A Beginning

A Beginning
The silence dominates, divining resolutions from my hands
Lines drawn in the sand
But my volition’s wry, my temperance twisted, faced with failing light
Nothing in my sight

If I fall into the ocean, send my soul into the sea
Will these reflections trouble me? Will I dream my final dream?

I sensed this silhouette who’s standing vigil growing very sore
Just one moment more
Before I close the curtain, fate uncertain; spirit to the dark
Endlessly apart

Can I fall into the ocean, send my soul into the sea?
No distant echoes haunting me, no further phantoms will I see
This silence held eternally

But what if the silence is broken by the ones you’ve loved
Incredibly present, with a heavenly breath to wake you up
With nothing left to poison, a portrait of who I’ve become
Only elation remains, protecting us from this neverending night

Dear apparition, while my senses last
Is absolution far too much to ask?
Will you forgive a truly troubled past?
The silver lining still remains, the sights I’ve left to see
So trust that with this end, a new beginning’s waiting patiently

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Having killed TP&P, Hunter knows he is doomed to die at the hands of the mob. Rather than let them kill him, however, he decides he would rather exit on his own terms and commit suicide. As he considers what will happen to him after his death, he wonders if Heaven might actually be real and if he could perhaps get there. Strangely inspired by this possibility, and eager to reunite with his loved ones, Hunter kills himself.

What’s in a name?
A lot. I mean it’s the last song. But it’s called ‘A Beginning’. What’s up with that?

Well an end is never just an end — one life for another. One thing ends, a new thing begins. So it is for Hunter. His life and story may be over, but the story of his son, which would be Act VI, is now in place to begin and resolve the lingering threads and the overall conflict between good and evil. This being a cyclical story, these conflicts can only truly end if someone breaks the cycle — Hunter ultimately didn’t, but similar to Ms Terri, he has laid the groundwork for someone who perhaps can.

Also carries the implication that Hunter’s death in itself isn’t the end for him — that a new life begins for him in Heaven, or at the very least he comes to see death as such, a gateway to a new beginning.

Also was probably written with awareness that it could be a very long time before Act VI ever happened, so serves as a reminder that this isn’t the end of the story. Personally find it incredibly satisfying when this loops back to Battesimo when playing the whole Acts as a playlist; wonder if it was intentional for them to loop so well.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:15 Instrumental
Man, love this. It’s so quiet but so tense, as Hunter realises what he has just done and recognises the deathly fate he is imminently facing. He can’t escape the mob that is gathered outside his house — if he leaves this building, they will kill him, but it’s not like he can just stay here forever either…

>The silence dominates, divining resolutions from my hands / Lines drawn in the sand
Love the emphasis on hands.

The room is quiet, TP&P dead and Hunter still. Hunter has resolved and expressed what he ultimately stands for through the action of killing TP&P. This cements Hunter’s self-concept, and what he truly represents as a person, being the rejection of the corrupt alternatives (be TP&P’s pawn or exploit the Son persona) that were offered to him.

>But my volition’s wry, my temperance twisted, faced with failing light / Nothing in my sight
That said, for how strong and assertive a decision that was, Hunter doesn’t see where he can go now. He recognises that he has signed his own death warrant by committing this murder, as the mob outside will regard this as proof of his wickedness and kill him. Looking to the future, even the immediate future barely minutes from now, Hunter sees the light of life closing, leaving only the blackness of death.

>If I fall into the ocean, send my soul into the sea / Will these reflections trouble me? Will I dream my final dream?
Nooo, the intonation on this. Hunter… 😦

Faced with that blackness, Hunter becomes meditative about death. Specifically, his death. He wonders if dying means he’ll be tormented still by the consequences of the impure acts he has committed, that he will be judged as a bad person and not allowed to rest, left to sit with memories and regrets of these mistakes he’s made, and doubting the worthiness of the type of person he was, forever.

(Waves, Sea of dreams).

>1:25 – 1:54 Instrumental
Love these. Ramping up as Hunter considers the possibilities; get the image of his soul floating and being swept along the vast currents of this deep ocean.

>I sensed this silhouette who’s standing vigil growing very sore / Just one moment more
Oblique but the silhouette standing vigil is Hunter; he is dissociated from his body right now as he fantasises about these deathly possibilities, his muscles tense and hands tight as he stands over TP&P’s corpse (he hasn’t moved since the start of the song). The soreness of his muscles is like his body asserting to him that he can’t just zone out and wait forever, it needs him to come back and decide what to do.

He does come back to his body, but rather than leave the room, he opts to stick around a little longer, because…

>Before I close the curtain, fate uncertain; spirit to the dark / Endlessly apart
…Hunter has decided he will kill himself of his own volition — ‘I close the curtain’ — rather than let the mob take him. He is of course hesitant to action this decision and wishes to stay in this physical world for as long as he still can. (Endlessly apart = apart from his body; severed from the physical world; gone to death).

>Can I fall into the ocean, send my soul into the sea? / No distant echoes haunting me, no further phantoms will I see / This silence held eternally
Knowing now that he’ll kill himself, Hunter pleads for no afterlife to actually exist, so that he doesn’t have to spend his next life tormented by his past and mistakes anymore. If it’s between the option of that or slip into an eternal void of nothingness, to simply cease existing and dissolve into nothing, he would prefer that it all just be empty and silent instead of having to ‘live’ with himself and his missteps forever. This is not an ending Hunter actually likes but it’s the most merciful one he can see himself being able to attain; impressing upon himself the consolation that ‘at least it’ll be over’ to will himself into doing it.

>3:18 – 3:324 aaaaaaaaaaaa
Revelation. Following this train of thought, a strange idea strikes Hunter.

>But what if the silence is broken by the ones you’ve loved
What if Heaven is real?

What if death isn’t dark or empty or scary, but full of light and love?

What if all the people he has lost are there, waiting for him? What if it’s more like going home?

It might only be a possibility, but so is anything else he’s said.

>Incredibly present, with a heavenly breath to wake you up / With nothing left to poison, a portrait of who I’ve become
And what if he can be there, with all of them, not having to worry anymore about missteps or sin, and free from the trammels of corruption? And they can all live together, in happiness and peace, knowing for sure who they are and that the troubles are over?

God, I love this. Get the image of him waking up in this bright room with Ms Leading over him, laughing and smiling at his drowsiness and confusion as she kisses him and guides him up.

>Only elation remains, protecting us from this neverending night
God! Wonderful.

Having considered this possibility, that there exists even a sliver of a chance that this could be what awaits him in death, Hunter chooses to stake all of his hope and belief on it.

>4:08 – 4:41 The Moon / Awake Reprise
Hunter inflicts the injury upon himself that will kill him. As he is dying, similarly to his transcendent out-of-body experience in The Moon/Awake, visions stream around him. Also like in that experience, as he enters this state, he is able to see the Apparition, who comes to him again.

>Dear apparition, while my senses last / Is absolution far too much to ask? / Will you forgive a truly troubled past?
With the last of his life in him, as he in the process of dying, Hunter begs the Apparition for absolution. He wishes for it to forgive him for his sins, allow him to be cleansed of them, and permit him to reach a happy end with his loved ones in Heaven. Once again, the Apparition is framed as an angel, or divine force with a connection to God and the capacity to answer such questions for Hunter. Taking a literal stance, though, it is probably a hallucination evoked by the fact he is dying, similar to his vision of Ms Terri in Saved.

