
>With a fondness for cooking history Burning the brothel was more than just a distraction: Ms Terri wants to erase her life as a prostitute entirely, and sever any tie from it that could catch up to her in the future, so she can be reborn as only Hunter’s mother. Cooking history has a bit of a double meaning too, as cooking is a creative process. She looks to burn down the past, but also create a future.
We have some references from Ms Terri about history in He Said He Had A Story: ‘This life has not been good, you see / It’s hard with such a history / Buried in misery’. Her life at the Dime has been hell, but I’m getting the impression that whatever was happening before wasn’t rainbows, either.
>Revealing thoughts of Ms. Terri We’re formally introduced to the character we’re following, Ms. Terri. And finally I can mention that yeah. It’s a pun on ‘mystery’. Mystery is our keyword to know when vaguer songs are referencing Ms Terri.
It’s unclear whether her name is genuinely Ms Terri or whether she assumed that name after going into sex work (though would she have referred to herself by such a name to Hunter?), but it doesn’t matter, since as far as Hunter cares, she’s always been Ms Terri – mystery. Most everything about his mother has left Hunter with questions whose answers he can’t grasp. But moving on…
>In the heat of the night Our setting is established a little: it’s nighttime, and we’re either in a region that’s hot for most of the year, or it’s summer. It could just be hot because there’s a fire going on, but the flame has already snuffed. (Or it’s just saying things are moving quick and chaotic, but)
>A woman wealthy of a parous plight erased a harlot’s life Here’s our first instance in the acts of someone ‘erasing’ their old life, and hence their old self, to be reborn as someone new. This line also establishes that yes, this is the mother mentioned in Battesimo Del Fuoco.
‘Wealthy’ of a ‘plight’ — what a complicated situation. There’s a lot of uncertainty, risk, and danger in Ms Terri’s motherhood to Hunter, but she’s decided that the positives are worth it. I also question whether TP&P would’ve even let Ms Terri keep Hunter for long. So her options were either: ‘stay and raise her child in a sleazy brothel/run away’ or ‘stay and lose her child/run away’. Personally I like the latter idea… it would seriously put pressure on the need for Ms Terri to make a choice.
>(With the moon at her back, unaware of what could be) oh boy it’s the MOON. Go away moon, I don’t want to think about you…
Taking the moon as a false persona, given that she’s turned away from it, maybe Ms Terri is looking toward being the ‘true self’ she might’ve been before joining the Dime, though it sounds like it’s been long enough that she’s lost touch with who that true self is. Either way, leaving with Hunter was an impulsive decision, she knows nothing of what to expect, and she hasn’t arranged anything in advance except that she go to the Lake.
>Plagued by practical and a mercenary lust, they tear at her skin A recount of what Ms. Terri’s life is like in the brothel: bad. Lots of double meanings here… but fundamentally, this is to tell us what life is like in the Dime. This establishment is a sleaze shop that does not care about the welfare of its workers; so long as the client pays, and the girl can still come back to work tomorrow, anything is fine. Customer is king, and all.
We’ll see that the proprietor of the Dime is an extremely greedy and cruelly judgemental man. These low standards, apart from giving him a wider customer base, have probably helped him drive out competition and situate the Dime as the brothel in the region. And I mean I’m sure there are rules, to make the place look legitimate, but in practice I’d figure they’re more like ‘suggestions’.
Practical and mercenary lust, yup, that’s the essence of the Dime. You’re paying? Then do what you want with her.
>(Oh, the trouble began, but it never ended) No kidding. Ms. Terri just tried to end the trouble by burning down the Dime, but instead of end anything, this has only set the seed for five more acts’ worth of unremitting troubles. Sort of the opposite of flame gone / fire remains, which promises a horizon.
>Clawing at her throat with a smell of desperate and a lack of regret sorry let me correct that assessment of Ms. Terri’s life at the brothel: REALLY bad. Given that the Dime allows basically anything, it’s probably where the worst punters wind up.
>1:24 – 1:35 Instrumental Not sure what this is, but it’s interesting. Some kind of realisation on Ms Terri’s part?
>Free, pardoned by the flame The flame is characterised as a benevolent force that momentarily severs the link to corruption. Though the distraction it offered was brief, it was enough to get Ms Terri and Hunter outside of the Dime uncontested. Realising she’s escaped her biggest obstacle, she refocuses…
>Her feet began to bleed between the seams / But she persisted to the streets …and, fearful of pursuit, runs so vigorously she cuts her (bare?) feet open, but keeps sprinting through the pain.
>In the heat of the night / The river rendered the chance she surely needs to stay alive If she can just get to the river, then she can follow it to the lake. She fears TP&P’s goons will kill her if they catch her.
