Ouroboros

Ouroboros
I bet you thought that you’d succeed
Pulling the wool right over me
Hard to believe this snake stayed in the grass
Just long enough to catch the rabbit’s feet
With telescoping glances, hands romanced, enticing you to keep
Laboring against the clock in spite of secrecy
You couldn’t know, revealed itself to me
The second you decided to compete

I fell down and I fell apart
“I never wanted to hurt no one, I never wanted to be your city’s son”
Then I cried out to his crooked heart
“I never wanted to hurt no one… no one but you”

I bet you thought that you could breathe
A satisfied sigh of relief
A terrible thing, forgetting where you came from
Or have you trouble when you fall asleep?
I’ve seen you fabricate, manipulate and here, you masquerade
But if we’re poaching ghosts, you know I’ve got a few that I would raise
Settle yourself; as long as I’m protected
You can bet your secret’s safe with me

I fell down and I fell apart
“I never wanted to hurt no one, I never wanted to be your city’s son”
Then I cried out to his crooked heart
“I never wanted to hurt no one… no one but you!”

Lost my soul in the place of the great deceiver
Foolish hearts led foolish plans awry; they told me:
“Don’t veer far from your home, try never to leave her”
Near, I landed; here I’ll live and die
Traveled too far from the River’s side

But it wasn’t long before I felt nothing below me
And all of the ground I thought I’d gained, taken away
I thought I was strong, not strong enough, my mettle was bending
Foolish plans kissed foolish hearts goodbye
Traveled too far from the River’s side

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Now that Hunter is situated comfortably as the Mayor, TP&P confronts him in private at Church about his identity theft and reveals himself as the Pimp. He threatens to reveal Hunter’s true identity if Hunter fails to do what TP&P wants. Hunter is devastated and realises his efforts as the Son have been for nothing, and that he is now under the control of the villain he wanted to destroy most.

What’s in a name?
‘Ouroboros’ — a powerful symbol, the snake eating itself. Here it signs the ending and beginning of a cycle; a process of death and rebirth; an ending that gives way to beginning; things staying ever constant through cycles. Somewhere between ‘Here’s To The End And Start Of Another Life, Hunter,’ and ‘Yes Hunter, The Pattern Is Still The Same’.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter and TP&P alternating.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:07 Instrumental
Church service for the day has wrapped up. Hunter is in attendance.

>0:08 – 0:27 Instrumental
As the Congregation leaves, the Priest pulls Hunter aside to talk privately in the confessional. It is not altogether atypical for Hunter and the Priest to be talking like this, given how closely they have collaborated — but something is different this time, and there’s an air of unease as Hunter settles into the confessional…

>I bet you thought that you’d succeed / Pulling the wool right over me
This is TP&P talking to Hunter. TP&P starts the conversation, maintaining the pretence that he is merely the City’s humble Priest, and accuses Hunter of deception.

>Hard to believe this snake stayed in the grass / Just long enough to catch the rabbit’s feet
‘Just long enough to catch the rabbit’s feet’ -> Long enough to get a reward/good fortune from it = long enough to situate himself as Mayor without anyone realising he committed identity theft, and is not the person he claims himself to be.

>With telescoping glances, hands romanced, enticing you to keep / Laboring against the clock in spite of secrecy
‘He telescoped his hand’. Telescoping glances here conjures the image of Hunter glancing about suspiciously (so he’s fearful of people figuring out the truth) but also in a way that sucks people in, ‘hands romanced’ is him making a big show of doing good things (’Every feigning flame I chance upon / I put the fire on’) and networking (’romancing’ people with his deeds). ‘Laboring against the clock’ points to his ceaseless effort in doing things as Mayor; we already saw this in King of Swords, but he’s been extremely active around the community and devoted to his general Mayoral work.

>in spite of secrecy / You couldn’t know, revealed itself to me / The second you decided to compete
TP&P reveals that he has known Hunter’s true identity all along. Why? Because he’s Hunter’s old employer, the Pimp, and Hunter didn’t realise it (’you couldn’t know’).

>1:13 – 1:18 aaaAAAAaaaAAA
Revelation. Hunter realises the Priest is the Pimp.

>I fell down and I fell apart
Hunter is speaking now. He is distraught at the revelation of who the Priest really is, and who he has been collaborating with this whole time. Rather, no, this hasn’t been collaborating… Hunter has been used! Everything he thought he built, was really a design of the Priest! He never had anything! He’s lost!

>“I never wanted to hurt no one, I never wanted to be your city’s son”
Hunter has a breakdown. He expresses that he never desired to become so aggressive or to work for wicked ends — we can suppose that some of the people Hunter ripped down in his fight to get this seat… actually, maybe weren’t that bad, or at least didn’t need to be destroyed as thoroughly as Hunter attacked them. I mean, whoever the Mayor before him was, at the very least was above-board enough to get the Dime shut down in the first place. Fair, he might be turning a blind eye to the Priest’s scummery as the Priest, or just might not be aware of it, but TP&P was actually in an unideal position for once in several decades.

Further than that, Hunter really hasn’t desired to ever hurt anyone, ever. Though he has hurt people, and has done hurtful things on impulse, his desire has always been for peace and stability. He wants to help people, if he can. Hell, even his desire to destroy TP&P fundamentally came from his childhood desire to help Ms Terri.

And more, he expresses that he never really wanted to be Mayor. He likes the purpose the position gives him and how it, ostensibly, lets him protect the innocent. But the position of Mayor itself was one he never would have thought of pursuing — he had to be in the middle of an identity crisis to take it, and the Priest had to nudge him into it. He holds onto it so tightly because it’s all that he has. He never wanted to be subservient to the Priest, much less the Pimp. And he doesn’t want this being TP&P’s city.

Either way, he’s realising his Son persona will now be used to malicious ends, destroying its purpose for Hunter entirely… after he’s already committed himself to it too far to possibly back out.

>Then I cried out to his crooked heart / “I never wanted to hurt no one… no one but you”
Hunter finally expresses his hatred for, and desire to kill, TP&P. Ever since 1878, Hunter has wanted to destroy TP&P, even if he didn’t realise then who the target of his enmity was. TP&P is ultimately the cause of every bad thing in Hunter’s life: Ms Terri’s depression, Ms Terri’s suicide, Ms Leading’s prostitution… he is just an unambiguously evil entity that extorts people, exploits them, wears them down, and enslaves them at every turn, that the world is completely better without. He is the force that people must be protected from.

>I bet you thought that you could breathe / A satisfied sigh of relief / A terrible thing, forgetting where you came from
TP&P takes over the dialogue again, rubbing salt in Hunter’s wounds.

‘Thought that you could breathe’ -> There’s that breathe again. ‘I bet you thought you had found a better, comfortable, liberating, functional life for yourself as the Son.’

‘Breathe a satisfied sigh of relief’ -> ‘And in doing, left all the troubles of your past behind.’

‘A terrible thing, forgetting where you came from’ -> I mean it’s a taunt but it’s also true too; TP&P is aware of how important people’s pasts are to their identity, and how losing connection to that past is a way to make people malleable and degraded. Note the change of tone; TP&P has fully switched off his Priest guise.

>Or have you trouble when you fall asleep?
TP&P taunts Hunter again, probing him on the suspicion that he hasn’t actually erased all of his connection to his past, and that the pain of it still has been bothering him on top of the stress of trying to assume this new identity. Ie, that he hasn’t been able to live a ‘dream’ like he desired.

>I’ve seen you fabricate, manipulate and here, you masquerade
Since Hunter was collaborating with the Priest in his mayoral campaign, TP&P knows all the scummy tactics Hunter used to rip down his opponents, on top of the basic perfidy of his false identity. Apart from just telling lies about himself, and making purposeful moves to manipulate people, it kinda sounds like Hunter also straight-up framed/blackmailed people at some point?

>But if we’re poaching ghosts, you know I’ve got a few that I would raise / Settle yourself; as long as I’m protected / You can bet your secret’s safe with me
TP&P blackmails Hunter with the threat of revealing his true identity, on top of whatever other crimes he’s committed as the Son, unless Hunter protects TP&P. That is to say, from law enforcement, as well as protecting TP&P’s reputation, as well as from anyone else who’d contest him. TP&P is going to double down on whatever illegal ventures he wants to get up to, knowing he has the Mayor in his pocket.

>Chorus Repetition
Hunter falls into further despair as it sinks in that he’s become indentured to TP&P, and will be complicit in his corruption. Hell, not only complicit, he’ll be the biggest driver of corruption in the City, now.

>3:11 – 3:20 Instrumental
Hunter leaves the confessional, shaken.

>Lost my soul in the place of the great deceiver
Hunter has lost his self. A lot of it was a consequence of his own effort to become the Son, doing away with his ties to his own identity and replacing them with illegitimate things he does not really love — The Mother, his Wife, the Friends. Now he has lost the one thing that made it worth it: his power to do something good as the Mayor. Far from do anything good, he has become a servant of evil. Maybe even the ultimate evil.

There are a lot of equations made between TP&P and the literal devil — I don’t think he is the literal Devil, but he does represent that exact kind of force and that exact kind of energy, subverting the pious into sin, enslaving the vulnerable in false contracts, degrading people so they lose their selves, lies, deception, trickery. He has a very specific corrupting atmosphere that earns him all these diabolical epithets. It’s notable that our next big villain, Mr Usher, won’t have this atmosphere — even though he’s more sadistic, cruel, violent, canny, and ruthless than TP&P. The difference is that TP&P is framed like a propagator of outrageous lies and sin who delights in his nature, while Mr Usher is just a guy. Just a really, really sick and vicious guy.

>Foolish hearts led foolish plans awry; they told me: / “Don’t veer far from your home, try never to leave her”
Hunter thinks back on his encounter with the Oracles on the train. He regrets and curses himself as an idiot for not listening to them, for not returning to the Lake immediately, and for running away from Ms Leading when they advised him to reconcile with her.

>Near, I landed; here I’ll live and die
Hunter recognises he will never be able to leave the City again. His position is too prominent and TP&P’s blackmail over him is too absolute. He also does not have the option to ‘kill’ his present self and assume a new life, as he has consistently been doing when faced with problems, for the same reason.

And the life he’s going to be living here will be utterly miserable. Every day he’ll be going through the motions of this false life, under this false identity, with this false family, false religion, putting on false smiles, giving false love, manufacturing his false piety, telling false promises to his constituents who look up at him with admiration and hope… all while he drives them deeper into deception, manipulation, corruption, and sin as the prize pawn of a greedy conman.

>Traveled too far from the River’s side
Hunter regrets leaving the Lake — he concedes now, utterly defeated, that he never had a chance of overcoming the evil of the City. He could never become strong enough to face the world outside. A sheltered environment of purity and innocence was where he belonged, and the only place he could have even theoretically survived in.

Hunter’s folly in desiring otherwise has led him to be enslaved and corrupted.

>But it wasn’t long before I felt nothing below me / And all of the ground I thought I’d gained, taken away
The foundation he has built for himself as the Son is gone. More than that, all the lessons he feels he has learnt along his journey, and all the developments he thought he made toward becoming a more complete or stronger person with a sense of agency, are also gone. Everything is gone. He has nothing.

‘And what’s the worst I’d see / By giving myself to the earth below me?’. This, Hunter.

>I thought I was strong, not strong enough, my mettle was bending
Hunter thought he had, through all the ups and downs, become a stronger person since leaving the Lake.

He did not become a stronger person. He was just an idiot who didn’t know how to deal with his problems, and made the wrong decisions, every time. He did not know how to deal with heartbreak, he did not know how war would devastate him, he did not see how empty this false identity would be, and he did not know how to recognise or combat evil vigilantly enough to rebuff it before it crushed him under its thumb. Where was the sun?

>Foolish plans kissed foolish hearts goodbye
Now that he has taken this path into corruption, the innocence of Hunter’s youth is irrefutably gone and not returning.

>Traveled too far from the River’s side
And that’s where Hunter has found himself, going into Act V — poor guy.

>5:10 – 5:25 Instrumental
Womp womp. Don’t worry Hunter, I’m sure you’ll find a way out of this… somehow…

Wait | Act IV
Act V | Regress

Wait

Wait
I lost my faith when I was young
I clenched my fist to bite my tongue
I leave a wake from all the things that I had done
Cause there wouldn’t be a thing when I moved on

Then I said wait
Are our bodies really piles of dirt?
And is the soul just a metaphor?
I keep my eyes from looking too far up
I fear that there is a heaven above

I stood in lines to bow my head
I’d fold my hands and speak in tongues
To whisper worries to the dead
But I could tell no apparition heard a single word I said
But I’d still call my fear in to the air

Then I said wait
Is my body really part of the earth
And is there blood running through my veins?
I’ll know when I turn to dust
But I fear the answer isn’t enough
So, will I never know heaven or hell?
Or is eternity something worse?
I keep my eyes from looking too far up
I fear that there is a heaven above
(heaven above, heaven above)

I want to give it up
I want to give it up
I want to give it up
But I just need it too much

Wait
Is my body really part of the earth?
And is there blood running through my veins?
I’ll know when I turn to dust
But I fear the answer isn’t enough
So, will I never know heaven or hell?
Or is eternity something worse?
I keep my eyes from looking too far up

A fear that there is a heaven above
A fear that there is a heaven above
A fear that there is a heaven above
I hope there’s not a heaven above

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
As Hunter becomes more involved with the Church after committing to his Son persona, he comes to reflect on his actions through a more religious lens. He realises his treatment of Ms Leading in his youth was substantially worse than how she treated him, redeeming her in his view. Hunter and Ms Leading get back together, Ms Leading being Hunter’s secret lover while he remains with his Wife.