Man. Saying that and just leaving it as that feels like it’s cheapening what’s going on here though; with the strength, triumph, and power of this verse, and the transcendent force that the Apparition represents, the suggestion is extremely strong that Hunter is touching on something divine in this moment, and that his words are being heard by something. (At the very least, they’re being heard by Casey lol).

>The silver lining still remains, the sights I’ve left to see / So trust that with this end, a new beginning’s waiting patiently
The Apparition speaks. It assures that, though it may not be immediately apparent, extreme good has come out of this conclusion — Hunter shouldn’t fear it, and we the audience also shouldn’t fear that Hunter’s death was pointless. (Hunter even speaking as the Apparition? sights ‘I’ve’ left to see)

There are two dimensions by which you can read this.

First is the story read of Hunter going to Heaven. That is, Hunter’s plea for absolution is answered, and he is allowed to move on to a positive afterlife where he reunites with his loved ones. We won’t get to see it, but Hunter has done all the work he needed to do, and now he’s doing fine in whatever realm he wound up. Thematically, this venerates Hunter and gives an ultimate meaning to all his suffering, mistakes, resolve, and decisions — basically, it affirms that the story we just heard had a point and wasn’t just faffing about for over a decade to the conclusion of ‘idk, fuck Hunter :^)’. That point being one that celebrates the power of good over evil and love as a virtuous force.

That said, Casey is rather purposeful in leaving the ambiguity of whether an afterlife exists open. Things like making the Apparition appear as a drug hallucination, or having the visions of Ms Terri in Saved when Hunter’s delirious and dying — etc, there is always a way to doubt and say there could be a mundane reason for these occurrences. I get the feeling Casey doesn’t want to say as a certain thing, ‘there’s an afterlife’, or ‘Hunter goes to Heaven,’ partially because he doesn’t know, (wow presumption), but there is this underlying hope or preference that Hunter gets the best ending he can. Rather, it kind of makes it more meaningful, to not have that explicit confirmation, but this extreme hope and strong suggestion that this is how things are.*

The second read is meta. Since we don’t unambiguously know-know if Hunter got to an afterlife, but the significance of the story lies in him being venerated, Act VI will have to unambiguously achieve that by having Hunter’s son, powered by ideas Hunter gave him (Light), win against evil. We have a lot of plot threads left now chiefly concerning the aftermath of Hunter and TP&P both dying — how the City will remember each of them, who will come to be regarded as a good force or evil force, whose ideas will be venerated, what actually happens now that they’re gone, is the City a better or a worse place now? The implication seems to be that it’ll be worse, as Mr Usher moves in to take his dominion, and him being a more ruthless villain than TP&P. Counterbalancing that, we can hope for Hunter’s son to be a better person than Hunter, who manages to succeed against corruption in those places where Hunter failed, ultimately to defeat it and break the cycle. That would be the silver lining in the meta sense — one life for another, Hunter’s son can now step forward to propagate these ideas and win.

I am indeed waiting, Casey.

• (9/5/22: on a recently released episode of the All Things Coheed podcast, Casey mentions that Act VI would, from the very first moment, have a notable tonal shift from the rest of the Acts in regard to being grounded in reality. That is, sans for the Oracles, events in I-V are grounded enough that they could conceivably happen in reality. But, Act VI sounds it will break from this mundanity from the first beat.
  
  Given this, I’m beginning to speculate my assertion of ‘we won’t get to see it’ may be wrong, and that Act VI may literally begin with Hunter actually in Heaven. This opens the possibility of Hunter remaining a/The main character for Act VI, rather than his son, or as an accompaniment to his son.
  
  Casey also mentions that part of why Act VI isn’t an album is because the reprises would be so egregious as to go beyond even fanservice. If Hunter can still be around to try and correct the cycle, then I wonder if this is opening the possibility of time travel… that is, for Hunter to literally go back in time though the Acts, or to an alternate version of the Acts, and retroactively make the right decisions. I’m not sure how I feel about this possibility, but it is one I feel the need to float.)

>5:18 – 5:26 Doomy Swoop
Hunter dies.

>5:27 – 6:20 The Lake South Reprise
Hope for a better future: in his death, the hope that Hunter is going to a better place, where he’ll be happy and at peace.

Also evokes the literal image of the pristine and beautiful Lake, where Hunter’s son presently is, nudging us toward the idea of a better future through him, as Hunter’s life, and role in the story, fades gently into silence… goodbye, Hunter.

Man. I didn’t expect to get as sad as I did writing this one. …And with that, that’s the end of these write-ups for me now, too, short of coming back to fix plain errors and edit things. Thank you to everyone who read through this far, and I hope my reads have worked to help translate these ideas from Casey’s lyrics and music into flat English as I hear them… which is hopefully, more faithful a basis than not… to make them easier for others to read too, and in the areas where I got it totally wrong or totally ran off with the ball, at least rose ideas that you can scrutinise to fit or not fit, and spark discussion to dig in to what read would be right. I think Casey’s made something quite special with these albums; the exactness and thought put into the storytelling is obvious. And as much as I know others who want to understand them to their last detail, well, so do I…

So are there questions you have still lingering? Is there maybe a place I could explain my rationale for a read a bit tighter? Is there a spot that’s always caught your attention that I’ve overlooked? Are there parts where I’m on the right track for something, but there’s more that could be added to the thought? So on so on… what do you think?

Blood | Act V

Blood

Blood
Silence slights spirits of those gone into the night
But what was the cost? Do I justify the loss
When a loss of control would be digging myself a hole?
It couldn’t be worth it

I’m a killer, I’m a killer, I’m a killer
But I’ve been killing myself all along
Had I done my best to protect innocence
Or did I lead the wolf to the fawn?

Watch your words, keep them from bothering the herd
Provoking the stones that they all can throw
No, I won’t carry on living this life that I stole
It just isn’t worth it

I’m a killer, I’m a killer, I’m a killer
But I’ve been killing myself all along
Divining the right from the wrong
Had I done my best to protect innocence

Or was something more wicked in store?
Is there villainy inside of me?
In search of worth, have I burned the earth?
There’s no passion in being passive
And no inaction could bring an answer
So for you, I am a killer

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Given the offer to side with TP&P again or face an angry mob, Hunter considers what he should do and if burning the Church/Dime was really a virtuous move at all. Ultimately, Hunter cannot stand to submit himself to TP&P, or to try manipulating the mob with feigned piousness, and kills TP&P.

What’s in a name?
‘Blood’ — Not sure. Feels on-the-tin-y in that it’s where Hunter kills TP&P, but could maybe be read into more?

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>Silence slights spirits of those gone into the night
Continuing immediately from The March, Hunter is in the room with TP&P, having just been given the offer to either ally with him again or throw himself unaided into a bloodthirsty mob. Their conversation sounded to be pretty long at the end of The March, and we seem to be coming into it just after TP&P posits that Hunter has nothing to gain by working against TP&P anymore. That is, the people he thought he was protecting are a hair’s breadth from murdering him, and surely won’t hear out the truth and forgive him like how Hunter envisioned they would in The Fire. So great, he got his revenge. Now what? What’s left for Hunter?

Hunter is having a hard time facing this question. If he concedes that TP&P is right by staying silent, and that he really kinda doesn’t have anything to gain by antagonising him, that is insulting the memory of Ms Leading and Ms Terri. It undermines the entire point of why he burned the Dime, and is once again a rejection of his own principles.

>But what was the cost?
…At the same time, though, Hunter can’t see a way out of this situation. He’s gotten his vengeance for Ms Terri and Ms Leading, but he hasn’t exactly done away with the City’s evil, since TP&P is still here and still able to command considerable influence.