>2:00 – 2:47 Instrumental Interesting but I’m clueless. The sound of Ms Terri flagging as search crews begin mobilising to find her? Lamps of carriages shining down alleyways…
>3:12 – 3:35 Instrumental Ms Terri has deftly avoided her pursuers, and in the moonlight, sights and approaches the river.
>Oh, but her breath escapes her / Oh, but the pulse remains She jumps into the river to cross it, rattled by its chill. But she successfully crosses, and travels a ways on its current, without drowning. On repetition, she reaches shore and pauses to look back. She’s exhausted and panting after all this running, but triumphantly realises she’s made it out of the city alive.
>Places, People, the stage is set ‘Alright! That’s the key circumstances set up, now to get the story rolling…’
>5:42 The Lake South Reprise Ms. Terri embarks for the lake, and reaches it.
Alright, here’s our first instance of a purely instrumental passage that sounds like just a transition, but isn’t.
Going to my second assumption in reading: all songs are in sequential narrative order. What’s just happened narratively is that Hunter was born, and what will happen next in City Escape is that Ms Terri sets her room alight. So why are we getting a song about the Lake? Here’s why: this song isn’t just describing the peaceful atmosphere of the lake, or transitioning out of Battesimo Del Fuoco; we’re hearing Ms Terri consider where she could go if she were to leave with Hunter. This song is Ms Terri fantasising about a better future for herself and Hunter at the Lake, culminating into action in City Escape.
Most of the song is just a description of the lake though, with calm clear water, fields of green grass, a valley…
What’s in a name? Why is it The Lake South? Because we’re north of it, in the city.
Battesimo Del Fuoco Believe you me: the price is clear A child born, the mother near To death and life as hand in hand A failed life exposed the man Who led her off into the flame To cast her back to hell again
But hear you me: the break of dawn Will wash away the sins thereof Unto the lake beyond the tree The child waits, alone is he
The flame is gone, the fire remains The flame is gone, the fire remains The flame is gone, the fire remains The flame is gone, the fire remains
The flame is gone, the fire remains The flame is gone, the fire remains
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What happens? Hunter is born. Information is given on his fate, grounding us with the central themes of the story that will unfold.
What’s in a name? ‘Battesimo Del Fuoco’ translates to ‘Baptism by Fire’ translates to ‘Hunter’s Life Is Arduous’. Our protagonist is going to hit many obstacles and be thrown into many painful situations, with little guidance of what to do.
It also denotes him as anointed with ‘the fire’, both metaphorically pointing to him as the fire in ‘the flame is gone / fire remains’, and reminding us literally that Hunter’s life starts with a burning building.
Whose viewpoint? Omniscient narrator? Oracles? I don’t think it really matters. Casey just wants us to have this information as a central statement of what the story’s about.
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>0:00 – 0:00 Instrumental WOAH WOAH WOAH is something hot in here? I think I hear burning! Oh nevermind it’s just Hunter’s fate. Tah hah hah. Foreshadowing. Alright where to start here.
But that’s getting ahead a little. So here we have a song that sounds like it’s a prophecy, sung in a church or before some force of providence or somesuch, though I don’t think it’s meant to have any specific setting (if any, it would be the room of the Dime where Hunter is born…) so much as simply existing to give information to the audience.
>Believe you me: the price is clear The only thing that’s happened so far is Hunter’s birth. What is the price of that?
Well, biggest the price would be the fated loss of his innocence. It’s somewhat inevitable he’d return to the city of corruption where he was born and get swallowed up. Simply by virtue of being born as product of rape to Ms Terri, who is deep in the thick of the beast, he is already damned to sin and corruption if he should ever learn himself at all.
This corruption is strong, evil, and heritable. It isolates Hunter and kills all the good things in his life, but it also is not something he can escape. Being that Hunter by the end of his life is a thief, a murderer, an adulterer, a crooked politician, a drug addict, and an arsonist at the very least, with powerful and evil enemies, his son may also be at risk of corruption if he gets wrapped in his father’s dealings, and the cycle of wicked fate continues… unless?
>A child born, the mother near A shot of Hunter and Ms Terri, grounding us with some characters and a frank description of the scene. The child is a newborn and the loving mother is keeping him close.
>To death and life as hand in hand A death is the trigger for a birth, or rebirth. ‘One life for another’. It is in the death and ending of one thing that a new thing may rise to prominence – our indicator that this is a story highly concerned with cycles, and the repetition of patterns across cycles.