What’s in a name?
‘Wait’ — reflective of Hunter (and Ms Leading)’s realisations that their judgements of each other in their youth were too harsh and hasty, and the painful awkwardness between them doesn’t need to be there. Also works as Hunter going ‘hold up, I might have messed up,’ after his ego-high trip from King of Swords to The Line.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter and Ms Leading. But mostly Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:06 Instrumental
Okay so this is one of those songs where nobody would have figured out its story relevance (Hunter and Ms Leading getting back together) if it weren’t for tips from Casey. I mean, it’s such a dark and moody song, and it’s covered in all this overt religious stuff — how does this have anything to do with Ms Leading or the happiness you think Hunter would feel about getting back with her? Here’s my read.

So for one, there’s been a timeskip. Several months at the very least have passed since The Line, so Hunter has settled into his seat as Mayor and is starting to enact his plans to clean up the City. More relevant for Wait though is the resolution he’s made to live as the Son. What’s something we know about the Son? Well, that he’s a churchgoer, and we can figure from King of Swords that Hunter has publicly affiliated himself with the Church, too. So we can figure that Hunter has been attending Church regularly in service to his persona as the Son.

This is why Hunter is starting to reconsider his faith and view his past actions though a more religiously-flavoured lens. Though I never get the sense of Hunter being a devout Christian, at least not in the sense of one that trusts the word of priests or bishops, the ideas of the faith are starting to play in his mind by osmosis. You can especially see how Hunter’s thoughts shift in this direction in Act V, where he’s frequently in the Church, with a lot of focus on devils and redemption and absolution and whether Hunter’s going to heaven. So that’s part of why it’s such a moody song: Hunter still doesn’t really like the Church or practising religion, but he’s rather deep in the environment of it and it’s forcing him to reconsider his worldview.

Next is the aspect of the ‘reconsidering’ he’s doing being him realising he’s been a jerk who really could stand to forgive Ms Leading. As we forgive those who sin against us, and all. This is again problematic to the Son persona because he’s not supposed to care about Ms Leading anymore, but he does, and winds up letting go of his discontents with her. The natural consequence of this forgiveness, though, is that he wants to (and does) get involved with her again. So now he’s not just betraying the Son persona and opening himself to undermine everything, he’s committing adultery. Great.

But I think you can go even further. A lot of this song focuses on how Hunter (and Ms Leading) are not able to ‘feel’ a divine presence by going to church, but something makes them pause and consider that a divine presence could, or does, exist. (contrast ‘…no apparition heard…’ to ‘Dear Apparition,’) That is, they are able to feel it. How? I would wager, through their relationship. So the sequence of this song would be, Hunter is moved by consideration to Christian teachings to forgive Ms Leading; now that he forgives her, he is not so scared of her and wishes to be near her; Hunter bends to his desires and spends a night with her; from that experience, he feels the divine ‘essence’; and has a massive ‘uuuuuueughh OH NO’ moment (which is this song) where he realises he may have massively, massively erred in his basic worldview. That is, he should be and should have been paying more attention to the concepts described in faith, but decoupled them from church doctrines because these were corrupted/inaccurate; made a distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘faith’ and followed faith. But without knowing what ‘faith’ is (that is not ‘religion’) he’s left clueless of the implications of it except for the implication of, if it’s real, he messed up.

I’ll need to come back to this one and give it another try after thinking on it some more; probably my least confident read here, might be more like v this v but I’ll leave up what I had
V1 -> Hunter (lost faith not just being act3 jaded; m terri death/confusion with ‘religious’ concepts)
C1 -> Hunter
V2 -> M Leading (she prayed to the man with the twin in the mask; not a timeskip – pointing to C & D)
C2 -> M Leading/both?
‘I want to give it up’ -> reconciliation; night together
C3 -> H questions if he is Inherently This; spiritual implications follow
He hopes there’s not a heaven above

might just be super overthinking lol

>I lost my faith when I was young / I clenched my fist to bite my tongue
How young is young here, Hunter? We know he struggled with and seemed to lose all faith in God in Mustard Gas — but that implies he had a faith to lose before that point. How much time has really passed since then? Three, four, five years? I actually take this as an indicator of the opposite (one of those ‘I will only take from you’ lines) — he’s thinking about how faithless he is because he’s been attending church more now and it’s been making him (like it or not) veer more Christian.

‘Clenched my fist to bite my tongue’ -> Hunter’s discontent with the church, as shown in Bitter Suite IV. He wants to speak up and say something to dispel the notions of figures like the Priest that give them such control over the Congregation, especially because Hunter himself doesn’t see their word as legitimate, but just simmers quietly. Probably the behaviour of figures like the Priest contributes massively to his lack of faith, as well.

>I leave a wake from all the things that I had done / Cause there wouldn’t be a thing when I moved on
Hunter has never before considered that his sinful or impulsive actions could have lasting consequences. This applies both to how it effects other people (like Ms Leading) and as an implication on his own fate — obviously, he knows he has messed things up before and that his personality has repeatedly gotten him into trouble, but only now is the idea really settling into his head that he can’t just erase his sins into a blank slate and disassociate from them with no foul.

Like, if hypothetically there were a God, and Hunter’s soul was destined to be judged, the judgement likely wouldn’t be positive. He’s done a lot of bad things that he’s never cleaned up because he never had to be the one to deal with the consequences, and upon reflection he doesn’t feel great about that.

I’ll also note that this song has really heavy normal-Hunter intonations. Maybe I just equate normal-Hunter as edgy-Hunter but he sounds pretty genuine/not trying to be all Son-Persona pious here.

‘”Keep this secret safe, or watch your flock devoured by the flame / Left in my wake; I’ll burn through you.”’ Very different context but the atmosphere idea is the same; the wake Hunter leaves behind has been destructive.

>Then I said wait / Are our bodies really piles of dirt? / And is the soul just a metaphor?
So on the face of it this is us hearing Hunter’s view towards religion shift; he might not adhere 1:1 to Christian doctrine, but he is starting to consider whether there are higher forces in the universe that do have implications for him on a spiritual or non-temporal level. Is there an afterlife he should be concerned about? Is there some figure keeping a tally on this stuff? But at the same time he’s considering what his true nature (his ‘soul’, which he can’t escape from) really is.

Since this song is a duet between Hunter and Ms Leading, she’s probably also having these thoughts and the same realisations that Hunter is.

>I keep my eyes from looking too far up / I fear that there is a heaven above
Hunter is conscious that his actions have been bad and if there were justice, he would be punished. Rather, maybe he already is being punished, in the sense of being locked out of heaven.

Amazing line too. I mean, of course you’d fear, if you’d committed yourself to the scummy tactics and cynical worldview that Hunter has only to stumble into the thought of, wait, maybe the world isn’t as bad as I think it is, it just looks that way because I’ve bumbled myself into the worst part of it by being an awful person/unrepentant sinner.

>I stood in lines to bow my head / I’d fold my hands and speak in tongues / To whisper worries to the dead
Suggesting Hunter’s uneasy but dedicated attendance in Church over a timeskip period. He’s been going along with the rituals and ceremonies, taking communion, sharing in hymns and prayers, and so on without really believing in anything.

‘Fold my hands’ -> Evokes the image of praying, while also describing how Hunter is restraining his behaviour. IE, he doesn’t believe, but he went along with the gesture.

>But I could tell no apparition heard a single word I said
Hunter does not feel a connection to God achieved through these rituals or by his church attendance.

>But I’d still call my fear in to the air
All the same, he can’t help but want to feel that connection to God, and divine reassurance that things will turn out well, to know that someone or something absolute has heard him. Kind of similar sentiments to Ms Leading in The Church and The Dime, though that was a long time ago. (This verse might be Ms Leading?)

>Then I said wait / Is my body really part of the earth / And is there blood running through my veins?
Love these lines. ‘Am I connected to more things than just the ‘me’ I am in a given moment? Is my true nature more physical or spiritual? What is out there? Is God real? What am I intrinsically?’. The genuine sentiment with which Hunter wants to feel God and reassurances/love from God forces him to consider these things. Note, since Hunter doesn’t seem to have a 1:1 attachment to Christian doctrine, the conception of the ‘God’ he is reaching out for may be a slightly different figure than the conventional ideas of Christian God.

>I’ll know when I turn to dust / But I fear the answer isn’t enough
He’ll figure out the nature of God, if God is even real or not, and if spiritual factors in life are a genuine thing once he’s dead, but just rationally ‘knowing’ that God does or doesn’t exist isn’t enough to stop Hunter from wondering. Rather, even if he does come to understand the nature of God, it probably won’t satisfy Hunter. ‘Beg for a reason he could allow this’, and all — whatever method underlays this all is totally inscrutable to him.

I think this line is hinting at Hunter feeling that there is something, though he can’t say that it’s God as he understands it necessarily.

>So, will I never know heaven or hell? / Or is eternity something worse?
Another one of those opposite-lines; Hunter considering the possibilities of where his soul could wind up postmortem if God is real (considering he’s not and hasn’t been a good believer — no connection to God to let him know heaven or hell, on top of the general inscrutability of the method), or the void of nothingness (among other possible horrifying alternatives) if it turns out there is no higher power. Also a general statement on Hunter’s situation — is he in exaltation as Hunter or as the Son, or is there no such thing and he’ll just be spinning his wheels forever?

It is kind of hard to pin Hunter morally right now — he’s done some terrible things and been aggressive, manipulative, selfish, immoral at times, but it’s also difficult to call him a bad person or evil in the way that, say, TP&P is.

>I keep my eyes from looking too far up / I fear that there is a heaven above
Recognising that he mistreated Ms Leading far worse than she mistreated him, and would not want to be judged for his continued behaviour towards her, Hunter forgives Ms Leading. Ms Leading simultaneously has the same realisation and forgives Hunter, so the two are finally able to regard each other on equal footing again. Naturally, with their misgivings towards each other gone, they want to associate again.

>I want to give it up / But I just need it too much
I would wager the ‘it’ he wants to give up but needs too much is love. So that makes this the pointer to him getting together with Ms Leading again — no matter how many times he tries, whether it’s in Waves, A Night On The Town, The Line, or wherever, he just is not able to dissociate from his feelings of love towards Ms Leading. It’s not even that he wants to engage in this love (it stands to destroy the life he’s built as the Son, and Hunter is perennially terrified of being controlled, mistreated, or doing dumb impulsive life-uprooting acts due to his neediness around love), but love is so foundational to him that it’s like his water (’Well has gone dry and I with it’ and all). He is not able to tear himself away from it.

What this tells us by extension is that he doesn’t love the Fiance, or rather his Wife. If he were able to satiate his need to feel and reciprocate love with her, he wouldn’t be falling into this relationship with Ms Leading again.

Love the desperation in this.

>Chorus Repetition
Mannnn — I feel there’s a lot going on here, but the lyrics are dealing with such complex ideas that I can’t really line them out smoothly. One of those ones where you just kinda have to let the vibe take you, with the story context of him getting back with Ms Leading despite his every effort to grow out of/psych himself out of it being the root. Like, is this just him? Is this just inherently him?

>A fear that there is a heaven above / I hope there’s not a heaven above
Amazing song. I get the image of Hunter returning to his home with the Wife after a visit to Ms Leading, then to the Church, and knowing that he’s done wrong. Like, if being true to Hunter was the move to take all along, or was the move he’s just always predestined to take because he’s too weak(?) to separate himself from his feelings and desire for love, he’s done wrong by building and committing himself to the Son persona, especially to the extent he has. If the Son persona is the right course to take though, then he’s doing the wrong damn thing again by folding to his heart (which has so far only gotten him into TROUBLE) and indulging in his desire to be with Ms Leading. Whatever is right, his irresolution and two-timing has made him definitely wrong.

Plus whichever way you slice it, he’s also just plain committing adultery. If that catches up to him, he knows he’s screwed — hence hoping there’s no heaven, or force that could judge him.

Hunter enters the Church.

The Line | Act IV | Ouroboros

The Line

The Line
Heartache buried down below
With your hands tied tight around it
Have a hard time letting go
Like it never even happened

It’s the end of the line for you and I
Don’t make believe we even tried
It’s the end of the line for you and I

Spring had gone and clipped your wings
And the summer led astray
Autumn left a bitter sting
But the winter froze away

It’s the end of the line for you and I
Don’t make believe we even tried
It’s the end of the line for you and I

Now we dream
Of bigger things
Now we sing
To set us free
(Now we dream)
Was lost in limbo long enough for two
(Of bigger things)
But my identity was wasted on you
(Now we sing)
Cast out the past like demons ritually removed
(To set us free)
Make way for the awakening, so long overdue

It’s the end of the line
It’s the end of the line
It’s the end of the line for you and I

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Having become Mayor, and given a purpose, Hunter decides it time to fully discard his old identity and commit to being the Son. He releases the last of his attachments to his former life, supplanting his self with the Son persona.

What’s in a name?
‘The Line’ — makes you automatically think of ‘you went far too close to the line this time’ from Bitter Suite V, but not sure of what the significance of that here would be. I think it’s more just saying the line as it appears in this song, so, ‘Goodbye Old Hunter’.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>Heartache buried down below / With your hands tied tight around it / Have a hard time letting go / Like it never even happened
So, this is a Hunter introspection song, kinda like Remembered, where there aren’t many events or actions going on (that I can figure) so much as Hunter getting himself in the mindset to part with foundational aspects of his being. Lots of reminiscing and treading over ideas Hunter has already voiced in regards to his identity, with this being the culmination of those thoughts as he finally commits to not being Hunter anymore.