So… now what? What has even changed by that arson?

>Do I justify the loss / When a loss of control would be digging myself a hole?
Hunter is considering going bananas and murdering TP&P, firstly because his gut is steaming furious and wants to explode at the dude, secondly because that would be following through on the principle behind the Dime’s burning and remaining true to his heart. However, if he does injure or kill TP&P, it is a guarantee that the mob outside will destroy him. An arson, he could do, maybe, but there is no way he can explain away a literal murder where two guys go into a room and only one guy comes out.

Might not be as far as ‘murdering TP&P’, but definitely in the vein of ‘HERE’S MY DEAR MS. LEADING NOTE ABOUT TP&P, EVERYONE, THIS GUY SUCKS, I HATE HIM, HE HURT MY MOM’ in front of the mob yeah lol that won’t go over well.

Note that Hunter recognises himself as having lost the conflict between himself and TP&P. He did not expect the overwhelming hostility of The March at all.

>It couldn’t be worth it
Having considered the option, Hunter decides that exploding at TP&P is not worth it.

>I’m a killer, I’m a killer, I’m a killer / But I’ve been killing myself all along
Love these lines. Wow hard to articulate though, hefty.

This is the finale to Hunter’s death-rebirth pattern, and our biggest call of attention toward it. Hunter has this immense urge to hurt TP&P right now, but ultimately he does not — even though exploding at TP&P would be the action that is ‘true’ to Hunter’s heart. In this instance, he is aware of this conscious choice he’s making to redirect that urge onto his ‘self’, stifling it, and how he is looking for alternatives to what his ‘self’ wants to do.

Hunter realises this is the same damn thing he’s always been doing. Rather than live by the principles of his true self, or even any self, he just persistently and persistently undermines himself and discards his core desires for alternatives that are ultimately harmful. That is the process of Hunter killing himself. This time, it’s not framed as a mistake or an accident or a savage wave sweeping over him that he can’t resist, but as Hunter murdering himself by flirting with paths he consciously knows are not him.

If you follow that logic, then you could even question if burning the Dime was really a path true to Hunter, as it begs whether he was truly looking to vanquish the evil of his birth, the City, and TP&P, or if he just needed something to kill the Son persona. If he really wanted to glorify his true self, and rout out the evil, he probably could have come up with a more robust plan that would actually deal with TP&P and not leave Hunter cornered like this into surrendering his self again.

>Had I done my best to protect innocence / Or did I lead the wolf to the fawn?
Hunter questions if his efforts in burning the Church/Dime really were virtuous actions, or if he just made TP&P’s position stronger.

>Watch your words, keep them from bothering the herd / Provoking the stones that they all can throw
So, if Hunter’s not going to slight Ms Leading and Ms Terri’s memories by bowing to TP&P, and he’s not going to attack TP&P, what’s the third option? That would be to try facing the mob by himself. Hunter, glancing out the window, considers how he would do this.

He would have to be extremely careful, and basically have to manipulate them similarly to how TP&P did. TP&P is a convincing public speaker who holds considerable Citywide influence — but let’s not forget, so is Hunter. Until TP&P levied those accusations about him out of basically nowhere, the cityfolk thought he was a saint. If it’s TP&P’s word against Hunter’s, Hunter may be able to defuse the situation by simply doubling down on the Son persona, insisting that he did not commit identity theft, that he does not know why the Priest accused such of him, and overall playing to people’s emotions under a shroud of innocence and shared indignation over the burning of the Church. He doesn’t sound happy or confident about this prospect, but it is one open to him.

It is also of course very dangerous, as the crowd is already keyed against him, so one wrong inflection could kill him.

>No, I won’t carry on living this life that I stole / It just isn’t worth it
Upon thinking about it, though, Hunter decides no. He doesn’t want to continue being the City’s Mayor, and doesn’t want to continue being the Son or wearing this pious persona. He is beyond sick of it, of all the lies, the corruption, the fakeness, the emptiness…

>I’m a killer, I’m a killer, I’m a killer / But I’ve been killing myself all along / Divining the right from the wrong
If you follow that logic, then you could even question if burning the Dime was really a path true to Hunter… yeah, right. Of course it was a path true to Hunter. That was the truest path he’s followed and most righteous, self-assured action Hunter feels that he’s made in a long time. The real issue might not be one so much of Hunter running away from his true self, in this instance, so much as…

>Had I done my best to protect innocence / Or was something more wicked in store? / Is there villainy inside of me? / In search of worth, have I burned the earth?
…Hunter’s true self just being evil.

If Hunter knows that burning the Dime was a natural and self-assured action, and is now also considering that it didn’t really achieve much in removing evil from in the City, there is a serious possibility that Hunter’s actual motive was not about removing evil, but actually about antagonising evil and looking like a good person for it. He does have this intense natural aggression that we’ve seen again and again. What all this stuff about good and evil amounts to might be his own selfish, egotistic framing for being able to indulge in that vengeful, destructive instinct against someone he hates. He wants to be a good person, and he wants to feel like a good person. But he might not, intrinsically, be all that predisposed to goodness so much as neediness, ego trips, and destruction.

I mean, I wouldn’t call Hunter a great guy, but he’s being pretty harsh on himself here. Basically since he felt so strongly that good was on his side in The Fire, and that he’d be venerated for burning the Dime, when he finds that the cityfolk were riled against him so easily with unsubstantiated lies, and that they regard the burning as indefensible, and that he can’t just be honest and have it all go away, and to top it off TP&P is still there and still doing his nonsense, he’s going ‘gee if I really was on the side of good this probably wouldn’t be happening’.

>There’s no passion in being passive / And no inaction could bring an answer
Having considered all that though, Hunter in the end can’t say whether what he’s doing is good or evil, as Hunter resolves to take action…

>So for you, I am a killer
…and lunges for TP&P.

With the choices placed before him of become an evil pawn, play the corrupt and empty Son, or become a murderer, Hunter decides he would most gloriously abide his aggressive impulse and be TP&P’s murderer. Whether this is a good or evil action, and whether his life served good or evil purposes, in the end, isn’t up for him decide — history will have to judge whether this decision from Hunter’s heart was right.

>3:13 – 4:01 Sad Bitter Suite II
TP&P dies at Hunter’s hands. Really like how sweeping this is, fundamentally dark with these majestic and bright tones interspersed in there.

Like, finally… good or evil, finally, this guy is finally dead. The balance in this city has finally, finally changed.

>4:02 – 4:34 Doomy Ambiance
Hunter stands over TP&P’s corpse, numb, inevitable death at the hands of the mob awaiting him outside.

The March | Act V | A Beginning

The March

The March
If one and all who hear my call could lend their ears to me
Then you could hear the crooked tale of how this fire has come to be
I must admit that the manipulator’s fate was resting at my feet
But all of his intimidation brought me to my knees when he said

“Keep this secret safe, or watch your flock devoured by the flame
Left in my wake; I’ll burn through you.”