Most of the rebirths are on Hunter’s part as he goes through different stages of identity. Ms Terri dies, Hunter gains agency. The Son dies, Hunter takes his identity. Ms Leading dies, Hunter’s true identity is freed. This works for Ms Terri too actually – Hunter is born, and Ms Terri the prostitute dies (attempted) to make way for Ms Terri the mother.
I figure Hunter’s death also makes way for his son to take the stage, while TP&P’s death gives way to Mr Usher’s dominion.
>A failed life exposed the man / Who led her off into the flame / To cast her back to hell again Which men get exposed? Thinking in terms of Act V… well, Hunter does, when TP&P reveals his stolen identity, but Hunter’s not casting anyone into hell (specifically Ms Leading. He lights the fire that burns her corpse but he doesn’t kill her or force her to work in the Dime, say). So my gut reaction is the man is TP&P, though TP&P’s dual identity is never publicly revealed. You could say he’s exposed in the sense that he loses his power, though. Probably just following Act V, this is foreshadowing Ms Leading’s death (’led’ her off…).
A failed life -> Hunter in the opium den/Moon Exposed the man -> TP&P grows nervous about his control over Hunter Led her off -> TP&P targets Ms Leading Into the flame -> as in The Flame (Is Gone), TP&P kills Ms Leading To cast her back to hell -> she’s dead and her body burns (TP&P also regards her cruelly, with hell being her place) Again -> working in the Dime is/was Hell. ‘It felt like heaven / but I’m sure she was in hell’
>But hear you me: the break of dawn / Will wash away the sins thereof ‘You were born with the sun / and you die with the moon’. What is the moon? A false reflection of the sun. Generally (and in tarot, which the acts do use symbolically at minimum for King of Swords), the moon is a symbol of deceptions and illusions, with the song titled for it being the one where Hunter is off hallucinating in an opium den after losing sight of his true self beneath his false persona. There’s a lot of dual-identities/personas in the acts, from Ms Terri, Ms Leading, TP&P, Hunter… but it’s when those false personas shatter that hope of an absolution comes. Hunter fulfilled this part of the prophecy by reclaiming his true self in act V.
Interesting choice of ‘wash away’ sins though, in what, maybe a lake? We get the theme of the Lake reprised at the end of A Beginning – paired with this prophecy, it maybe suggests that in the end, Hunter’s death didn’t damn him (or his son, as sins are hereditary, so he also retroactively absolved Ms Terri. Or to have a less literal view on afterlives, vindicated her).
>Unto the lake beyond the tree / The child waits, alone is he You think this is Hunter? Psyche, it’s his son. Or both. That they wind up in the same place is definitely intentional… (And Hunter’s Son’s mother winds up having to leave him behind also, like Ms Terri did Hunter).
Also I can update my map! The tree is between the lake and the city.
>The flame is gone, the fire remains And there it is! The whopper! Oh god I barely want to touch this.
Alright. To start, initially, the ‘flame’ belongs to Ms Terri. The fire she sets to the Dime is the ‘flame’ – which lets Ms Terri escape, but then fizzles out without destroying the Dime. The flame offers liberation from evil, but cannot destroy it. However, it’s this smaller initial act of pure love that allows Ms Terri to find a good place to raise Hunter, who eventually does become a force (the fire) that can destroy the evil. Note also that though Ms Terri undoubtedly wants to see the Dime in ashes (’reprise, two times, the Dime / burn it to the ground’), she doesn’t have a ‘fire’ (or warpath) to go back at any point and actually burn it down (she loves Hunter more than she hates the Dime).
To step back for a moment, it’s like ‘the force that initiates a path toward goodness may perish, but its influence will survive to oppose evil in greater turn’.
There’s also a valence to these symbols: The flame is loving, forgiving, nurturing, nonviolent, the fleetingly small but indispensable power source to something bigger The fire is angry, vengeful, destructive, impulsive, the dominant uncompromising purge of evil that simmers, overwhelms, and spreads. This makes the fire sound kind of like a jerk, but, well (and Hunter isn’t all these things all the time, but he does have the ‘power’ of the fire in him)
Anyway, it can be taken for now as ‘Ms Terri will die, but Hunter’s around to finish her business.’ Later it becomes ‘Ms Leading’s death triggers Hunter to act with total abandon’. There’s more to it, but, just for now.
Gravity of the last two repetitions impresses the importance of this information
Me & The Dear Hunter. Hello hello hello. My name’s Callie, I like stories, and upon finding a juicy one in the Dear Hunter acts I’ve fallen into a pithole. Join me here in my adventures to excruciatingly wrest the images Casey Crescenzo, the author, has in his head, or in failing to glean a proper translation at least watch me poke the scenes that fascinate me with questions, questions, questions. Then what’s your two or ten cents? Does something fit? Does it not? Talk talk.