The first and most important Hunter Sentiment he zeroes in on is his love for Ms Leading. Most of his actions since Red Hands have been a consequence of him running from the pain of losing his relationship with Ms Leading, that being both in the sense of them actually breaking up and in the sense of… you know, how they were so so close to getting what the happy life they both wanted, but Hunter is just so overwhelmingly bad at confronting pain that he hasn’t been able to even try and reconcile, it just scares him too much. And though he’s tried to escape this pain by taking the identity of the Son, he’s still been swayed back into feeling at the sight of her (A Night On The Town), which has led him to question whether the Son persona itself is just another weak and stupid patented Hunter Coping Mechanism borne out of pain (Is There Anybody Here?). He feels the aftermath of her has still been influencing his behaviour in his ‘new’ life, compromising it or tempting him away from it, and is admitting that he still hasn’t really got over her.

Also, more than just the pain, is the aspect of him still loving Ms Leading. His heart still wants to hook up with Ms Leading and it’s frustrating him (complicating this new life) that he can’t just move on from her already.

>It’s the end of the line for you and I
This is Hunter as ‘Son-Hunter’ talking to ‘Hunter-Hunter’. He resolves to discard his love for Ms Leading, alongside all the annoying aspects of the old Hunter that still linger and jeopardise everything Son-Hunter has built. All the pain and suffering that Hunter-Hunter has endured, and his desires in life, are irrelevant to Son-Hunter. The position he has now as Mayor and the purpose he has in cleansing and protecting the City, plus the relationship he has with the Fiance and the Mother and whoever else, has given Son-Hunter a strong enough foundation/identity that the prospect of bothering to maintain attachment to Hunter-Hunter life appears detrimental and worthless.

That is, he has finally become that ‘better person’ he wanted to be in The Old Haunt, so he doesn’t need or want to be Hunter anymore in any capacity. He is resolved to be the Son for the rest of his life and leave his dumb, immature, volatile, dependant old self behind.

>Don’t make believe we even tried
Son-Hunter accuses Hunter-Hunter of having never done anything with his life.

>Spring had gone and clipped your wings / And the summer led astray / Autumn left a bitter sting / But the winter froze away
Similar to how Remembered is largely Hunter reminiscing on past events as a lead-up to relinquishing his attachment to Ms Terri, spending time with her memory before letting her go, this is Hunter doing the same thing but with himself (he did it at the end of The Old Haunt, too, though he hadn’t built anything as the Son yet that would let him properly supplant Hunter. Less like he was reflecting on what his life specifically was either so much as zeroing in on the ways things had gone wrong that he could avoid and needed to avoid if he stopped being himself; he’s more neutral here).

‘Spring had gone and clipped your wings’ -> In reference to Act I, ‘clipped your wings’ being how he was sheltered by Ms Terri and could not get the self-agency he wanted in 1878 or HHMHT.
‘Summer led astray’ -> Referencing Act II, his relationship with Ms Leading. Son-Hunter’s conclusion on her seems to the relationship was an error distracting him from what he could’ve done.
‘Autumn left a bitter sting’ -> Just following pattern would make this Act III, though the phrasing of ‘bitter’ twigs me to think of the actual breakup between Hunter and Ms Leading.
‘Winter froze away’ -> Again, pattern makes this Act IV, though you could read it as him becoming cold and cynical during the war as well…

>Now we dream / Of bigger things
Hunter grows happier as he looks to the hopeful future he’ll have as the Mayor. This time he didn’t just bumble into things or cross his fingers to have fate hand him prosperity on a platter — he actively worked towards a goal, and towards securing a good position, that allows him to do positive and meaningful things as a positive and meaningful person.

‘We fall beneath the sea of dreams’ — Hunter is caught up in the fantasy of all the good he’ll be able to bring and people he’ll be able to save, aside from the benefits of living a personal life that isn’t just founded on trauma for once. Wonder if he’s even thinking of one day going for President after getting the City all spic and span lol.

>Now we sing / To set us free
Hunter wants to get to the business he can do as Mayor already. He’s satiated with what he’s become as the Son and eager to leave behind Hunter, so he can finally start living a good life with that agency he always wanted and under the ideals he desired.

>Was lost in limbo long enough for two
Hunter has spent enough time being purposeless and aimless — he is blitzed to finally have a purpose and know what he wants to do/where to go with his life.

>But my identity was wasted on you
Pretty spiteful (and really nice) line. Hunter saying that all the time he spent up to the point of becoming the Son, and solidifying this purpose, was pointless and a waste of life. Nothing Hunter did was something he could ever be proud of, or that garnered results he should be proud of — casting that idiot aside was the critical step he needed to become the person he actually wanted to be, and is finding himself able to be, as the Son.

>Cast out the past like demons ritually removed
Self-explanatory, just really like it and like how Hunter has come to regard his past as such a malevolent force that needs to be exorcised.

>Make way for the awakening, so long overdue
Hearkening to The Old Haunt again (’but now we wake up’). It’s taken Hunter a long time to get to this point, but finally he’s able to move past his pain and be the self-assured person he wants to be.

…or is he?

If All Goes Well | Act IV | Wait

King of Swords (Reversed)

King of Swords (Reversed)
Gears turning that no wrench can attack
Consideration or pause had their time come and pass
No gloves, bet you can’t get enough
Make a fine parade so the public sways in your wake

And I just thought that I would go till the money’s gone
I never wanted to fake it
Now I can’t stop till everyone who ever done me wrong
Knows I’m not willing to take it

Boy, you’ve got a hard time
Bring yourself to glory
You’ve got a hard time
Bring yourself to glory

I never wanted my name up in bright lights
But I think that I might be there soon
I owe it all to you (I owe it all to you)
Hey, I was never looking for fame or the limelight
But I think that I might be there soon
I owe it all to you

No one ever told me what it meant to be alone
I had to learn on my lonesome
Now every feigning flame I chance upon
I put the fire on
I keep my wheels in motion

Boy, you’ve had a hard time
Bring yourself to glory

I never wanted my name up in bright lights
But I think that I might be there soon
I owe it all to you (I owe it all to you)
Hey, I was never looking for fame or the limelight
But I think that I might be there soon
I owe it all to you (I owe it all to you)

You have a hard time
Bring yourself to glory
You have a hard time
Bring yourself to glory
Boy, you have a hard time
Bring yourself to glory
And here’s those spoils of war that you asked for

I never wanted my name up in bright lights
But I think that I might be there soon
I owe it all to you (I owe it all to you)
Hey, hey, I was never looking for fame or the limelight
But I think that I might be there soon
I owe it all to you (I owe it all to you)
Hey, hey, hey
Yeah, I owe it all to you
Hey, hey, hey
I owe it all to you
Hey, hey, hey
I owe it all to you

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Hunter, with the support of TP&P, runs to become mayor of the City. Hunter is shocked by the success of the campaign and the public favour he amasses, growing more and more ambitious as it becomes clear he will actually win.

What’s in a name?
‘King of Swords (Reversed)’ — a reference to the arcana, and one of the more solid places to tell us that arcana/tarot symbolism is present in the Acts. The King of Swords represents a structured, honest, moral, rational, and disciplined ruler. When it’s reversed, it represents an emotional, immoral, manipulative, and undisciplined ruler — basically, saying that Hunter’s methods to secure the Mayor position are selfish, impulsive, and corrupt, which is true. I mean listen to him.

Aka, ‘Running For Mayor’.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>Gears turning that no wrench can attack
Haha, this song. Man I love King of Swords. Hunter is putting his 110% into this run to become mayor, with nothing being able to slow him down or stop him. He’s fully committed.

>Consideration or pause had their time come and pass
He is also not pausing to think about how this could go wrong, or the weirdness of the Priest being the one to encourage this when the bait that inspired Hunter to pursue this role was the prospect that he’d be able to rout out the Priest, and other figures like him. He’s just got the idea in his head of being able to do something good as Mayor and is running with it, enthusiastically.

I know Casey has described this song as a montage where you can imagine him starting from nothing and then being the most powerful figure at the top of the world by the end (like mailboy to CEO montage), and you can really hear it, with this first verse being him cleaning himself up and getting the basic necessities in line to run at all (combing his hair, getting a suit, his first speech etc), then him going absolutely nuts with how much support he’s getting and how bold he’s being by the last chorus.

>No gloves, bet you can’t get enough
No gloves, so the gloves are off — Hunter approaches the campaign with a lust for victory and a real intention to win this, which Hunter reckons will appeal to the voters as well as being energising to him personally.

>Make a fine parade so the public sways in your wake
Hunter understands that showmanship is a part of politics — he is ‘working’ the citizenry, most likely taking a populist approach. He is making the political campaign that surrounds him, and the personality he represents, fun as well as authoritative.

>And I just thought that I would go till the money’s gone / I never wanted to fake it
Hunter did not expect to be actually doing half-decent in this mayoral run. He thought he would put up some advertising, do some lame interviews, and putter out without anyone really noticing him, but it’s not been like that at all. Somehow, he’s been able to secure more and more important interviews, be part of more and more important events, show up more and more prominently in local news, and get significant podium time in debates that have culminated into him being a serious and rather well-liked contender to the public. Now that Hunter is conscious he has a chance of actually going somewhere with this, he finds himself naturally reinforcing his investment into this run and this politician persona.

‘Money’s gone’ hints that he’s getting funding from somewhere — probably TP&P, maybe the Fiance.

Also note that he would have married the Fiance by now — you had to be married to run for office in these times.

>Now I can’t stop till everyone who ever done me wrong / Knows I’m not willing to take it
Hunter is obsessed with, or maybe even addicted to the notion that he’ll be able to clean out the City’s corruption, get some revenge on its criminals (largely TP&P), and punish its most malevolent actors once he gets a Mayoral seat. This obsessive purpose is the source of his massive drive and energy in this mayoral campaign.

Also, kind of like in The Lake and The River (but more positive and focused), he’s tapping into his vindictive ‘fire’ energy to rocket him so intensively into this. He loves the idea of being able to righteously punish everyone who has done evil or harmed him personally, and loves the idea of asserting himself in this manner as a defender (or sword) of justice.

Love the singing on this whole song, it’s just so fun hearing Hunter having this power trip where he’s like “YEAH!!! I’M THE GOOD GUY!! YOU CAN’T PUSH ME AROUND!! ALL YOU BULLIES WILL ANSWER TO MEEEEE YOU BETTER START COUNTING YOUR DAYS!!!!”

>Boy, you’ve got a hard time / Bring yourself to glory
Running for Mayor feels like the most positive thing Hunter has done with himself so far. Finally, after all the painful experiences he’s been through, he’s found something that not only makes his past sufferings worth it but shoots him into a position of power, which feels great and enables him to shape his life how he truly desires. He is driven like a madman to get this seat and secure himself as a powerful and positive influence.

(mirror Gloria; false glory).

>I never wanted my name up in bright lights / But I think that I might be there soon
Hunter’s campaign is becoming so successful that he’s not just a serious contender in the polls — he’s actually a celebrity. People are talking about him, the media are wild over him, and people overall are transfixed by him and rooting for whatever he’s going to do next. Hunter loves this.

>I owe it all to you (I owe it all to you)
Hunter ascribes his success and celebrity to the Priest. After all, it was the Priest’s idea that got him here in the first place, but he is probably also enjoying the continued support of the Priest when it comes to the financial, social, and logistical aspects of his campaign, too. Not that I think the Priest is running Hunter’s campaign for him, but his sway, advice, and money has given Hunter enough of an edge that it got him off the ground in the first place.

This is part of why I don’t think Hunter has realised the Priest is also the Pimp — it is inconceivable to me that he could give such a sincere sentiment of gratitude to the Pimp, even if he did have plans to ultimately backstab the guy later. It doesn’t sound like he’s thinking about that at all. It just sounds like he’s drunk on the campaign’s success and going, ‘wow, there is no way I could’ve done this alone — thanks Priest, love ya g.’ He’s probably hanging out with the Priest on a semi-regular basis now, too.

>No one ever told me what it meant to be alone / I had to learn on my lonesome
Hearkening to What It Means To Be Alone — Hunter’s realisation that he couldn’t rely on God to make things fall in his favour, so if he wants to get what he desires, he has to take action to claim it himself. So I hear this as Hunter expressing that he’s become… not quite immoral, but very very willing to put pressure on his competition, and not trust in them or their good faith. Basically that he’s not being a good sportsman about things and will decimate competitors whose approach towards him is too soft or mild, because he really is that hungry to win.

Might also be him literally appealing to the voters by voicing some of the hard experiences and lessons he’s had in the war.

>Now every feigning flame I chance upon / I put the fire on
Can read this two ways.

You can take the feigning flame as enemy candidates who are attempting to appeal to compassion, kindness, virtue and so on in a gentle and mild manner, but are ultimately do not believe in these principles and are only invoking them to look good for their mayoral campaign. You know, ‘we’ll make a grant to save the starving children’ and stuff like that. Hunter putting the fire on is then him kicking the teeth out of these people, mercilessly, by breaking them over his knee in debates and destroying their PR by challenging how much they really do want to save the children — Hunter’s energy (and information network) is overwhelming enough that these candidates uniformly break, back out, or fold. So he’s taking whatever chance he can to absolutely destroy opponents who leave themselves open as hypocrites or as being just not aggressive enough.

You can alternatively take it as, every time he sees a cause that ostensibly is a good one (you know, the save the starving children grants), Hunter adopts that into his campaign and encourages it (uses his ‘fire powers’ to stoke the flame into an inferno). This would be things like him making massive public donations to charities, sponsoring drives for disabled children, restoring failing hospitals, things like that, garnering him great PR while being stuff he probably wants to do anyway.

You could combine it too as like one guy wants to build campaign PR by making a big deal about how they’re supporting so and so drive and then Hunter just rolls up and styles on them by supporting the drive 50x harder and taking over the whole event lol.