There is a vision you have come to know and love
(The deft defender with a heart of gold)
An imitation of a man he left to die face down in the mud
(Such venom coursing through his veins)
And now the mimic is a cynic who laughs while the house of God is reduced to ash
Well, I won’t let corruption carry on

Come out from the dark and claim your light
Before you all but fall apart
We can keep this wolf far from our flock
So raise your voices, torches, rocks
And follow me into the night
We’ll bring this evil to the light

You tried to take control
But you couldn’t with a stolen soul
So we’re coming after you tonight
Coming after you tonight
No word he could uphold
‘Cause the only truth he ever told
Was that there’s far too many ways to die
Far too many ways to die

Lost in his memories, the end in sight

Come out from the dark and claim your light
Before you all but fall apart
We can keep this wolf far from our flock
So raise your voices, torches, rocks
And follow me into the night
We’ll bring this evil to the light

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
TP&P, furious at the burning of the Church and the Dime, riles the cityfolk into a bloodthirsty mob against Hunter by pointing to him as the wicked arsonist and revealing his stolen identity. TP&P and the mob march to Hunter’s place. TP&P enters privately to negotiate Hunter back down, and offers that he escape consequence provided he continues being TP&P’s ally.

What’s in a name?
‘The March’ — an on-the-tin name, as the mob marches on Hunter.

Whose viewpoint?
TP&P.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:06 BWEEEEEEEEEEEEE
With the crowd gathered outside the burning remains of the Church, TP&P comes upon the scene — and he is shocked, horrified. The plan didn’t just not work, it’s obviously made Hunter act out…!

>0:06 – 0:12 Smiling Swine
Realising what has happened, TP&P grows furious.

>0:13 – 0:25 Smiling Swine Cont.
TP&P steadies himself from the initial shock and, though still furious, channels that anger into action. He resolves to take control back of the situation and make his strike against Hunter.

>If one and all who hear my call could lend their ears to me / Then you could hear the crooked tale of how this fire has come to be
TP&P calls the cityfolk angrily gathered around the Church to attention, promising to explain what has happened. People are naturally eager to know, and to know who to blame for the burning of their Church, and since the Priest is a trustworthy figure, they turn to him, gather around, and listen. He is thinking to redirect the people’s anger and use this crowd as a weapon against Hunter, taking the battle to him.

As far as TP&P’s speeches go, this one is pretty ad-hoc. He is still extremely nettled while giving it and is not quite in his element yet.

Also since this song goes right into the action so quickly I’ll pause here to comment on it a bit more. This is the climax of Act V, and with this being the big ‘battle’ between Hunter and TP&P that the story has been building up to all along, Casey goes absolutely nuts on the reprises on this song. I’ll point out the ones that are super overt or that jump out at me, but already in this passage there’s like… six reprises (Regress, Smiling Swine, Cauda, Battesimo, Oracles/Bitter Suite II) and that’s not even a tenth of the iceberg. I don’t think I can identify all of this song’s reprises or even point out half the ones I can identify to explain them very well so there’s going to be a lot missing here, forgive me, bear with me. I also wonder if literally every line of this song has a reprise, or multiple, because I’d believe it.

>I must admit that the manipulator’s fate was resting at my feet
TP&P identifies Hunter as the arsonist who has burned down the Church. Now, how could TP&P know this? He claims to know it was Hunter because he has known all along that Hunter is secretly evil. But if TP&P has known this all along, why didn’t he tell someone or do something about it? Well, he has persistently wanted to action his own influence within the City to do something about him, and raise the alarm about him, but…

>But all of his intimidation brought me to my knees when he said
…Hunter has known TP&P might resist his wicked influence, that is, he knows that TP&P knows, and specifically pulled him aside to threaten him. TP&P was not only scared for his life, but also…

(I’ve seen you fabricate, manipulate…)
(Leading me to throw up my hands…)
(And here’s exactly what she said…)

>“Keep this secret safe, or watch your flock devoured by the flame / Left in my wake; I’ll burn through you.”
…that of the Congregation. Hunter threatened that he would burn down the Church, potentially with people inside it, and destroy TP&P’s locus of influence within the City, if he dared move against Hunter or revealed his identity. Understandably fearful and worried for the safety of the congregation, TP&P found himself browbeaten into doing nothing. The implication seems to be that Hunter confided the secret of his real identity in the confessional.

This is of course an inversion of the real dynamic between Hunter and TP&P, and 100% lies. Classic manoeuvre; when you’re at risk of looking like a bad guy, just reposition your victim as the aggressor and yourself as the victim.

Love the intonation TP&P takes while depicting Hunter here, that really gentle one that’s like… man, where does Hunter usually use that? This is the most wild intonation take I’m ever going to make because it’s the same singer for both characters, so it doesn’t need to be any more complicated than ‘just sing as the other guy’, but it really does sound like TP&P doing his slightly-off take on what Hunter’s intonation is like. Probably because if Hunter ever did threaten to burn somebody, he’d be angry, not gentle lol.

‘Devoured by the flame left in my wake’ -> Presents a really strong image of Hunter as this merciless guy TP&P is trying to portray him as, but also might betray some subtle flame/fire stuff; TP&P zeroes in on the flame as the more threatening half of this equation, even though it’s not the component that actually destroys things. Wonder if he has some consciousness in the back of his mind about Ms Terri.

(”Please be soft and sweet to me…”)
(I leave a wake from all the things that I have done…)

>1:04 – 1:10 Bitter Suite II
TP&P has successfully found his groove and hooked the crowd. They are convinced by his words and are looking eagerly to him for more answers. TP&P is relieved, seeing he has secured his control over this mob, and shifts away from outright fear and anger more into deviously conspiring on how to best use them, not fearing them as a problem anymore, and rather as an asset against Hunter.

>There is a vision you have come to know and love / (The deft defender with a heart of gold) / An imitation of a man he left to die face down in the mud / (Such venom coursing through his veins)
TP&P escalates the pressure against Hunter by revealing to the mob that he committed identity theft. The person who has worked so hard all this time to ‘clean up the city’, and who has always worn such a kind and helpful public face, is not the person he claims to be at all. That person died ingloriously on the battlefield in the Somme. The guy that’s been running the show since then? Total demon, immoral, a manipulator, who doesn’t care about the memory of the person he stole.

Gives us some insight into the type of person Hunter was as the Son/Mayor — outrageously popular, outrageously positive, quick to help the weak or needy, quick to rebuff threats towards the vulnerable, very devoted to the welfare of the City and wellbeing of its citizens, the last person you would ever expect to have coldbloodedly left someone to ‘die in the mud’.

(’But the poison has passed from my lips to my hands…’)
(Poison Woman vibes on the echoes? ‘They never had a chance…’)

>And now the mimic is a cynic who laughs while the house of God is reduced to ash
TP&P impresses that Hunter is so evil that he finds the burning of the Church funny. He is in no way the Christian he claims to be, rather finding the blasphemy entertaining and the faith of believers stupid. Hunter is implied to have not realised the people know he has committed arson, and is cackling to himself about how he’ll get away with it.

>Well, I won’t let corruption carry on
TP&P announces that enough is enough — Hunter can’t be allowed to get away with his evils any longer. He will spearhead a charge to finally see this villain destroyed.

>Come out from the dark and claim your light / Before you all but fall apart
TP&P urges that the Congregation step forward to take action against Hunter, and so remove this source of great evil in their community, since leaving him unchecked will lead to him inevitably victimising more people and manipulating the City back under his thumb, ultimately to the people’s ruin.

(And under your guidance; the hands of a tyrant / these people will just tear themselves apart…)

>We can keep this wolf far from our flock
The Congregation are receptive to TP&P’s words, becoming emboldened and zealous. They can defend their community against Hunter.

>So raise your voices, torches, rocks / And follow me into the night
TP&P riles the Congregation up into a full-fledged mob, armed with torches and even rocks, quite ready to kill Hunter. He then ushers them along behind him, to guide them through the dark and unknown reaches to Hunter’s place, which lies thick in the evil (his house?).

Also indicates that it’s literally nighttime when this is all occurring.