So starting, primer, what’s The Dear Hunter? What’s the deal? The Dear Hunter is a rock band that makes excellent music, largely to the purpose of telling the narrative story of the ‘acts’. “Telling a story through music? Like a musical?” No! Take a musical: what you’ll see is characters talk-talk-expositing, I am this, I think this, I feel this, tuneful ways for characters to communicate, but substitutable if you wished with plain acting and dialogue.
Now take one of those lyrics-heavy indie musicians, say in the territory of Eliott Smith or The Dismemberment Plan or rewinding a bit to Mr Bungle. We have characters, conflict, setting, a change in the character’s state between beginning and end, well then, are these not stories? In the same way that an illustrator picks up a brush or a novelist sets to a typewriter, a musician jolts to their instruments when they wish to translate a specific vision of a scene into something tangible for examination, observation, release, or enjoyment. In this personal creative language, a certain rhythm or melody flows downstream of an image or concept of a god or a mouse, or of love or of death, and capturing these concepts in the highest fidelity possible is the musician’s work. That’s how I’ll be approaching The Dear Hunter, as though reading a novel in sound. What is the storytelling purpose of so-and-so passage or lyric?
NOW, rewinding, what are the ‘acts’? They’re a series of five albums that form the narrative I’ll be reading, about the tribulations of a boy with an unpropitious birth and seemingly damned future. Notably, the narrative is not complete, as since its inception the story has always meant to be six acts, but the sixth is unreleased and Casey suggests that due to its ambitiousness, it may never be done. Further, even if he does finish it, it likely won’t be in the same format as the previous five acts, as albums. The absence of the sixth act means there may be passages of foreshadowing for it that currently can’t be interpreted, but the five existing acts are meaty enough that they’re worth chewing on anyway.
okay WARNING! Prolific spoilers from this point on. Everything below here assumes you’re broadly familiar with the story of The Dear Hunter, but if you’re not and would prefer to listen through the acts without my interpretations (or flat canon info) polluting your listen, now’s the time to tab out.
Still here? Alright sweet.
Aaand disclaimer that I’m not a musician. If I misuse or neglect to use certain technical terms, that’s why, please forgive and correct me.
How to read The Dear Hunter acts? Ok so how am I doing this. Well I think there’s a few clues, or anchoring points, we can use when reading the songs that’ll help decipher Casey’s personal brain-language more than just going in blind. These are:
Look to More than the Lyrics. What the lyrics say is important, HOWEVER, equally and sometimes more important is the intonation with which they’re said. Intonation can denote a particular idea, a character’s perspective/emotional state, or the identity of a speaker. Equally, purely instrumental passages are vital: there are crucial plot events (for example, the death of Ms. Leading) that occur entirely through instrumentals, so they should not be relegated only to ‘background noise’ or ‘vibe’ or ‘transition’, but be factored as descriptions of scenes or places where very large and dramatic action can occur (or, y’know, small action).
Repetition. On that note, there’s a lot of repetition in the acts (as with any music, y’know, choruses), which oughtn’t be dismissed as… well, just the chorus. Repetition can be a sign that a character’s thoughts are stuck, or consistently returning to one idea, or that they’re repeatedly performing one action, as in Smiling Swine from Act 2. That song’s chorus is repeated incessantly, because Hunter cannot get his head out of the mindset of “:) 🙂 ❤ ❤ ❤ ms leading 🙂 🙂 😀 🙂 😀 😀 😀 :)”
Moreover, looking at repetition, it’s useful to zero in on phrases or passages whose wording, intonation, or key is different the second time round. There’s a commonality to the scene, but something has changed between them, maybe the context, emotion, etc… equally, symbols that keep reappearing across different contexts are going to have some commonality.
Reprise. The acts have PLENTIFUL reprises, and every time they appear is a signal to pay attention. It means there’s some parallel (perhaps in an event, in an attitude, in an idea, in an emotion) between the scenes where the reprises occur, the consistencies of which are clues to what’s happening now, and the differences of which also are a clue to what’s happening now.
Also I’m going to miss a ton of these.
Viewpoint. Whose head are we in for each song? This is an important thing to figure out before interpreting anything, because the implications of Hunter thinking something are a lot different from, say, Ms Leading thinking the same thing. Fortunately these have mostly been figured out or straight-up given by Casey, but a few are still hard to place (looking at you, Black Sandy Beaches).
Narrative Assumptions. Here’s a few leaps of faith I’ll be making while reading the text. In your own interpretations, this is the first stuff to throw in the wastebin.