>I keep my wheels in motion
In any case Hunter is doing a lot of stuff around the City. There isn’t a day that he slows down or vacations from this obsessive campaign; he always has a new event, interview, debate, speech, plan, so on and so on ready or in progress.

Verse probably works as a description of the platform he’s presenting to voters: he’s a war vet whose tough experiences have inspired him to take down corruption and encourage good, and he’s very proactive about it.

>And here’s those spoils of war that you asked for
Hunter is getting substantial money from donation drives or fundraisers during his campaign, and is giving a portion of the proceeds to the Priest. That Hunter is putting at least some of his campaign’s profits into the Church is actually probably getting him good PR too and establishing him as a good Christian to the public, though it’s really a consequence of how Hunter and the Priest are conspiring. Trust the Priest to be able to make a buck out of all this lmao.

‘Spoils of war’ specifically might be alluding to Hunter using his position as a war veteran to get all this support too, but a bit reachy.

>Hey, hey, hey / I owe it all to you
Getting the image of Hunter publicly announcing how the Priest has supported him, again earning good PR (linking Hunter’s campaign to the Church) while being a genuine sentiment. Get the image of him on stage with the Priest at an event, smiling and waving to a massive crowd as things wrap up.

>4:01 – 5:07 The Most Cursed Of Hands Reprise
Not totally certain of this but I think the birds used here are canaries. This passage would then be pointing to the danger of becoming TP&P’s pawn that Hunter is facing by continuing the campaign — something (maybe his gut or just ‘the universe’.) is trying to tell him that he’s in danger. I don’t think the mayoral race has finished just yet, though Hunter has basically won it already, so there’s still theoretically time for him to back out and save himself… but as we see, he won’t.

He might also literally be in a park or something where there’s lots of birds around, not totally sure.

The Bitter Suite VI: Abandon | Act IV | If All Goes Well

The Bitter Suite VI: Abandon

The Bitter Suite VI: Abandon
Strangers in the soil, so hide your enmity
Are you living up to ghosts or does virtue disagree?
Oh…

Use your gifts for good, rescue them from greed
Find a proper voice as a thistle in the wreath
Oh…

Move them to truth, far from ruin
And barricade the myth I made, the wolves at bay
I know that history fades and sympathy dithers away

The City’s Son living under my thumb

You couldn’t compromise, so keep playing with fire
Oh…

Move them to truth, far from ruin
And barricade the myth I made, the wolves at bay
I know that history fades and sympathy dithers away

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
The Priest encourages Hunter to run for a mayoral office in the City, so that he can rout out corruption and be a good influence on the citizenry. This prospect successfully entices Hunter, who fails to realise it is a trap — the Priest knows Hunter stole the Son’s identity, and can control him once he becomes Mayor with that bargaining chip as blackmail.

What’s in a name?
‘Abandon’ — not sure. Makes me think of the idea of ‘abandon’ as in ‘reckless abandon’ though.

Whose viewpoint?
TP&P. Crazy, right? You wouldn’t think a song this peaceful or gentle sounding would be him, but this is what he’s like when he’s manipulating people under his Priest guise. Pretty scary.

🌲🌲🌲

>Strangers in the soil, so hide your enmity
‘Keep your distance in this instance, you’re a stranger in the weeds.’ The Priest knows that Hunter does not know he is the Pimp. Further, because the Priest knew Hunter as the Pimp, he is able to recognise and identify Hunter as being Hunter, not the Son. He needs Hunter not to realise that the Priest already knows about the identity theft — thus, the Priest must act as if he does not know who he’s talking to, and rather that he’s regarding this as his first time ever meeting the ‘Son’.

(It’s also occurred to me that the Priest may have been familiar with the Son as well, with him being a congregation member, which would further explain how he sniffed out Hunter).

The Priest has enmity towards Hunter because Hunter almost busted his indulgence racket during the sermon, and suspects Hunter inclined to contest or undo his schemes potentially even to the point of revealing him as the old Pimp, but an upstanding Priest would naturally not have a problem with a follower ‘just asking questions’ about sacraments. The Priest will pretend to be genuinely concerned about Hunter’s moral plight and accepting of him as a person. (This is likely the manner in which he first interacted with Ms Terri).

‘Sleep now in the soil, the dust and the debris’ -> A reprise pointing to the core of Hunter’s moral anxieties right now; the Priest has already sniffed out that Hunter has stolen the Son’s identity and has some kind of sinful complex about it, making it his weak point to zero in on.

>Are you living up to ghosts or does virtue disagree?
The Priest accurately and precisely hits to the core of Hunter’s anxieties: he asks Hunter if he feels if he’s doing enough good with his life. Obviously this kind of question massively affects Hunter — because no, he does not feel like he’s been making the best of the identity he stole, and in fact has been slipping so hard with it that he feels he’s been a worse person than even Hunter. Which gives him questions like, why did he even steal this identity? Why did he kill someone for this? He committed so much sin and for what? You know.

‘Living up to ghosts’ also carries the implication of the Son still being a superior person to Hunter, despite contrary suggestions in The Squeaky Wheel.

>0:32 – 0:38 Instrumental
Hunter takes the bait. He confesses some of his anxieties that, no, he doesn’t feel like he’s doing enough.

>Use your gifts for good, rescue them from greed
Seizing this chink in Hunter’s guard, the Priest eagerly presses the advantage. He tells Hunter that he actually has the potential to do a lot of good in the world — he has a strong moral sense, and he’s a war hero, so people will love him. The Priest also capitalises on the disgust Hunter expressed during the sermon (shown by the specific reference to ‘greed’ as something to save people from), telling him that he has the capacity to save the Congregation from the influence of such malevolent actors as the Priest. Of course, I doubt the Priest phrases it like that, (’Hey Hunter, I know you hate me, but you can destroy me as the Mayor!’) but that is the idea that he is carefully seeding in Hunter’s mind. If Hunter’s able to get into a position of influence… say, a local political body…

>Find a proper voice as a thistle in the wreath
The Priest goes further, this time presenting the mayor position as a solution to Hunter’s identity crisis. Rather than the uselessly broad and so far inactionable concept of ‘better person’, Hunter should mould the Son persona into the kind of person who can win, hold, and use a public office for virtuous ends. Such is not the kind of path he would have ever naturally chosen as Hunter, nor is it one Hunter could have succeeded on — you need to be married, you need funding, you need drive enough to be two-faced and vicious, and you need a lot of support to succeed in a mayoral campaign.

Unsure of the specific significance of ‘thistle in the wreath’ using those symbols, though it’s a really nice line. Maybe just saying for to be this thorny and aggressive force that disrupts the City’s uniformity (which is corrupt).

>Move them to truth, far from ruin / And barricade the myth I made, the wolves at bay
‘HEY HUNTER! If you were the Mayor and you had all this influence, you could save innocents from being exploited by people like ME! Wouldn’t THAT be a nice thing to do with your life?’

‘Barricade the myth I made’ -> love the phrasing but oblique so just zeroing in to say, the ‘myth I made’ is all the lies TP&P tells using Christianity as his basis to manipulate his Congregation, ie, he’s telling Hunter to ban corrupt readings of scripture or religious practitioners who predate on their followers, and probably extends to scams and false promises in general.

>I know that history fades and sympathy dithers away
Tricky.

‘History fades’ -> He sure does know. ‘Her history is left behind’. Probably TP&P nudging Hunter to the idea that yes it is totally possible to escape from your past, you just have to focus on building something as your future, while himself knowing that losing your history is a good way to lose yourself — ie, pursuing this course will make Hunter weaker.

‘Sympathy dithers away’ -> And on top of that, people will easily lose regard for Hunter as soon as he stops being a moral person or stops continuously doing good things — and guess who is the City’s arbiter of whether someone is doing a good thing or not, and can absolve a wrongdoer of sin? That’s right, it’s the Priest. People will easily forget the good Hunter has done which will make him dependant on the Priest to maintain his public goodboy points.

Pretty cynical sentiment in general. Would wager it’s one the Priest actually does hold.

>The City’s Son living under my thumb
TP&P’s plan is stated: He is going to elevate Hunter into the position of Mayor, then control him with the blackmail of his identity theft.

>You couldn’t compromise, so keep playing with fire
‘You couldn’t compromise’ -> Hunter resisted TP&P during the sermon. More than that, given how furious TP&P is about the whole thing, Hunter might have actually asked ‘why?’ when the offertory bag was going around (explaining why that verse in Sermon gets so intense and angry too, Hunter dissented just a little too much and maybe made other Congregation members question things for a moment). TP&P can probably also sense that Hunter will continue being resistant and antagonistic towards TP&P’s plots if he continues attending church.

‘So keep playing with fire’ -> You’re going to resist me? Bring it on! Irony in this statement as Hunter eventually does start playing with real fires, and TP&P will be very not happy about it, but for now Hunter is just a babbin when it comes to using his ‘fire powers’ to put pressure on evil (looks like TP&P’s blatant corruption in Sermon made them come out a bit). Either way TP&P thinks he can more than whoop Hunter down.

>2:41 – 3:21 Instrumental
Not sure what this passage is, but it’s something. Reprised somewhere?

>3:21 – 3:33 Instrumental
Hunter leaves the confessional?

>3:34 – 4:01 Instrumental
This is a bit ‘go take another life’-y. Bad decision for Hunter to be making/course to be pursuing. Same for rest of it to the end really.

The Bitter Suite IV & V: The Congregation/The Sermon in the Silt | Act IV | King of Swords (Reversed)

The Bitter Suite IV & V: The Congregation/The Sermon in the Silt

The Bitter Suite IV & V: The Congregation/The Sermon in the Silt
They come in crowds to hear him speak
And he will greet them in a smile that sticks like Vaseline
So do your best to keep your distance in this instance
You’re a stranger in the weeds, some things are better left unseen

Commanding listeners to believe
Manipulations of narrations: “Anno Domini”
Not with a whimper, but a bang, he’ll take the stage
And leave their jaws upon the floor, begging for more

So Father, won’t you tend your flock and save us now?
Won’t you save us now?
Come and save us

I hear you’re looking for God
Well I can show you the way just as long as you can pay
But the price is going up
And like a prayer to the air we deliver you to glory (pay up)
I swear you’ll get what you need
And we can lead you to salvation with the right denomination
It all lies in your hands
Or in your pocketbook to be more demanding

Don’t you tread too close to the line this time
Don’t get lead too close to the light this time
You went far too close to the line this time, the line this time

(Hey! hey kid! hey kid, get a God!)
(Hey! hey, hey, hey! hey kid, get a God!)

So you committed a sin?
Well, we can rid that with a remedy
The bidding starts at $70—sold to one and all
Now get your hands ready to make a withdrawal
You’ve got no other way to find what you want
If it’s a saving that you’re craving and your confidence is fading
Be calm, the Doctor’s in
I got the cure, because I know where you’ve been

Don’t you tread too close to the line this time
Don’t get lead too close to the light this time
You went far too close to the line this time, the line this time

If you wanna get up, reserve a room on high
Put your coins in my hat and don’t ask why
If you wanna get up, reserve a room on high
Put your coins in my hat and don’t ask why
If you wanna get up, reserve a room on high
Put your coins in the hat and don’t ask why

Don’t you tread too close to the line this time
Don’t get lead too close to the light this time
You went far too close to the line this time
The line this time, the line this time…

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Hunter attends the Church service with the Fiance. He tries not to draw attention while cynically regarding the proceedings, figuring the Priest to be a manipulator who exploits his Congregation. Hunter is right to hold this view, as the Priest proceeds to con exorbitant funds from the Congregation by pressuring them to buy indulgences. The Priest then singles out Hunter, who did not buy any, to speak with him privately.

What’s in a name?
We’re back in the Bitter Suite! Man, it’s been a while. Nice to see it come back. We have a structural mirror to Bitter Suites I and II, too — IV and V are also in one song, with the first suite introducing a character to Hunter, and the second being TP&P conning the knickers (dollars, rather, and less literal this time) out of people.

The Bitter Suite IV is The Congregation — not complicated, as it’s introducing us to the character of the Congregation plus Hunter’s impression of them and all this Church business.

The Bitter Suite V is the Sermon in the Silt — trickier. The central idea of ‘silt’, though, is gold panning. The link there to TP&P sifting through the congregation for money there is pretty clear. Secondary idea is how Hunter and TP&P are both trying not to be noticed by each other, so it’s the incognito aspect of what TP&P is doing by talking up these massive indulgences while not wanting to be caught as a conman. You could probably find a third idea in the link between sifting around in the ‘dirt’ and ‘sinfulness/heedlessness’ (’give yourself to the dust and the dirt where you stand’) but eh it’s already hefty enough.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter (IV), then TP&P (V).

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:26 Instrumental
Man how scuzzy this already is. Some shades of TP&P leitmotifs already but can’t put a finger on which. Hunter does not like this place, viewing it as deeply corrupt and the congregation members essentially as cattle allowing themselves to be misled.

One big question with this part of the story is, does Hunter know that the Pimp is also the Priest yet? And I would say no — surprisingly, he actually doesn’t. He has only interacted with TP&P in his Pimp guise and has never once gone to the Church, and his relationship with Ms Leading broke down before she would’ve been able to tell him that the Priest and the Pimp were the same (it would require Ms Leading coming clean about being a prostitute, and things after Red Hands were too messy for them to possibly be casually talking about the Pimp and the Priest).