(’I’ve been running through the night again…’)

>We’ll bring this evil to the light
The mob are sure in their goal: in the name of justice and good, they will unveil Hunter’s treachery and hold him accountable for his crimes.

>You tried to take control / But you couldn’t with a stolen soul / So we’re coming after you tonight / Coming after you tonight
Woah woah woah hello hi it’s The Old Haunt! Probably the Acts’ most overt reprise, and one of the coolest in how aggressively it shows up, but unsure exactly of what its prominence represents in the context of The March. Maybe like a marching theme as the mob gets on the move, the kind of stuff you’d yell while you’re streaming through the streets with a ton of people and want bystanders to know what you’re marching for? Simultaneously sounds like TP&P making his comment on Hunter’s move against him, no longer directly speaking to the mob, but the kind of thing he would tell Hunter if he were here to see this.

Lots going on here gosh.

‘You tried to take control / But you couldn’t with a stolen soul’ -> The sentiment for the mob is like, ‘you weren’t able to secure your dominion over the City because your evil deeds caught up with you in the end; you were not legitimate’, when for TP&P it’s more like, ‘you were not capable of doing what you wanted to do with your life, because you ran from yourself and gave yourself this massive weakness/foundation of falsehoods’, though recognising that Hunter has abandoned that ‘stolen soul’ hence why he has burned the Church/Dime, and coming after him to punish him.

>No word he could uphold / ‘Cause the only truth he ever told / Was that there’s far too many ways to die / Far too many ways to die
Interesting and hard to strip down too.

On the face level it’s just calling Hunter a liar who couldn’t uphold his campaign promises because he was secretly evil.

On TP&P’s level it’s more like, doing away with his Son persona means doing away with the things he claimed he would/could achieve with this persona. He has betrayed that desire of his to protect the City. Further, Hunter ultimately doesn’t win against evil, and cannot achieve the good things he’s pledged, because he will once again betray himself under the pressure of the death threat presented by the mob. TP&P is not quite saying he will literally kill Hunter, but he wants to put Hunter between the options of ‘bend to me’ or ‘face this bloodthirsty mob on your own’, anticipating that Hunter will bend. This would kill Hunter in the metaphorical sense. However, if Hunter faces the mob, he will probably die in the literal sense — TP&P does not seem to think this is worth it for Hunter, and would probably contrast himself against the mob to imply that he is less of a hypocrite, and more of an ally to Hunter, than them. Basically cornering Hunter to try and shake his view of people in general.

>Lost in his memories, the end in sight
‘Struck by the squeaky wheel, a smiling swine’. TP&P saying that Hunter has grown romantic towards people and the world because he is viewing things through his childhood lens of Ms Terri; projecting onto them protective sentiments he had towards Ms Terri. He was acting naive. Consequently, he is not seeing clearly how quickly and viciously people will turn against him and condemn him, which is his downfall.

>Chorus Repetition
Man, love this. So much energy. TP&P urges the mob further on.

>3:16 – 3:20 Flute
TP&P and the mob arrive at Hunter’s house. Hunter is surprised.

>3:20 – 4:06 The Most Cursed Of Hands
With the mob assembled outside, TP&P urges them momentarily calm as he goes inside to privately speak with Hunter. The mob must think TP&P is trying to get Hunter to submit and explain himself peacefully, but what he is actually doing is trying to bring Hunter back onto his side. That’s why TMCOH appears here — TP&P is offering to save Hunter from the mob, and let him escape consequences for the arson, as long as Hunter subordinates himself to TP&P and works alongside TP&P again.

Probably wrong, but I wonder if TP&P is thinking at all about how badly Mr. Usher abused him and if it’d occur that keeping Hunter around might be a good contingency to get him to shove off.

The Fire (Remains) | Act V | Blood

The Fire (Remains)

The Fire (Remains)
For so long have my teeth held my tongue from a venomous voice (From a venomous voice)
But the poison has passed from my lips to my hands, an incendiary ploy
(And Hell will open up its flue) I bare my soul through the flames before me
(And you will witness what the fire can undo)

Far from the ash, I will be born again
Where every debt is repaid
Nothing left to keep me out of paradise
As portraits of the past fade away

The id dots the i’s of antiquity
While the ego, of late, has held sway
Too foolish to stray past the line, but too weary to stay
Too weary to stay

Far too long have I waited to witness the balances bend (The balances bend)
In the favor of wrongs being remedied, wickedness coming to an end

Far from the ash, I will be born again
Where every debt is repaid
Nothing left to keep me out of paradise
As portraits of the past fade away

Far beyond the act, I will be whole again
A phoenix out of the flame
I’m burying that menace in a memory
A funeral held in my name

The ritual pyre’s sending smoke to the sky
As the building continues to burn
The wrath in the ruin, the pain in the grave
As the lies are retired to the urn
But we can’t keep the embers from catching
The truth from destroying us all
Do I die as the martyr or miscreant? I’ll make the call
I’ll make the call

Far from the ash, I will be born again
Where every debt is repaid
Nothing left to keep me out of paradise
As portraits of the past fade away

Far beyond the act, I will be whole again
A phoenix out of the flame
I’m burying that menace in my memory
A funeral held in my name
Held in my name

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Learning of the death of Ms Leading, and understanding instantly that TP&P killed her, Hunter does not break down, but takes vengeance upon TP&P. Hunter burns down the Church and the Dime. He recognises that the truth of his actions and identity will come out, as will that of TP&P, but feels he can explain himself and be properly venerated. Hunter leaves the scene. Cityfolk angrily come upon the remains of the Church.

What’s in a name?
‘The Fire (Remains)’ — The other half of the whammy. Same concepts as described in The Flame, but this time focused on Hunter’s part of the equation, with him finally taking the action of vengeance/destruction of evil by burning down the Dime. With that, the purpose of Hunter’s life as given in Battesimo Del Fuoco is fulfilled, while symbolically avenging Ms Terri.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:19 Sad Melpomene Cont.
Transitions out of The Flame while also suggesting the event of Hunter learning about Ms Leading’s death. Wonder if Hunter heard the news through a third party or if he physically came upon her corpse to find out? Either way, he recognises that this ‘accident’ was not an ‘accident’, but a murder committed by TP&P.

>For so long have my teeth held my tongue from a venomous voice (From a venomous voice)
Which we can see here, since he’s furious. Looks like Mr. Usher’s plan didn’t ‘work’ — far from break Hunter into confusion and despair, it’s just infuriated him and reinforced to him that this self-affirmed, violent, vengeful course he’s been flirting with is correct.

Since he is able to read the murder as being TP&P’s work, we can figure that TP&P’s motive in killing Ms Leading is transparent to Hunter. He can tell the death was an attempt to punish and demoralise him so that he would not resist TP&P. This has been TP&P’s approach towards Hunter this whole time, trying to punish, demoralise, and guilt him as a bad person, so it’s not crazy that Hunter would click onto it.

‘For so long have my teeth held my tongue from a venomous voice’ -> anyway the line. Really nice one.

‘Teeth held my tongue’ evokes Cauda; ‘we’re biting our tongues / (biding our time)’; Hunter has been hesitant to act against TP&P even though they have been obviously growing nearer and nearer towards large, messy, and inevitable conflict. Hunter can frame this hesitation as him waiting for the right moment to strike, but it’s moreso that he’s been scared to buck the status quo and kick off open hostility.

‘Held my tongue from a venomous voice’ -> Drawing the tongue motif from HHMHT; In hesitating and restraining himself from committing to open hostility, he has not been being true to himself or his inner desires. He has wanted to viciously condemn and destroy TP&P, publicly and openly, for a long time.