The characters don’t lie to you. Viewpoint characters (chiefly Hunter) might lie to themselves or be in denial, but there is no occasion where a character describes something they did not actually see or think. Taking the Act V Apparition as an example, the Apparition isn’t a real ‘thing’ since it’s a drug-induced hallucination, however, Hunter’s recount of seeing and hearing it is not a lie or metaphor. As far as it matters to him, it was literally there. I’m applying this idea to any other accounts where Hunter explicitly says he saw or did a thing (but not him meditating on his mental state). Maybe it’s a metaphor, but I’ll assume it’s probably not, or is literal with a metaphorical subtext.
The timeline is sequential. Events described in a song are the ‘present moment’ for the character — we’re not hearing them through a filter of the character’s hindsight. Instances of foreshadowing aren’t consciously put there by the character (unless the character is hinting at their present intentions), but Casey, who also speaks through the Oracles.
Sources of Interpretations. Before starting this document, I’ve gone around to read as many interpretations of the acts/songs as I could find. From that, there’s a lot of ideas I’ve cobbled together from others’ speculation (and others I’ve decided to reject), which I’ll try to credit but sometimes can’t remember where I found them. In general, for community speculation, I’ve gone through the r/TheDearHunter reddit, genius annotations (careful here, these seem most liable to be misleading. I’m using genius as my lyric source too), the Dear Apparition podcast, Nick Weber’s readings (now inactive), and The Lake and the River forums. Other places I’ve scrounged for straight-up blurtings of canon from Casey include his twitter, the Dear Hunter twitter, and the Makey Words podcast. Then are the What It Means To Be Alone and Gloria music videos. I did say I fell into a hole, right.
What happens? A battered prostitute named Ms Terri, working in The City in a brothel called The Dime, is pregnant to a client. Determining that she cannot stay in the brothel with her newborn son Hunter, she sets her room in the brothel momentarily alight and flees, following a nearby River downstream to the safety of the Lake.
She establishes herself and Hunter in a cabin at the junction of the Lake and the River. Though she manages for some time, she does not have enough money or resources to support herself and Hunter indefinitely, and returns to prostituting. As Hunter grows older, she gives Hunter a knife, teaches him how to hunt, and returns to her old job at the Dime. She does this to quarantine her sin from Hunter, so that his life at the Lake and the River may remain innocent.
Time passes. Ms Terri is balancing a dual life as a prostitute at the Dime in the City, and as a mother at the Lake and the River. The stress of maintaining these dual lives is immense, as the clients of the Dime are brutal. Though she does not wish for affairs from her prostitute life to influence Hunter, Ms Terri lets slip in a moment of weakness that Hunter was not born at the Lake and the River, and that the place where he came from is dangerous.
This information piques Hunter’s concern and curiosity. Fascinated with the possibilities of what he could become under his own agency, and eager to help Ms Terri with her struggles, Hunter considers leaving the Lake to face the darkness of the world outside. He ventures to the outer bound of the Lake and the River, but finds the size of the world outside too intimidating, and turns around, returning to Ms Terri.
Hunter decides not to press the issue, as Ms Terri would plainly prefer he stay ignorant. Trusting her judgement, he lets his apprehensions fade and allows himself to be doted upon and sheltered as Ms Terri desires.
Things for Hunter are peaceful. Of course, that peace can’t last forever, and one day, he’ll have to grow up…
What is the purpose? Here we’re introduced to the setting of the story, some of its major cyphers, its overarching conflict, and our major characters — the protagonist and antagonist — Hunter and TP&P. But taking the spotlight from both of them, for now, is Ms Terri. The actions and decisions she makes in Act I are what lay the foundations of Hunter’s character, and later motivations, that kickstart his journey into becoming a bit of a wreck.
In essence, this act is a prologue, preparing us for the themes and meat we’ll be battered with over the next five (four) acts. Don’t let that undersell it though — after going through the other acts, coming back to this one is refreshing, and makes me sad for Hunter knowing that his life wasn’t always, or didn’t need to be miserable.
What’s in a name? So why’s the Lake south and the River north? Well the specific significance of those directions beats me, but what it sounds like this title is describing is the location of Hunter and Ms Terri’s residence. They’re at the junction of the River and the Lake, with the River to their north, and the Lake to their south. Since Ms Terri follows the River downstream to get to the Lake, we can also plot the City as being to the north. With that information…
…ta-daaah! A very crude map! I’m pretty sure there exists a proper canonical map floating around somewhere, but I haven’t been able to find it. Let’s see what I can plot out song-by-song on mine, then, for fun.
空劫罰 祟りネコ | JP -> ENG / TDH 