Which BY EXTENSION means that all the dismissive and spiteful sentiments Hunter has towards the Church right now? Entirely a product of him being a super cynical sod who doesn’t trust authority figures after Cauda, the goodness of the world worth being innocent in as of This Beautiful Life and the Horrors, and in the presence of a loving just God as of WIMTB and Mustard Gas. Maybe some influence from Ms Terri as well, if her struggles with Catholicism ever came up and Hunter recognised those as also hurting her (or at least not helping her) in retrospect.

Rather, Hunter can probably see his younger self’s idealism in people who are willing to accept what the Church tells them, and is deeply uncomfortable with it because he dislikes his younger self and knows that idealism/innocence wound up screwing him over. He is probably figuring these people, naturally, will also get maliciously exploited as they get attached to comfortable promises the Church preaches to them. Plus, like, Hunter doesn’t consider himself a great person right now, and being confronted with that on an existential level of ‘you could go to Hell, you know’ is uncomfortable even if it’s subconscious. I would figure Hunter is basically atheist now and from that lens every kind of appeal to scripture feels bunk.

Anyways, point being Hunter really doesn’t like the Church and it’s not even because the guy running this one is the Pimp that indentured his mother, lol.

>They come in crowds to hear him speak / And he will greet them in a smile that sticks like Vaseline
Man Hunter hates the Church. Hunter can already imagine the cloying, pious, and welcoming attitude the Priest will use to address the congregation (similar to how the Pimp greeted him in Smiling Swine, hmmm) and the thought of being the target of it makes him sick.

>So do your best to keep your distance in this instance / You’re a stranger in the weeds, some things are better left unseen
Hunter decides the best thing to do is keep his head down so as not to draw the Priest’s (or anyone else’s) attention. He wants to be so much of an irrelevant ‘background character’ in the pews that nobody even notices he attended this or could possibly bring it up to make a relevant thing of it — this is how deeply adverse to the Priest he is, already assuming him to be a dangerous figure. Rightly, too.

>Commanding listeners to believe / Manipulations of narrations: “Anno Domini” / Not with a whimper, but a bang, he’ll take the stage / And leave their jaws upon the floor, begging for more
The thing that bothers Hunter about the Church is the power the Priest has to manipulate people’s worldviews, sense of moral right and wrong, and sense of whether they are a good or bad person (then controlling them with promises they can become good — they just have to do what he says), without necessarily being a good person or even a devout believer himself so much as an extremely smooth or charismatic talker who knows how to bend scripture to suit his points. Hunter does not think the Word itself carries any legitimacy, either, so if the Priest is in any way competent he must be this breed of sociopath.

That’s the kind of person he anticipates the Priest to be: a manipulator and a showman, who doesn’t only not practice what he preaches, but uses his position to dominate people for his own motives or ego.

And the people love him for this!

>So Father, won’t you tend your flock and save us now? / Won’t you save us now? / Come and save us
The Congregation speaks — they are entirely reliant on the Priest to guide them and assure them of what’s right, what’s wrong, and to keep them above water morally. These are very desperate and anxious people, not secure in themselves without the ‘compassion’ of the Priest, begging him to take the pulpit.

>1:35 – 1:48 The Bitter Suite II Reprise
MAAAANNN!!! YES THAT’S IT CASEY THAT’S IT THAT’S WHAT I’M HERE FOR!!!!

Yeah we’re in Bitter Suite V now, and holy moly it is good. What can I say TP&P is just super super fun whenever he’s doing his thing. You go you horrible horrible slimly little conman.

So, TP&P is here now! Boom! Not with a whimper, but with a bang he takes the stage! The energy is extremely high as he comes out of the wings and to the pulpit, the entire Congregation invigorated by his presence and more than ready to lap up every word and accept every offer the Priest is giving them.

>I hear you’re looking for God / Well I can show you the way just as long as you can pay
Ahhh it’s so good. I don’t think the lyrics need much explaining but figure to note them where I can anyway.

Okay, so, first thing to note: the Dime has actually closed down. Wh—? Yeah, the laws around brothels tightened considerably in this period (you can see it also in how Ms Leading isn’t a prostitute anymore, though maybe she would’ve quit on her own initiative after meeting Hunter anyway), not to mention the war taking away all the punters, so TP&P has had to adjust and find other ways to make the big money. The poor man. It’s okay though, he’s found something sufficiently lucrative that he can still do as the Priest!

And that is, INDULGENCES!

That’s right, indulgences, plenty here, plenty for all! Step right up, get your indulgences! Those pesky sins getting you down? Wipe those nasty suckers away with just one easy course of INDULGENCES! Come now, don’t be stingy, heaven for your immortal soul is surely worth more than that? There we go, there we go…

>And we can lead you to salvation with the right denomination
Exquisite my lord. Denomination has the meaning of a religious denomination, especially a Christian one (Protestant, Catholic, Lutheran, etc), but also refers to the monetary weighting a single coin or bill is worth (ie, $10 bills are $10, $50 bills are $50, so on). Really well written line that also drives in how careless TP&P about the actual faith aspect so much as it being a means to make money.

>Don’t you tread too close to the line this time / Don’t get led too close to the light this time / You went far too close to the line this time, the line this time
TP&P doesn’t want people questioning this sacrament or why giving him money is enough to become a good person in the eyes of God. Though he’s doing a fine job of working the room, he does still have that fundamental… anxiety, I guess I’ll call it, of being unmasked as a conman.

Further, he is actively guiding people away from God and virtue so as to protect the little racket he has going here. If people manage to actually find God and virtue, they’ll stop being sinners, which leaves TP&P firstly with nothing to sell them and secondly at risk of being denounced as a corrupt priest, which he doesn’t want happening, though he is secure enough in his position to be this brazen about peddling indulgences. Still, he really, really, really does not want these people feeling confident about themselves or for them to even have an inkling of what virtue means — that is crossing ‘the line’.

So, TP&P is identifying which members of the Congregation are at risk of becoming self-assured, suspicious, or virtuous, so that he can put in proper countermeasures against them and single them out to be blackmailed. I imagine this is harder than it used to be when you don’t have a brothel at the ready to generate that blackmail, meaning TP&P might actually be feeling kind of pressured now that he’s lost one of his guises to support him, but I figure he’s canny to these things he’ll work it out.

>(Hey! hey kid! hey kid, get a God!)
Love it. The audaciousness of selling God like this too, wow.

>The bidding starts at $70—sold to one and all
Sold sung like ‘souls’ — you are quite literally selling your soul TP&P by taking part in these transactions.

>I got the cure, because I know where you’ve been
Great line. On the face, it’s him being empathetic to the suffering of his Congregation and assuring them they aren’t doomed. Simultaneously, it’s him threatening them with blackmail — he knows you’re not a good person, and knows what sins you’ve committed, because he does his research.

‘So is there anybody here / Who can tell me where I am / Or at least where I have been?’. Yes, and here he is, Hunter 😉

>Chorus Repetition
I think this one might be TP&P noticing Hunter — Hunter fails to adequately conceal his disgust with the proceedings here, though it isn’t like he’s making a scene about it. Maybe he pointedly doesn’t make a donation when the offertory bag comes around, or join the line for the indulgences, or something.

>If you wanna get up, reserve a room on high / Put your coins in my hat and don’t ask why
There is an offertory bag going around around the pews — Hunter doesn’t make a donation.

>Final Chorus Repetition
Having noticed and recognised Hunter, and seen his refusal to do as the rest of the Congregation does, TP&P is concerned. He knows who Hunter is and that he had relations with Ms Leading some years ago — though TP&P seems secure that Ms Leading did not in fact tell Hunter that the Pimp is also the Priest (’led too close to the light’), it’s not inconceivable that Hunter could put the dots together, and be dangerously outspoken about it, if he keeps showing up here. Or hell, if he gets together with Ms Leading again — that is also a concern.

Rather than let this potential problem fester, TP&P gets an idea to nip it in the bud and turn it to his advantage.

>4:50 – 5:10 Bitter Suite IV Reprise
As the service wraps up and people begin shuffling out, TP&P singles out Hunter (the big sting at 5:02 is Hunter’s fear/shock/alarm at being noticed), inviting him to speak in the confessional. I figure the invitation probably goes something like ‘I can sense GREAT TROUBLES from you, young man. Is there nothing you wish to get off your chest?’. Or, you know, more insistent and smooth than that but basically that vibe.

>5:10 – 5:30 The Pimp and The Priest Reprise
Unable to really turn down the invitation, Hunter begrudgingly joins the Priest and settles in the privacy of the confessional.

The Squeaky Wheel | Act IV | The Bitter Suite VI: Abandon

The Squeaky Wheel

The Squeaky Wheel
There’s my suitor, struggling to find his footing
Lost, awoken, alone, after sleeping off inebriation
I forget that I’ve been holding my tongue for so long
Cause we had a run, so don your Sunday best and wake up

You went missing, never mind the life I was wishing for
Cause you’d had enough – but at least you got enough to fake it
I’ll keep smiling, optimistically denying what I feared the most
That you disappeared and leave me wondering

Was I just a playful pawn, a trophy you had won?
Someone who could lift you when you’re low?
Innocence to prey upon, or allies in the sun?
Heaven sent, or just hell bent on love?

Darling liar, always running through the brier
What, the cuts aren’t enough? Just an aggravation you’d forget
Like promised patience, politic alleviations of
What I should’ve known was a sign of future expiration

Was I just a playful pawn, a trophy you had won?
Someone who could lift you when you’re low?
Innocence to prey upon, or allies in the sun?
Heaven sent, or just hell bent on love?

So will I marry a myth?
Or is there room for second chances?
The lust lives in the dark and may never show

Well, the battle ended years ago
Now this is how you say hello
Well where’d you take your leave?
Or would you rather keep another trick up your sleeve?
Do you remember love?
How you said you really never could feel enough?
Well, did you give it a try?
Why don’t you open your eyes and let me know?

Was I just a playful pawn, or a trophy you had won?
Someone who could lift you when you’re low?
Innocence to prey upon, or allies in the sun?
Heaven sent, or just hell bent on love?

What will happen to us?
Do you think we’ll make the cut?
Should we give it a try?
Give an eye for an eye?
Give ourselves to the lie?

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
The Son’s Fiance comes upon Hunter, who is still rather hungover. She gives him a hiding for disappearing on her and divulges a ton of problems her and the Son’s relationship has had, but comes to realise Hunter isn’t the Son. All the same, she and Hunter agree to continue the relationship on the off-chance they can make something of it. She takes Hunter to Church for its Sunday service.

What’s in a name?
‘The Squeaky Wheel’ — hard to see this and not think, ‘stopped by the squeaky wheel, a smiling swine’. It does mirror Smiling Swine in that SS is where Hunter’s relationship with Ms Leading is established, and in this one Hunter hooks up with the Fiance, but the relation on that alone feels kinda wobbly. Since it’s from the fiance’s point of view it might be more singling out Hunter as the Squeaky Wheel, alluding to how she realises Hunter isn’t actually the Son.

Have seen people mention the Squeaky Wheel as the name of the bar where Hunter got drunk (so in it or around it is where the Fiance finds him), but not sure on the source of that.

Whose viewpoint?
The Fiance.

🌲🌲🌲

>There’s my suitor, struggling to find his footing / Lost, awoken, alone, after sleeping off inebriation
So here’s the Fiance’s voice and world, and wow is this a really clear description of the situation we’re in and the things she’s seeing. She strikes me as a very direct, intelligent, observant, and matter-of-fact kind of person, but also one who is fine with just doing things by routine without expectations of personally getting much good out of it, who will tolerate a lot of nonsense.

So anyway, probably after being told by the Friends that the ‘Son’ is back in town and exists, and from extension of that where they were last night, the Fiance of the Son goes to pick him up and confront him about where on earth he has been the past few years. As expected, she finds him doddering around outside the bar, left there by himself and plainly still hungover. She is not surprised to find him like this, and rather seems somehow accustomed to it, being empathetic yet practical at the same time — the first of many hints, and outright statements we’ll get, toward the idea that the Son was kind of a slimeball, or at least the kind of person who would drink himself stupid after a night with his friends on a semi-regular basis.

As we’ll see, the Fiance has a lot of contentious things to say about the Son. Just as much as this reveals more points of the Son’s character to us, the audience, it will reveal this information to Hunter — telling him that this ‘higher hand’ he idolised was maybe kinda inferior from the outset, and not as hard to match up to as he thought.

>I forget that I’ve been holding my tongue for so long / Cause we had a run, so don your Sunday best and wake up
The Fiance is fundamentally angry with the Son. She has a lot of discontents with their relationship that she has always opted not to confront him with, and this time now that he’s ghosted her for several years and counting after the war, she reckoned that the first thing she would’ve done upon finding him was dress him down and chew him out. Upon actually seeing him, though, she momentarily forgets about this plan to instead focus on getting Hunter in shape to be out in public and specifically in shape to attend today’s Church service. Despite the gap, she fundamentally doesn’t consider them to have broken up and does still basically care about the Son even though he apparently neglects her and engages in terrible dumb antics.

>0:28 – 0:40 Instrumental
The Fiance brings Hunter back to her house to get him sobered up, cleaned up, and with a change of clothes.

>You went missing, never mind the life I was wishing for / Cause you’d had enough – but at least you got enough to fake it
Now that they’re in a more private environment, the Fiance begins voicing her discontents with the relationship to Hunter, questioning his disappearance among other things.

Hunter spent several years living in seclusion with the Mother after the war. From the Fiance’s perspective, though, he just disappeared without any notice or word — even though she and the Son had plans for him to move in with her after the war, or to find a house together, start a family and so on. Since Hunter didn’t know about the Fiance, we can figure she didn’t show up in any of the Son’s postcards, but the Fiance naturally interpreted this period of radio silence as the Son trying to escape from a future with her.