‘Venomous voice’ -> Alludes to Hunter’s desire to divulge the truth about TP&P; his desire that TP&P be ruined and unveiled, but also the more general aspect of Hunter being hobbled from acting with (openly expressing) hostility at all.

>But the poison has passed from my lips to my hands, an incendiary ploy
Hunter’s hostility has shifted from the realms of ideas, desires, or wishes into action. With great surety, he assembles what he needs and sets out to burn down the Dime. (Or the Church. I can’t tell which one he lights first, if he only lights one and the flames spread to the other of their own accord, or if he lights both).

Hearkening HHMHT with the hands motif again; being used in the ‘action’ sense here.

Hearkens Gloria with ‘an incendiary ploy’ (’Found in a flood of incendiary plans’); the plan of arson conceived in Gloria is now being actioned.

>(And Hell will open up its flue) I bare my soul through the flames before me
Hunter sets the building alight, basking to admire the flame as it grows.

‘(And Hell will open up its flue)’ -> Points to the literal element of the viciousness of this fire, sending up thick black hellish smoke as the building burns. Might be indicating that the first building to burn is the Dime, if Dime = Hell and it is casting up smoke? And likely carries the element of ‘venting’, Hunter is venting his pent-up fury and hatred by destroying the building.

‘I bare my soul through the flames before me’ -> Setting fire to the Dime is Hunter’s destiny. I mean, for Hunter it’s more like, seeing the flames rise and consume the building is the greatest expression of his beliefs and desires possible, an announcement that he is not capitulating to TP&P or to fear anymore — achieved by his utter, cleansing destruction of the evil of the Dime, something he has desired to destroy from the moment he found out it could be hurting Ms Terri (1878).

See, Hunter’s fundamental self is defined by Ms Terri’s ‘flame’ and the resultant ‘fire’ he is. It was by trying to burn the Dime that she was able to briefly escape and raise Hunter, who probably would’ve been, (and definitely would’ve been, if you follow the Hunter and Son are twins theory), taken from her otherwise. But even when she fails to destroy her old life and connection to sin, she still chooses to keep Hunter away from corruption and raise him in a world of safety and innocence, because of her absolute and selfless love for him. This love for/from Ms Terri is what ultimately became the core of Hunter’s character, his deepest value, and his strongest desire.

These flames, which do away with the evil that brought so much suffering to so many people, don’t just finish Ms Terri’s business, they venerate everything that she stood for. Further, it expresses his vengeance for Ms Leading, as he loves Ms Leading, desires her memory honoured, and the one who harmed her destroyed. These are sentiments of deep positivity and love that fundamentally underlie the destruction, and in all are the meaning of Hunter’s character, distilled into this one moment.

>(And you will witness what the fire can undo)
Hunter means to destroy TP&P so thoroughly that he will never have any influence again and never be able to harm others again. He wants to make all of TP&P’s deeds and accomplishments up to this point meaningless. That includes his reopening of the Dime and his subversion of Hunter.

While literally undoing the accomplishments of TP&P by taking away his possessions and power, it also represents the exoneration of Hunter, and his complete absolution for the sins he has committed to now. We saw Hunter make dumber and dumber decisions and grow more and more corrupt, away from his core values, as the acts went on — but this action is a complete disavowal of those sins and of those decisions, shifting Hunter into a force committed to righteous integrity and truth.

Previous line emphasises ‘the flame’; the love of Ms Terri and Ms Leading (and people suffering from TP&P’s wiles in general like the congregation) that fuels Hunter to this, this line emphasises ‘the fire’; demonstration of Hunter’s actual strength and wrath re: vengeful destruction/aggression, which TP&P underestimated.

>Far from the ash, I will be born again / Where every debt is repaid / Nothing left to keep me out of paradise / As portraits of the past fade away
Love this!

Hunter intends to shed his ‘Son’ persona and ‘Mayor’ role and adopt a new life far from the City, (probably looking to go back to the Lake with his family), having left no loose ends and resolved his affairs here with the swift and absolute destruction of the evils that entangled him. It is a call for absolution that allows Hunter to cast away his sins and pursue virtue. Again, it follows Hunter’s typical life pattern of killing his present self to pursue a new course, but the new course this time would be one properly fuelled with a clear vision, clear conscience, and knowledge that the force behind him is finally positive. Riding his own infant wave.

Metaphorically, it’s also alluding to how Hunter will die, but how his son exists to carry the torch against evil and this time completely destroy it, so Hunter has fulfilled everything he could or needs to. Probably hinting at some Act VI stuff.

‘Portraits of the past fade away’ -> Love this. Get the image of this referring to the Dime’s destruction (the entire plotline that arises from Ms Terri, into Ms Leading, so this deep fundamental stuff for Hunter, but presents these open and boundless prospects for the future now that this absolute tumour is gone). Also guessing that Hunter’s memory and deeds will slowly be forgotten as his son comes into prominence.

>The id dots the i’s of antiquity / While the ego, of late, has held sway
Super brainy fancy phrasing. Really straightforward though once you look at it

‘The id dots the I’s of antiquity’ -> Hunter was egregiously impulsive and reactive from Acts I-IV; it’s just kinda his nature. Singling out his flaw of being horrible at thinking before kneejerking into whatever seems like an immediate good idea or solution.

‘While the ego, of late, has held sway’ -> But now during Act V he’s become more composed and in control of himself, with a sense of forethought and consequence driving his actions. Underlines how this burning of the Dime is not just Hunter stupidly kneejerking again, or that he’s taking a reflexive action without having considered the implications of it, he is extremely aware of what this action represents and what its consequences would be.

>Too foolish to stray past the line, but too weary to stay
‘The line’ = Resisting TP&P.

Hunter’s ‘id’ or basic dumdum comfort desires animal senses couldn’t impel him to take this action. It’s too chaotic and dangerous and scary and carries too much escalation to be his kneejerk response to getting out of this situation; if he was running on id, he probably would run away again (hence foolish).

But he’s not running on id, he’s running on his more developed faculty of ego, hence why weariness is able to predominate over those stupid basic gut desires. He is so absolutely done with TP&P’s antics that it’s more important to wipe him out than play around with him anymore.

>Far too long have I waited to witness the balances bend (The balances bend) / In the favor of wrongs being remedied, wickedness coming to an end
Hunter has waited, and hoped, for good to naturally triumph against evil. He senses that it ultimately would but recognises now that his approach towards that was too passive; he’s done with just waiting and he’s glad that he stopped. Now he can actually see good as it wins.

Love the inflection on ‘wickedness coming to an end’. Get wrecked TP&P!

>Chorus Repetition
Stronger this time! He’s into it!

GO HUNTER!! GET THAT GOOD END! YOU’RE KILLING IT!

>Far beyond the act, I will be whole again / A phoenix out of the flame / I’m burying that menace in a memory / A funeral held in my name
Really strong and interesting lines. Basically carry the sentiment of the previous verse, of Hunter’s glorious and fiery rebirth into his exalted true self, but feel like they’re alluding to Act VI/meta stuff potentially.

‘Far beyond the act’ -> The act of pretending to be the Son, ie Hunter’s true self will shine and thrive now that he’s doing away with that persona, but the emphasis on ‘act’ draws automatic attention to act in the sense of the Acts. I have no idea what that read could be implying outside of vague potential ‘Act VI’ stuff or character-creator stuff akin to the Oracles or Blood of the Rose where Casey’s voice for Hunter is being rewarded for sticking through with this whole thing for so long (again can’t really speculate on that without getting presumptuous).

‘I’m burying that menace in a memory’ -> That menace = TP&P. He will no longer have any active relevance or influence on the world.

‘A funeral held in my name’ -> Probably not for TP&P, but for the end of all the suffering he has caused. A funeral for Ms Terri, Ms Leading, other Dime victims, etcetc but also Hunter himself that paradoxically also marks the point of his biggest rebirth. ‘That entire chapter of events is over’ basically, with Hunter alone being able to move forward.

>The ritual pyre’s sending smoke to the sky / As the building continues to burn / The wrath in the ruin, the pain in the grave / As the lies are retired to the urn
The Dime is almost totally burned down now, and certainly burned beyond repair. Hunter considers the sight and what it means.

‘The ritual pyre’ -> Hunter set this fire in large part to honour Ms Leading. Like, among all the other symbolic gestures of it, this was one of the more proximal, immediate, and important ones. It’s revenge for her death and veneration of her memory, as her body is literally inside the building to let the flames cremate her.

Which gives me like one of the biggest questions I have… are the Church and Dime separate buildings? Because even if they’re linked to each other, or in close proximity, or one operates out of the back of the other, if the Dime can get renovated or have doors that you can just walk up to (Bitter Suite I), it implies there’s a street entrance and there’s not just hookers streaming in and out of the Church to go pick up callers all the time. Right? The descriptions we’ve got of it from City Escape and Smiling Swine also have that implication of it being a literal whorehouse and not just upstairs in the Church or something. (A 3+ story church with windows you can jump out of… eh?)

So if they’re not, which building is Ms Leading’s body in? The Church or the Dime? Did Hunter put her body there specifically for burning, ie did he transport it, or was it already there and TP&P murdered her either at the Church or the Dime? If the Dime is the building Hunter burned first, it implies that’s where her body is now, because…

(’As the lies are retired to the urn’ twigs at me too though, as I’d think the Church would be the locus of TP&P’s lies more than the Dime, so the line would be pointing to the Church burning also, but…) (Lyric video on The Revival does strongly suggest to the Dime operating out of a building connected to the Church through a back-entrance/’The puzzling facade steers pure from the divine’).

>But we can’t keep the embers from catching
…the flames are spreading now to the other building. In this read, that would be the Church.

The burning of the Church escalates the Dime’s arson into a matter of public concern. The conflict is growing beyond Hunter’s first approximations, but he’s been resolved the whole time for this to get messy. Basically, the consequences of the Church’s burning moreso than the Dime’s forces the underbelly of what’s going on in the City to come to light.

>The truth from destroying us all
In antagonising TP&P and hinting the connection between his dual identities, Hunter knows he will also be revealed as an identity thief and his public persona will be shattered.

>Do I die as the martyr or miscreant? I’ll make the call
Hunter feels he must divulge the truth so as to explain why he conducted the Church/Dime burning, and why it was a justified thing. A ‘right side of history’ kind of deal, he knows public opinion here can easily take TP&P’s side and condemn him, because on the face of it he did burn the Church down for no discernible reason, but if he explains that actually he had a lot of excellent reasons and just gutted one of the City’s biggest problems, it makes his painful position as fake-mayor more empathiseable and tragic, though he could still stand to get some kind of penalty for y’know arson.

Foreshadowing that this isn’t just a metaphorical ‘death’ this time; Hunter will literally die and come to be remembered as one of these things. (Might be Act VI stuff).

>3:30 – 4:08 Instrumental
No clue but sounds important. Might include Hunter leaving the scene of the arson?

>Chorus Repetitions
Same as before, so confident; Hunter, knowing he has done the right thing and has the force of good on his side, feels he will be able to explain himself and pursue a brighter future now that the lies and the sin of the past are done away with.

>4:49 – 4:59 Instrumental
Neat; Unsure

>4:50 – 5:21 Ambiance
We have the crackling of the Church burning down and an angry mob forming outside it, belligerent and outraged that someone has burned down the Church!

The Flame (Is Gone) | Act V | The March

The Flame (Is Gone)

The Flame (Is Gone)
I see you trembling like the Earth is falling from your feet
Like you’ve never felt the ground before
An indication that you’re over your head again
That you don’t know how to settle the score

I would be lying if I told you that I didn’t know
The way that you could fix it all
If you’re stacking your problems like a pile of bricks
You’ve gotta knock down the wall

Before someone, like you, breaks you and puts you in the ground

Do the heavens ever spare the crop when the winter falls?
Could we really hide if the reaper calls?
And so it goes, the lamb will be lead to the loam
And you will return

I see a hesitating grimace held above your chin
Like you haven’t thought of this before
And though the sentiment keeps you from letting go
You know it’s irresistible
To hear those voices hush, you must be cold
In times when peace of mind is bought and sold

Cause someone, like you, would break you and put you in the ground

Do the heavens ever spare the crop when the Winter falls?
Could we really hide if the reaper calls?
And so it goes, the lamb will be lead to the loam
And you won’t return

Don’t you want to see him fall apart
So you can pick the pieces up and put him back together?
Finally building up the perfect pawn
Another shadow lost in the dark, another shadow lost in the dark

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Having failed to manipulate Hunter, Mr. Usher focuses on TP&P instead. Knowing that TP&P is growing anxious about Hunter’s increasing confidence, Mr. Usher encourages TP&P to kill Ms Leading and make it look like an accident, so as to completely break and demoralise Hunter. Mr. Usher knows this killing will only inflame Hunter into vengeful reprisal, but his argument that Hunter will murder TP&P otherwise successfully scares TP&P, who kills Ms Leading.

What’s in a name?
‘The Flame (Is Gone)’ — iiiiit’s the whammy! The sequence from this song to A Beginning is what Hunter’s story has all been building up to, foreshadowed way back in Act II with The Blood of the Rose and in the acts’ very first song with Battesimo Del Fuoco. The plot threads, and ideas, that were laid with Hunter’s birth and Ms Terri’s failed burning of The Dime are finally being resolved.

So, going back to my read on Battesimo Del Fuoco, the central idea of the Flame is gone / Fire remains motif is that the ‘flame’ is a loving, nurturing, and creative force that can temporarily sever the link to corruption, but that, in itself, cannot destroy evil. However, what the flame nurtures is the ‘fire’, which is a destructive, vengeful, and escalating force that operates by love of the flame. Unlike the flame, the fire does have the power to uncompromisingly destroy evil. When the flame is gone, but the fire remains, it says that the impetus, or initial driver that resists evil can be killed, but those who were influenced by that driver will remain to take manyfold vengeance and destroy the evil.

The Flame (Is Gone) is used for this song, as this is the destruction of the impetus for the resistance of evil/the channel that severs the link to evil, or the flame, who is now represented by Ms Leading. It’s Ms Leading’s presence (as in Melpomene) more than anything else that draws Hunter out of the darkness of Cascade and lets him start rebuilding his confidence, and indeed begin to stabilise himself with a sense of purpose and personhood again. Of course, the Apparition is also contributing to that, but Ms Leading is the confirmation that the things he experiences while high actually do still apply to him in real life — he still adores Ms Leading, his core still operates on love, the things he has always valued and that mean something important to him truly have remained consistent.

In shorter terms, ‘Ms Leading Dies’, which will kick Hunter into action.

Whose viewpoint?
TP&P, being talked to by Mr. Usher.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:30 Instrumental
Man! Love this so much.