‘Cause you’d had enough’ -> There was tension in their relationship even before the war. The Fiance had some level of expectation that the Son would want to ditch her.

‘But at least you got enough to fake it’ -> Despite that tension, the relationship still offered enough positives to the Son that he made an effort to keep it going and stay with the Fiance. He pretended to love her, at the very least. (‘We couldn’t fake it, so why even try?’)

>I’ll keep smiling, optimistically denying what I feared the most / That you disappeared and leave me wondering
The Fiance could never be sure of whether the Son actually loved her or not. Despite that, she tried to keep a positive outlook that said ‘sure he did, I might not know where he is right now, but when he shows up again it’ll probably turn out he got himself into some weird business again and he just couldn’t reach me or didn’t want to get me involved in it’, or something in that vein where the possibility of him loving her was still open, over the period of Hunter’s absence.

Realistically, she knew he had probably just ran off and dumped her, but she was never able to confirm that because she didn’t know where he went or what happened to him. Further, she was massively fearing that he had simply died in the war, and so she would never get an answer to her doubts about his intentions.

>Was I just a playful pawn, a trophy you had won? / Someone who could lift you when you’re low?
The core contention of the relationship for the Fiance — she was not certain that the Son truly loved her. She couldn’t help but suspect that he only gravitated to her as a romantic date friend and trophy wife, and that he enjoyed the thrill of having conquered someone with her beauty, wealth, status, or difficulty (we can figure she has at least one of these) that he could brag about to his buddies.

Further, he leaned on her significantly as an emotional support, and though she consistently gave that support, she also had to wonder whether that was all he really liked her for. Points to the Son as a far more troubled person than Hunter initially suspected.

>Innocence to prey upon, or allies in the sun?
Was the Son an exploitative predator who took advantage of the Fiance’s affection for him and used her, or were their feelings both honest attempts at mutual support with no secret hostile motives or underbelly?

>Heaven sent, or just hell bent on love?
Really nice line. The Son was someone who desired love profusely — in that way, he sounds a lot like Hunter.

Let’s pause on that thought for a moment. Going to the ‘Hunter and the Son are Twins’ idea, these parallels would be intentional. What’s the major difference between how Hunter and the Son would’ve approached love, though? Well, Hunter was taught how to love by Ms Terri, while the Son’s role model was the General. Poetically it would make sense that the Son’s relationship prospects would be uncertain on whether the Son really loved them, if he doesn’t have that basic sense of what love’s like, while Hunter does know what love is and beelined to it in Ms Leading.

>Darling liar, always running through the brier / What, the cuts aren’t enough? Just an aggravation you’d forget / Like promised patience, politic alleviations of / What I should’ve known was a sign of future expiration
‘Darling liar’ -> The Son had a tendency to lie and be dishonest with the Fiance. The Fiance’s sureness in saying this suggests she has caught him in unambiguous lies before.

‘Always running through the brier’ -> The Son tended to resolve his problems by taking the most difficult and protracted route, the thorny path, as it were. He could never seem to just address an issue or solve a problem in a straightforward and simple way; it always had to become some pointlessly roundabout or dramatic thing.

‘What, the cuts aren’t enough? Just an aggravation you’d forget’ -> The Fiance pressures Hunter again, challenging why he would do all this stupid stuff and make choices that would just make the core problem more difficult to resolve. Furthermore, when the Son did have discontents, he would typically suppress them and not address them straightforwardly.

‘You’d forget like promised patience, politic alleviations of what I should’ve known was a sign of future expiration’ -> The Son promised he would marry the Fiance after he returned from the war, though she strongly wanted to get married and start a family before it. In retrospect, she should’ve have figured his hesitance to commit himself to her or give her a child before going into such a serious and life-threatening situation meant he wasn’t really serious about staying with her, and would’ve broken up with or divorced her eventually.

>2:35 – 2:47 AAAAaaaAAAaaaAAAAA
A bit revelatory? The Fiance figures out that Hunter isn’t the Son? Yeah, that’s it. I think she sees how Hunter genuinely doesn’t know about this promise to get married, and that’s what twigs her to it.

>So will I marry a myth? / Or is there room for second chances? / The lust lives in the dark and may never show
The Fiance considers her prospects.

‘Will I marry a myth?’ -> Basically, ‘are we ever getting married at all’? Ostensibly the Fiance questioning if the image of the Son who loves her is just something fake she made up in her head, in which case she’s attached to an outcome she’ll never get, and even if they do get married it won’t be to the person she wants to marry. Carries a lot of tenors and layers though — the Son’s literal death elevates the idea of marrying him into a myth, and to marry Hunter’s impersonation of the Son is also like marrying a myth, ‘the myth I made’. She has also realised Hunter isn’t the Son by now, and is coming to this exasperated question like, great, now what do I do!? Go marry my dead fiance?

‘Or is there room for second chances?’ -> The Fiance also questions the possibility that maybe they can go ahead and get married anyway. I mean I’m sure this isn’t the most ideal straits for the Fiance, but given how strained the relationship was already, maybe going along with Hunter will be fine. Or at least fine enough to be on par with marrying a man who didn’t love her in the first place and didn’t give her a family before ditching her and dying — supposing that is what happened — and otherwise at least could fulfil the promise that the Son wasn’t able to keep and maybe turn out kinda okay or even good as he becomes the Son for her. She hints to Hunter her openness for him to pursue her by opening the topic of ‘reconciliation’ as a prospect at all.

‘The lust lives in the dark and may never show’ -> Not sure on this. Probably her recognising that Hunter, having his own private life, probably will keep a lover, but deeming that an acceptable compromise as long as he focuses on maintaining a proper family and relationship with her at the same time and keeps the personal business to the side.

>Well, the battle ended years ago / Now this is how you say hello
The Fiance begins testing Hunter. If she is going to be entertaining the prospect of inviting this stranger into her life, she is going to want to feel him out and make sure they’re on the same wavelength first. It’s almost like a little game of 20 questions where she throws him a hardball like ‘c’mon, you need to be able to answer this,’ then signals her willingness to collaborate by instantly undermining this fair question with an ‘out’, subtly advising Hunter of how to answer such questions (and what the Son was like) if he ever were thrown such hardballs in earnest, and establishing for Hunter the foundational blocks of their relationship.

We’re hearing it as a song but it’s probably more basically structured as the Fiance first signalling she won’t probe into Hunter’s story before ‘reminiscing’ to him about how their relationship ‘used to be’ and then subtly asking Hunter if he’d be willing to collaborate with her.

>Well where’d you take your leave?
‘So you show up hungover doddering around the bar after years of no contact — where were you the whole time?’

>Or would you rather keep another trick up your sleeve?
‘Then again, it’s not like you ever tell me these things.’ Subtext being, ‘I’m willing to help you with your cover story, you don’t have to tell me everything’.

>Do you remember love? / How you said you really never could feel enough?
‘The person you’re impersonating wasn’t very loving to me.’

Shades of ‘prayers from above, never answered quite enough’.

>Well, did you give it a try?
‘Can you be loving to me?’

>Why don’t you open your eyes and let me know?
The Fiance signalling to Hunter that she knows he’s not the Son but she’s okay with that since she thinks they’ll be able to build something better. Hunter probably realises at this point that she knows, too, but is nonetheless willing to go along with him and not even backstab or out him if he says no (she has framed the whole conversation in a way that doesn’t endanger the Son persona even if he rejects her — he just has to accept her premise that the Son was unloving to her as his reasoning). She’s laying it on pretty thick that she wants him to recognise the nature of her offer as a positive one.

>Chorus Repetition
Stronger this time with the Fiance’s knowledge that the Son really is gone, she’ll never get these answers, and the guy is dead. Probably also works in reference to this weird thing she’s building with Hunter.

>What will happen to us? / Do you think we’ll make the cut?
Very blatantly asking these questions to Hunter as Hunter — he has passed her vibe check and she seems satisfied that he’s not a rotten man who will totally mistreat her, or anything, but she still has to seriously wonder if a relationship between a spurned fiance and the identity thief who waltzed into her life can really work out to become something as worthwhile, loving, and intimate as she hopes. Note the ‘we’, she’s conscious of Hunter’s prospects and satisfaction in this relationship too. She seriously does want it to be a good one, she’s not just toying around with Hunter because she wants a husband and kids.

>Should we give it a try? / Give an eye for an eye? / Give ourselves to the lie?
‘This is nuts, but should we do it?’

‘Give an eye for an eye’ -> Carries the connotation of ‘woah, we both got burned in love, maybe we can get one over on our exes by making this relationship work out’. So as much as she’s wondering if the Son loved her and thinks she might be able to build something better with Hunter, Hunter’s also contemplating the idea that a successful relationship with the Fiance will be a good answer to the Ms Leading problem. He and the Fiance do have at least some common ground on that point.

And as for the main questions, the answer is yes — Hunter and the Fiance agree to pursue a relationship. We can figure the Fiance will help Hunter adjust into his role as the Son and cover for him if he ever badly misses information the Son should know from this point.

>4:34 – 4:36 Instrumental
Such as this point: she and the Son are churchgoers. With an important service going on today, she brings Hunter with her to the Church to attend.

Is There Anybody Here? | Act IV | The Bitter Suite IV & V: The Congregation/The Sermon in the Silt

Is There Anybody Here?

Is There Anybody Here?
I lay my body down
To rest my weary head
I think I left someone there
I left myself for dead

So is there anybody here
Who can tell me where I am
Or at least where I have been?
Because I fear I’m lost, and I cannot be found again

I left my soul exposed to frail hands who hold
My fate up in the air
And through their fingers fall the meaning of it all
Down to the floor it goes

So is there anybody here
Who can tell me where I am?

Waking in the afternoon, a captive in a passive tomb
Moments turn to long Decembers, stoking fires from dying embers
I try to move a limb, but there’s a disconnect within
A devil in the alchemy, a phantom staring back at me
It’s you

So is there anybody here
Who can tell me where I am
Or at least where I have been?
Because I fear I’m lost, and I cannot be found again

Just waking in the afternoon, a captive in a passive tomb
Moments turn to long Decembers, stoking fires from dying embers
I try to move a limb but there’s a disconnect within
A devil in the alchemy, a phantom staring back at me
A pain I simply can’t express, from troubles I have long repressed
And then there’s you…

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Hunter wakes up groggy after his drunken bender, and in this state, finds himself questioning who he is. He has been trying to be the Son, but his encounter with Ms Leading last night has reminded him of the core values, which he is neglecting, and left him confused as to what he’s doing.

What’s in a name?
Kind of mirroring What It Means To Be Alone — Hunter is in such a state of confusion he doesn’t even know if he can rely on himself, much less who his ‘self’ is that is driving his present actions.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>I lay my body down / To rest my weary head
‘Move your body to the bed’, ‘I brought my body to the altar’; Hunter has awoken from his drunken night out with the Friends, suffering from a severe hangover that is clouding his mind and making it hard for him to move. Exhausted and aching, he lets himself slump across whatever surface is nearest for him to slump over. Given that last we saw him he was in the bar Ms Leading works at, I’d figure he’s either still there and it’s the morning after (but nobody kicked him out?), or either Ms Leading or the Friends had him moved somewhere he could nap it off after he passed out.

>I think I left someone there / I left myself for dead
Hunter drunkenly reflects on his experiences the night prior, but especially his encounter with Ms Leading. Hunter is groggily realising the way he behaved that night was massively contrary to the way he would typically and naturally act — lying, manipulating, getting smashed drunk, being curt with and rejecting Ms Leading… why did he do any of that? If part of Hunter’s goal in becoming the Son was to enable him to reach heights he couldn’t reach as Hunter, why is he being an even worse person than Hunter…?

Who is he actually, at this point? Is his behaviour reflective of this persona of the Son or Hunter?

>So is there anybody here / Who can tell me where I am / Or at least where I have been?
Hunter asks for a guide to tell him who he is. The nature of these questions makes it kinda hard to break them down smoothly but you can get what the vibe here is, right? Hunter is totally wrecked and questioning if this commitment to life as the Son has erased the very existence of Hunter, if all those bases and morals and experiences he had as Hunter are just gone in the wake of his devotion to maintaining the ‘Son’ persona… but to maintain this persona means doing things he wouldn’t naturally do as Hunter and citing the importance of experiences he didn’t have as Hunter, so is the Son persona a breathing entity in itself that doesn’t really count as Hunter?

‘Where I am’ -> What my position is, morally, right now, and where I could conceivably go from here.
‘Where I have been’ -> The major experiences that have affected me and had implications on my moral and personal development.

Can also imagine him sitting there and having a moment of actual literal confusion over whether he’s known the Friends for years or a day, and other things in that vein, just mixing up the details of his actual life against information he’s had to memorise to maintain the persona of the Son.

>Because I fear I’m lost, and I cannot be found again
Basically just continuing the above ideas, Hunter feels the unnaturally corrupt behaviour he’s exhibited as the Son is making him lose touch with the person he truly is, and his motives for even assuming this persona in the first place feel cloudy. Simultaneously feels he has crossed the line too far to reel back on any kind of ‘good person’ route or to even just drop the persona, worsening his confusion around what this says about him or where he can possibly go except down.

‘Lost and cannot be found’ carries an ecclesiastical shade, evoking the idea of the prodigal son (Luke 15:24) and the idea of being lost until you find salvation through Jesus. He needs some kind of major moral intervention for him to stabilise his self and identity. This is subtle foreshadowing setting up how Hunter will come to find purpose and stability in this Son identity through the manipulative guidance of TP&P.

>1:11 – 1:26 Instrumental
No particular ideas on this representing anything specific but man is it cool. Love how dark this is.

>I left my soul exposed to frail hands who hold / My fate up in the air
Hunter realises his behaviour isn’t being dictated anymore by what he wants to do; it’s being dictated by how he has to conform to the responses people who know the Son expect, or how he has to misdirect them to brush suspicion away from him. He has lost his sense of agency in how he’s able to shape himself under this identity.

>And through their fingers fall the meaning of it all / Down to the floor it goes
…Which makes this whole exercise pointless. If he has to conform to others’ expectations and desires instead of his own, then obviously he’s lost that capacity for maturation and growth that he desired in The Old Haunt and Waves, and especially for maturation or growth into a better person. He’s just bouncing off of one person to another and saying whatever he has to say not to get caught. Plus, beyond the inherent scumminess of deceiving people like this, if the people and expectations he has to conform to are scummy, that’s doubly shooting himself in the foot. Hunter almost sounds to be laughing at himself for how stupid it all is.

>1:55 – 1:58 aaa a a aa a aaaa a aAA AAA AA aaaa
Just highlighting these aaas because I love them. I like envisioning them as a little chorus of demons around Hunter.

>So is there anybody here / Who can tell me where I am?
A little less emo, a little more optimistic. Probably a legitimate call for some kind of anchor point relationship or guidance.

>Waking in the afternoon, a captive in a passive tomb
Things are a little brighter as Hunter has napped off the worst of the hangover, though he’s still pretty out of it. It’s afternoon by the time he seems to collect himself.

‘A captive in a passive tomb’ -> Referencing the passive nature Hunter has been forced to adopt to keep his Son persona going; he has to go with the flow and nod along to what others are saying about him, because they know the person Hunter’s trying to impersonate better than Hunter does. Hunter feels trapped in this predicament with his soul functionally dead. Might also be a literal description of him waking up in the bar or whatever building he’s in and still being so wiped out he can’t really move, plus there’s nobody else around, so it’s like he’s confined in this empty tomblike spot.

>Moments turn to long Decembers, stoking fires from dying embers
Really hard lines. I think it is mostly following on from the idea of Hunter waking up at the bar all alone and being super out of it — time feels to be moving slowly (’moments turn to long Decembers’, might also be pointing to it being literally December and him seeing the snow outside, following on from the ‘there was some kind of service going on at the church’ idea? Like it’s near Christmas time. Or a timeskip?) and Hunter is struggling to snap himself back into proper lucid consciousness (’stoking fires from dying embers’, also shows how weak Hunter’s sense of self is after that night, if the inherent ‘fire’ that he is has become so dull and weak as to just be an ember that he has to consciously stoke).

Love the poetry on this, contrast of the coldness of December to the warmth of stoking a hearth.

>I try to move a limb, but there’s a disconnect within
Following on from him having a hard time waking up again — his body feels sluggish and isn’t moving how he wants it to. Being in the weird state of mind that he is, he ascribes this not to alcohol but as another marker of how the Son persona feels to have taken him over; he can’t even operate his own body anymore because the persona has its own consciousness that he can’t control. (Or vice versa, maybe he is the Son and he can’t move the body because he’s fighting against Hunter as the one who dictates that).

>A devil in the alchemy, a phantom staring back at me / It’s you
Basically just continuing the ideas from the line above; Hunter feels the Son persona has become its own thing that is maybe more powerful and real than Hunter at this point. I would kneejerk ‘the phantom’ as being the Son (so he’s haunted by the behavioural expectations of the Son), but given how Hunter has also made allusions to himself dying, the phantom here could also be Hunter’s ‘real self’ and he’s become haunted and self conscious of how even the most minor actions he’s taking might not belong to Hunter anymore. Like he can envision himself watching himself and is terrified by the implications of this.

Really like ‘devil in the alchemy’ as a lyric (’a disruption in the conversion process (nervous system in this case as he struggles to move his limb if you’re going literal; the Hunter -> Son transition being metaphorical)’) and how it echoes ‘hymns with the devil in confessional’ but don’t have anything too specific to say about it.

>Chorus Repetition
Get the image of Hunter finally being able to get himself up and start wobbling his way out of the empty bar.

>A pain I simply can’t express, from troubles I have long repressed / And then there’s you…
Hunter draws everything in the song back into one thought: is his behaviour as the Son (and consequent identity issues) a result of the deep formative pain that Hunter suffers as Hunter (which would then make the Son persona be, by all intents, a Hunter thing), and this entire identity issue and poor behaviour he feels forced to engage in running downstream of him just repressing and turning away from his problems again?

‘And then there’s you…’ this time refers to Ms Leading. Hunter is thinking back on his encounter with her last night and wondering if getting more involved with her again might be a way of freeing himself from this identity crisis and un-repressing that pain, but at the same time he’s extremely conflicted on whether to actually do that because, well, un-repressing the pain will hurt and Hunter hates feeling hurt. I don’t think he actually thinks about it in such mechanical terms though so much as he’s been forced to consider that, yeah, just being around Ms Leading is enough for those old feelings and desires to well up again and the option to act upon them or embrace them instead of this persona is there, but it’s an extremely painful option so it scares him.

>4:08 – 4:59 Instrumental
Hunter considers the option of returning to Ms Leading, or at least of speaking with her again. Though initially comforted and attracted by this prospect, the more he thinks, the angrier he gets. Going back to the ideas he outlined in Waves, he indignantly feels that he will be forced to feign happiness or wellness around Ms Leading anyway, and that he’ll be forced to compromise and shape his self in deference to her as much as he has to do it to other parties (’I left my soul exposed to frail hands that hold…’ instrumental). Ultimately he decides not to mingle again with Ms Leading.

>5:00 – 6:03 Instrumental
Unsure of anything particularly but it’s cool. After all his thinking Hunter just returns to the same emo situation he had starting out with all this.

>6:03 – 6:42 Instrumental
Calmer now. Unsure.

A Night On The Town | Act IV | The Squeaky Wheel

A Night On The Town

A Night on The Town
I’ve been misplaced in so many ways
Broken battlegrounds, hiding veils of delicate deceit
Yet here I breathe
Teeth still gleam from holy water
While millions of lambs migrate to the slaughter
My head in a bag and my hands are bound to my feet
And voices sing

“Were we erased like common thieves?
Tossed in a cell to feast with the fleas
All because we never had written a word”

What will I see, tonight, in these eyes?
And what will I know when the morning comes?
What will I see, tonight, in these eyes?
And what will I know when the morning comes?

Must we remind of exchanges existing so long ago?
Would we arrive at agreeable musings?
Sentimental or just confusing?
We lost what we had, but we took it back
Friends in the gutter, enjoy one another
Just give yourself to the dust and the dirt where you stand

What will I see, tonight, in these eyes?
And what will I know when the morning comes?
What will I see, tonight, in these eyes?
And what will I know when the morning comes?

I’m not who you think I am
And even if I thought you’d known
I never would have told you so
And more alarming
I would have done the very same
Would have stole more than your name
Would have cursed and brought the world on your shoulders
I was in the wrong place at the right time

And what’s the worst I’d see
By giving myself to the earth below me
Not knowing how far I’d fall, by casting away the ordinary
Just how long can I stay in illusions formed here long before me?
And how long can I breathe this stolen breath here underneath?

There’s that subtle smile that did me in
She moves
An agony reminds where I’ve been
She breathes
“I’d never let this happen again.”
Where’s your heart?
Mimicking the patriarch
She’s naive

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Friends of the Son, who Hunter did not realise existed, take him barhopping across the City. Hunter successfully manipulates them into abandoning their doubts when they notice discrepancies between him and the Son, making Hunter reflect on the immoral person he has become. The group enters a bar where Ms Leading is working as a bartender, and after rejecting her concern about his situation, Hunter passes out drunk.

What’s in a name?
This is one of those ‘what is says on the tin’ song names — it’s recounting Hunter having a raucous night on the town, hanging out with the boys and getting piss drunk.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:15 Instrumental
Man! The energy on this. Sets up our setting too — it’s the roaring 20s, the City is bustling, and hijinks are imminently afoot.

>I’ve been misplaced in so many ways / Broken battlegrounds, hiding veils of delicate deceit / Yet here I breathe
Among all this bustle is Hunter, stricken by the fact that he’s not dead or busted yet. It seems now that he has time to pause and appreciate the grandeur of where he is, he’s realising he has no clue how things have managed to be so favourable for him. Like he sounded pretty convicted in Waves that this life as the Son would work out, but now that it kinda is, Hunter’s like, ‘wait, why is this working?’.

‘I’ve been misplaced in so many ways’ -> There are so many ways I should’ve broken/this should’ve fallen apart by now. Saying by itself there are so many situations he just fundamentally shouldn’t have been in in the first place, since they weren’t situations Hunter was in any way suited to.

‘Broken battlegrounds’ -> In retrospect it’s a miracle that I got through the war.

‘Hiding veils of delicate deceit’ -> It’s also a miracle that I’ve not been caught out for my false identity yet. Several years have passed since he’s started living with the Mother, with her being his primary social contact while easing himself into this identity. By now though he’s starting to branch out and go out more to do things, to the point that the Friends are able to know where he’ll be and kidnap him. These being ‘veils of delicate deceit’ also suggests that the character he’s been having to play, and lies he’s been having to remember, have gotten more detailed and intricate.

‘Yet here I breathe’ -> Hunter’s amazement first of all at his literal survival through the war, and at his continued success at subterfuge under the Son’s identity, but also a sort of amazement at the relative freedom he’s managed to secure. Hunter’s still able to (and does) fundamentally conceive of himself as Hunter — his inner conception hasn’t been subsumed by the stress of feigning the Son yet, so the world is like his oyster right now, if he wants to take it as such.

>Teeth still gleam from holy water / While millions of lambs migrate to the slaughter
Hunter sights the Church, which is still busy. Hunter isn’t aware of the Priest’s dual nature as the Pimp yet — his contempt for the Church in this line reflects a more general sentiment that the Church as an institution itself is corrupt or illegitimate, building off of Hunter’s general disillusion with God as of Mustard Gas.

The start of the characterisation of the Congregation as lamb and sheep — for the aspect that they are innocents easily manipulated by TP&P (hunter is being cynical and zeroing in on this aspect of what churchgoing represents — unsuspecting people kowtowing to malicious authorities), but also because that’s common terminology for faithful Christians.

I wonder if some kind of service is going on? If it’s nighttime and the City is bustling, that’s not the typical timeframe I’d imagine to be going to Church unless something was happening.

>My head in a bag and my hands are bound to my feet / And voices sing
While Hunter is distracted watching the lines of people entering the Church, a group of scoundrels abducts him!

>”Were we erased like common thieves? / Tossed in a cell to feast with the fleas / All because we never had written a word”
Psyche — it’s just the Son’s old friends, and they’re playing a prank on the ‘Son’. Enough time has passed that they’ve been wondering where on earth he’s been, since the war has been over for a while and still nobody has heard a word out of him (his life with the Mother must be quite reclusive). They’ve taken it upon themselves to stage a joke kidnapping to force him to remember they exist and to hang out.

The reason they were forgotten, though, is that Hunter just didn’t know about them. They didn’t write any postcards to the Son, nor were they referenced in any of the postcards the Mother had written to him, so Hunter didn’t discover them when he was rifling through the Son’s belongings.

That all said, it’s water under the bridge. The Friends release Hunter from this little interrogation and free him from his bindings, happy to see him again and keen to take him along on a wild night of barhopping.

>What will I see, tonight, in these eyes?
Hunter agrees to go barhopping with the Friends (it’s not like he has a choice). He is highly conscious of the mask he is wearing and unsure of what a typical day in the Son’s life actually looks like, so being around these people who hung out with him routinely is going to be a learning experience and a test. He opts to stay passive, just going along with the group, though curious of where they’ll be taking him.

>And what will I know when the morning comes?
This experience will also tell him more about the Son who he is trying to become. For how great Hunter initially figured the Son was, Hunter doesn’t actually know much about him.

Drinks and barhopping commence, Hunter and the Friends starting off their run.

>1:30 – 1:38 Instrumental
Hunter’s disguise begins to slip and the Friends begin to feel something is off — Hunter is failing to pick up on the group’s injokes, dynamics, and references to old conversations. The Friends begin to question Hunter.

>Must we remind of exchanges existing so long ago? / Would we arrive at agreeable musings? / Sentimental or just confusing?
Hunter attempts to get the heat off him by insisting that there’s no need to ask questions about him remembering or not remembering certain things, as it doesn’t give any particular benefit and tonight is a night to have fun.

>We lost what we had, but we took it back / Friends in the gutter, enjoy one another
Hunter insists that the Friends instead enjoy in the company and camaraderie of finally having their long-lost buddy back after that horrible war and having this opportunity to hang out, laugh, and go drinking together. The Friends are receptive to this argument.

‘Lost what we had, but we took it back’ -> ‘We can say that with these hands, we took it all back’. Hunter lying his butt off.

>Just give yourself to the dust and the dirt where you stand
Hunter drives the point in by insisting that the group continue barhopping, which they agree to do, distracting them from the issue. Hopefully, as they get drunker and become preoccupied with all the fun they’re having, they’ll forget they had suspicions about Hunter.

>Chorus Repetition
Hunter’s argument is successful, the Friends drop their unease, and another round of barhopping commences.

>I’m not who you think I am / And even if I thought you’d known / I never would have told you so
Oh my God it’s Hunter’s ‘normal’ intonation it’s been so long boy where have you been. But yes anyway while the group is having all this fun, and while Hunter himself is laughing along with them and chugging his pints, behind the mask he’s having a soberly introspective moment about how he is deceiving and manipulating these people.

He was successful at persuading the Friends not to suspect him and to in fact dismiss the issue entirely, but even if they had kept their guard up enough to figure that someone had stolen the Son’s identity, Hunter nevertheless would have kept silent on the matter and still pretended to be the Son. Further, we can figure that if the Friends accused him, he would have insisted that he is the Son and not come clean under the accusation. He is recognising his commitment to this persona has become strong enough for him to defend it with flagrant lies, and this devotion to the persona is stronger than whatever conscience against deception he still has. Hunter is just becoming a worse and worse person.

>And more alarming / I would have done the very same / Would have stole more than your name / Would have cursed and brought the world on your shoulders
But even more alarming than his willingness to manipulate others to sustain this facade, Hunter realises that he would actually be willing to kill the Son for it. It’s unclear if this is a hypothetical ‘if I went back in time and had to redo this situation knowing what I know now…’ situation or if it’s a ‘woah, if the circumstances back then had been just different enough that he hadn’t conveniently died in the Somme…,’ but whichever way, Hunter would have actually, without any hesitation, and in absolutely cold blood, murdered the Son for this.

I think it is the former more than the latter though, Hunter’s attachment to this facade has become so immense that it’s more than compromised his morals; it’s made it a joke to think he even has any.

>I was in the wrong place at the right time
Really nice line.

‘I was in the wrong place’ -> ‘I’ve been misplaced in so many ways’ — Hunter shouldn’t have been in the war in the first place, as he didn’t belong there.

‘At the right time’ -> All the same, what he got out of it in the end was positive enough that he’s satisfied with how it went. Really like how twisted this sounds. Hunter’s become quite corrupt.

>And what’s the worst I’d see / By giving myself to the earth below me
Kind of hard to explain but, it’s basically Hunter posing the hypothetical question of how negative his life could really get (so far his life as the Son has been peaceful) by continuing to embrace and commit to this sin. ‘Giving myself to the earth below me’ echoes ‘give yourself to the dust and dirt where you stand’ — where he was urging the Friends not to question things and to basically degrade themselves by continuing to go with the unsuspecting flow of getting super drunk, but the ‘earth below me’ more than just the idea of ‘don’t ask questions, just continue acting in the moment’ also evokes the idea of hell, and from there the idea of sin.

Hunter knows that sinners generally do get punished, but is questioning when that punishment will happen and if it can really be anything so bad as to make this life not worth it. Really peaceful music behind this and leading up to this — Hunter is generally comfortable with the life he has as the Son right now, and has made peace with his lot as he considers it.

>Not knowing how far I’d fall, by casting away the ordinary
Follows up on the previous line; Hunter basically resigning that he’s already so deep into sin and was doomed to fall inescapably into sin once he left the Lake. If this sin is all he really has left it’s not like he has an alternative but to accept that he is just a bad, sinful person and make do with that. There is a kind of peace in accepting this. (Hunter does not realise how sinful he is going to get).

>Just how long can I stay in illusions formed here long before me?
Straightforward question — Hunter wonders how long this life will last and how long he’ll be able to mirror the charade. The fact he even asks it implies he is not confident it will last forever, something must surely come to a head eventually.

>And how long can I breathe this stolen breath here underneath?
‘Gasping for air, with the lungs of a lark’. Hunter is presently comfortable ‘breathing’, or ‘functioning’, or ‘living off of’ the Son’s life. He is conscious of the possibility that factors in the Son’s life could make it too oppressive or smothering for Hunter to continue feeling like he can function while living it — but it’s not like he has countermeasures of what to do if that happens, he is just wondering if and when it might.

Honestly I would figure that Hunter’s solution if he got to that point would be the same thing he always does, running away, but what throws a spanner into him actually doing it when things go south this time is that he holds a public office (everyone knows him) so the leverage of TP&P’s blackmail is too great (his reputation will inevitably follow him, not to mention criminal charges).

>4:37 – 6:06 Instrumental
a BUNCH of fun and raucous barhopping, with Hunter putting his emo existential contemplations aside and fully immersing himself in the moment of all this fun with the Friends. Naturally he is also getting super drunk.

>6:06 – 6:26 The Bitter Suite I Reprise
Hold up, who is that?

Oh my.

It’s Ms Leading.

>There’s that subtle smile that did me in
Yeah, turns out Ms Leading is working as a bartender now, and in their spree of hitting every joint in the City, Hunter and the Friends have rolled up into her establishment. All the raucous fun that Hunter has been indulging in shuts off instantly as he focuses on her, in fact unable to focus on anything but her in this moment. Hunter is both entranced by her presence and very drunk right now.

‘She had the summer’s smile with winter’s skin’. She’s smiling that same summer smile to the patrons, Hunter remembering the feelings this exact smile evoked in him years ago, and still softly is evoking in him now.

Exact intonation as back then, too. Aw Hunter.

>She moves
It’s exactly the same as when they first met — even now, her graceful motions transfix him. Maybe her bringing drinks to the table.

>An agony reminds where I’ve been
For all Hunter has tried to become the Son, this simple sight of Ms Leading is enough for his chest to ache and for the pain of his heartbreak to come welling back up. Hunter’s past asserts itself firmly in his heart and mind.

>She breathes
Again hearkening to Bitter Suite I — with the extra weight that the word ‘breathe’ has over Act IV and Act V, she seems to be doing alright, aside from her being alive and real. Maybe her breathing out long and slow in recognition of Hunter?

>“I’d never let this happen again.”
Hunter persuades himself not to accept the temptation of melting back into Ms Leading. The option to just let himself fall in love with her, throw away his prospects as the Son, and dive into a repeat of Act II is assuredly present right now.

>”Where’s your heart? / Mimicking the patriarch?” / She’s naive
Ms Leading recognises Hunter among the group of Friends and seems alarmed. She questions what’s happened to him (’Where’s your heart?’), but Hunter curtly rebukes her (’mimicking the patriarch’ — ie, he responds rudely, as the General would) and dismisses her as naive for being concerned about where he’s wound up — his life as the Son is obviously better, he has become more mature than he was in the past, and he’s not looking for a repeat of the mess and heartbreak that would assuredly happen if they got together or even associated again. He probably pretends to the Friends that he doesn’t know her.

>7:45 – 8:06 Mustard Gas Reprise
Drunk beyond his limit, Hunter passes out. You can kinda hear him already slipping out of consciousness on ‘she’s naive’.

>8:13 – 8:45 Wait Reprise
Not sure the specific significance of Wait here (though it is a Hunter and Ms Leading song, so maybe Ms Leading is doing something?), but Hunter does need to wake up at some point and this sounds a little bit ‘sun shining through the windows-y’ alongside it being Wait.

>8:46 – 9:00 Instrumental
This probably is just a transition into Is There Anybody There; the day might be bright but Hunter’s head is not, he feels horrid after that bender and probably has a hangover on top of a lot of questions and identity issues wrought by this night.

Remembered | Act IV | Is There Anybody Here?

Remembered

Remembered
Left your face on a map
Sturdied up boulders and loosened the river
To fork where it finds the best
Passage

Met your life before us
Left them your necklace and brandished your ashes
Like stars peaking out in the gloam
Envy

Every choice that you made
Lost before cause had effect found in Babel
Like pieces of puzzles belong
Shackled

Gave myself to the war
Damned if I didn’t demand that they sing
Such a sensible baring of you
Mystery

The flame might be gone but the Fire remains
And I’m stuck on a path to my own ruin

Did you see me behind the wheel?
Did you see me behind the wheel?
And the flame might be gone but the fire…

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Inspired by the similarly comfortable life he’s found with the Mother, Hunter finds himself thinking of Ms Terri. After some contemplation, he makes his final peace with her and releases her from his self-concept, replacing her with the Mother, and taking another step into transforming into the Son.

What’s in a name?
It’s Hunter thinking about Ms Terri — it’s been ages since she’s been the focus of his contemplations (like not since The Lake and The River, or maybe even HHMHT. This Beautiful Life she was more like the focus of his traumatizations), and now that he knows more about her, he’s returning to the subject.

Also I said that Black Sandy Beaches is the most abstract song in the acts I was wrong I was so wrong it’s this one.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:12 Instrumental
Really calm and contemplative song, this one. Well it’s about the most important subject in the world for Hunter: his mommy, and he’s in a peaceful enough mindset to not be freaking out about some massive bawdy revelation or her death the last weekend, this time. Nice to finally have a song where he’s able to think about her more collectedly now that he knows a little more of who she was.

>Left your face on a map
Thanks Casey. I’m clueless. I’m figuring this is a reference to his leaving of the Lake? ‘I still see her face, her beauty her grace / transfixed like a light in front of me’?

>Sturdied up boulders and loosened the river / To fork where it finds the best / Passage
Not sure about sturdied up boulders (just going by vibe is like, emboldened himself, got himself in the mindset to face the world without her), ‘loosened the river to fork where it finds the best passage’ is more obviously referencing him following the River away from the Lake, but also his general approach to life after leaving the Lake. He was following whatever course he wound up on, and when he came to a decision to go one way or another way, just went with whatever one seemed more natural or easier. Not in a negative way here more like just flowing, sailing, panta rhei.

Basically Hunter telling the memory of Ms Terri what he’s been getting up to ever since she passed away.

>Met your life before us / Left them your necklace and brandished your ashes / Like stars peaking out in the gloam / Envy
Okay tricky.

‘Your life before us’ -> This is…? The most obvious answer here would be The Dime, though it’s rather grim to be calling that her life. ‘A home removed, a life resumed’, though, so fair enough — it’s prrrrrobably The Dime. That said, why would he give Ms Terri’s necklace to anyone at The Dime if he didn’t yet understand the significance of it? (Ms Terri wore a silver circle necklace, the symbol of the Dime, as a reminder of the commitment she made to raise Hunter). In what manner would Hunter brandish Ms Terri’s ashes at the Dime? Since there’s a physical description of it, you could probably rule out this being pure metaphor and argue there is a literal element, and I personally don’t remember any point where ash-brandishing happened during the whole Ms Leading business. But then again wasn’t she buried in the first place? So then it flips around and you can take the entire thing metaphorically.

I’ll present the total crack theory reach of it referencing the Lake People (who I swear exist okay) and that period of streetwalking that she did (that I swear happened okay) without further comment, and conclude it probably is just the Dime and a really really oblique way of referencing Act II that has this beautiful imagery but on my life I couldn’t tell you what actions the metaphors specifically point to.

Even in death Ms Terri is as beautiful to Hunter as always, though.

>Every choice that you made / Lost before cause had effect found in Babel / Like pieces of puzzles belong / Shackled
This one is basically Hunter saying that he still doesn’t quite understand Ms Terri’s motives in doing what she did. Obviously he knows she wanted to keep him away from being influenced by the Dime, and by the City, and by the sin of her prostitution, but he doesn’t see what the ultimate pattern here was — that is, the significance that we know of her attempting to burn down the Dime.

Since Hunter is forfeiting his life as Hunter, whatever ultimate end Ms Terri could’ve reached through him is also being forfeit. The ‘cause’ of her pure love for Hunter driving her to try and burn the Dime will not be able to achieve its ‘effect’ of Hunter instead burning the Dime, though Hunter naturally has the more general perspective of, ‘Ms Terri’s efforts to raise me in a pure and loving environment did not ultimately lead to the lessening of the corruption of the City she fled, because I was not able to stick by those principles to incur any positive change’. Or even something more broad as ‘I was not able to stay a good person once I faced challenges outside the Lake, undermining Ms Terri’s sacrifice.’

>Gave myself to the war / Damned if I didn’t demand that they sing / Such a sensible baring of you / Mystery
Now he’s recounting Act III, and his extreme reaction upon learning that Ms Terri was a prostitute. For once it’s pretty clear but I want to zero in on the word ‘sensible’ — it’s being used here in sense of, ‘a presentation of you that adhered to my existing conception’.

>The flame might be gone but the Fire remains
‘I’m still stuck here in this life all alone, without you’.

Really nice execution on this one. Poor Hunter.

>And I’m stuck on a path to my own ruin
‘…and I’ve locked myself into the course of destroying everything that makes me who I am; all I’ve done with my life since I got autonomy was ruin it.’ He also seems to be recognising here the inevitability that all the things he used to treasure or even like about himself have to go into the bin with everything else if he’s to live as the Son now, and given that he’s already visited the Mother and she knows who he is, he doesn’t have the option to back out, even though it sounds to be crossing his mind as maybe a good idea.

I mean, the very concept of Hunter giving up Ms Terri is heavy. That’s a deeply foundational and deeply positive part of himself to be surrendering, and at least some part of Hunter seems to know that parting from it will mess him up. All the same, he can’t not surrender it.

>Did you see me behind the wheel?
‘Did you have an image in your mind of what I might do after you were gone?’. Basically Hunter wondering what potential Ms Terri thought he had, or, going along with the Ms Terri suicide idea, wondering if she really was thinking about Hunter claiming more control over his life without her in the picture, and so perhaps being able to navigate himself to somewhere better that she wouldn’t have been able to manage. In that way he seems to accept that she killed herself — since it’s true that, as an adult, he couldn’t have been happy as a momma’s boy in an isolated cabin forever.

>And the flame might be gone but the fire…
…is also gone. The big build up to the ‘remains’ that we expect, only for it to putter out in silence, is Hunter surrendering his tie to the part of himself that regards Ms Terri as his mother and carries the innocent lessons she taught him. He has come to as complete, comprehensive, and as comfortable a conclusion as he could with this relationship before letting it go.

If you think of Waves as Hunter surrendering Ms Leading, Remembered is basically the same process but with Ms Terri. Honestly a super sad song.

>3:34 – 3:44 Piano
Just one nice last little recognition of Ms Terri as Hunter nods and turns away.

The End Of The Earth | Act IV | A Night On The Town