So, the scene here is that Mr. Usher and TP&P are having a conversation. I’m unsure where exactly (the Church? Some other meeting place?) but they sound to be alone. Dark and precarious, you can feel Mr. Usher stalking around TP&P like a shark circling a lost swimmer, letting TP&P get more and more anxious and sink deeper and deeper into his seat before coming in to slaughter him.

Because that is fundamentally what’s happening here — Mr. Usher is seeking to manipulate TP&P into doing something rash, that will kill him, while conveniently also taking out Hunter. Then, Mr. Usher will be free to fill the City’s power vacuum and put into action whatever plans he has (the industrialisation thing?). He doesn’t necessarily need to kill them both to achieve his ends, but as established, he’s a sadist, so having them kill each other is just more fun for him while also resolving things smoothly.

Guitar reminds me of something but can’t put my finger on what. Really emo though lol.

>I see you trembling like the Earth is falling from your feet / Like you’ve never felt the ground before
This is Mr. Usher speaking. Not a duet anymore, so there’s no need for distinct voices to differentiate speakers singing over each other, so no more Gavin as Mr. Usher.

Mr. Usher observes that TP&P is losing control. Specifically, over Hunter, but the idea of losing control over Hunter feeds into TP&P’s fundamental fear of being unmasked or contested, as Hunter is one of the very few who is in a position and would have a desire to seriously hurt TP&P if he stops caring about the blackmail. And as we’ve heard from Melpomene to Gloria, Hunter is indeed starting not to care about the blackmail. He’s getting stronger, more confident, more willing to manoeuvre in devious and ruthless ways. TP&P hates that and is freaking out. (We could already hear him wanting to batter Hunter down by telling that gambler story in TMCOH, but Hunter’s only grown more confident since then, so he also knows just demoralising him isn’t working anymore).

We can hear in Mr. Usher’s smooth intonation how he’s aggravating these anxieties further. He’s remaining extremely matter-of-fact, extremely calm, remarking like TP&P’s unease is the most obvious thing in the world and he’s not fooling anyone, his dismissive composure in itself contrasting and exacerbating the discomfort inside TP&P. Mr. Usher feels very in control of the situation — TP&P does not. He is also being subtly demeaning by implying TP&P ought be stronger than this, as he knows what control feels like, should be able to figure out the solution himself, and that he’s lost it and become so desperate is disgustingly pathetic.

‘But it wasn’t long before I felt nothing below me / And all of the ground I thought I’d gained, taken away’ — TP&P is actually so unnerved by Hunter’s recent actions that he’s experiencing fear and a loss of control near to the same level as Hunter in Ouroboros. Crazy, huh. Probably also reflecting how the power dynamic of Ouroboros feels to be flipping — TP&P feeling himself at Hunter’s mercy, and everything he’s built on the precipice of crumbling.

>An indication that you’re over your head again / That you don’t know how to settle the score
Love the intonation of ‘over your head again’, like Mr. Usher is rolling his eyes while reminiscing on a silly old escapade they’ve had and again lowkey insulting TP&P. And on that point — Mr. Usher and TP&P must have some kind of history and already know each other somehow, probably as collaborators or allies, as Mr. Usher is aware of the scummy side of TP&P.

What this also means is that TP&P has gotten himself into serious trouble before, and Mr. Usher was there probably to help him out of it. I mean, by whatever definition of ‘help’, but, ‘help’. This helps explain why Mr. Usher is so familiar with TP&P and able to read him so well, and why TP&P would confide his worries to Mr. Usher and trust his word in this desperate moment. It worked out before. (And there’s nobody else).

Hearkens If All Goes Well: ‘I’ll give them a kick when I learn to lead / (You’re getting over your head once again)’ — Suggesting TP&P’s approach towards and treatment of Hunter has been as rash and reckless as Hunter’s single-minded, aggressive approach to getting that Mayor position; that TP&P ought to have been more careful and respectful of Hunter from the outset, maybe not tried to antagonise him as aggressively as he did.

Hearkens Cauda: ‘With ideals, we’re idle as they lust for more / Whoa, if we settle the score’ — frames the conflict between Hunter and TP&P to be on the level of a war, with the correct way to ‘settle the score’ being death. Mr. Usher is subtly demeaning TP&P for having entered this power conflict with Hunter without being resolved to kill him if he became a problem, because killing people when they become problems is Mr. Usher’s bread and butter, hence a very obvious solution to him, and the level of escalation Mr. Usher is implying must be taken before Hunter starts being obedient.

>I would be lying if I told you that I didn’t know / The way that you could fix it all
Now that Mr. Usher has established that TP&P has a problem, that is, Hunter stands to ruin everything TP&P has, and TP&P doesn’t know how to deal with it, he does the classic manipulator technique of presenting a path out of that problem.

Mr. Usher is lying. He knows full well that the solution he’s going to present will not fix things for TP&P, only make them worse, but TP&P is desperate enough to listen (even though he himself is a manipulator who is experienced in doing exactly this pattern of persuasion himself! He’s too off-balance to see how disastrous this could be, or Mr. Usher’s calmer technique compared to his own theatrical conning is working to not set off massive alarm bells).

I actually believe Mr. Usher when he says he knows how TP&P could get Hunter back in check, but that he just refrains from telling this to TP&P and gives him bad advice instead.

>If you’re stacking your problems like a pile of bricks / You’ve gotta knock down the wall
‘You have to kill the obstacle, undo the whole thing at its foundation.’

Hearkens Melpomene with the reference to walls; while Hunter’s emotional walls are coming down as he reignites his relationship with Ms Leading, you can also view that as him building up an emotional wall that fortifies him against TP&P’s cruel shaming and moral terrorism. Probably just meant to prime you to think about Melpomene though.

>Before someone, like you, breaks you and puts you in the ground
Love this! So dark, so nasty! It’s like a horrible wormy corpse rising up behind TP&P and clutching his shoulders, whispering in his ear just exactly where he’s going to wind up if he doesn’t do something.

Mr. Usher twists the knife deep into TP&P. Playing on TP&P’s conception of himself and Hunter being alike, which we saw in TMCOH, Mr. Usher implies that Hunter is an immoral, hateful, and ambitious enough person to straight-out murder TP&P.

And truthfully — there is basis for why TP&P should fear that. He has seen how aggressive Hunter can be during his Mayoral run, he knows that Hunter himself is actually quite competent as a manipulator when he chooses to be, he knows that Hunter has served as a soldier so he’s experienced with military tactics and weapons, he knows how much Hunter hates him and wants to kill him from Ouroboros, feels that Hunter is fundamentally destined to oppose him, and though he may not specifically know this, Hunter actually has murdered people he hated for his own benefit before. It’s not totally unreasonable to say he could kill TP&P, but Mr. Usher is driving that terror further by insisting that he will kill TP&P.

This intimidation works. It is imperative that TP&P assert his power over Hunter before Hunter gets confident enough to bring knives to Church. This first iteration might not specifically be the threat of Hunter literally murdering TP&P, but more like rising up to be strong enough to defeat TP&P so hard he can never recover and dies powerless, with the second iteration absolutely being Hunter literally murdering TP&P.

>Do the heavens ever spare the crop when the winter falls? / Could we really hide if the reaper calls? / And so it goes, the lamb will be lead to the loam
Love the singing on this! Mr. Usher reveals his solution in straight terms: TP&P should kill Ms Leading and make it look like an accident.

First two lines are rhetorical questions that are basically saying, ‘everyone has to die sometime and misfortunes happen, inevitably’, this is Mr. Usher advising TP&P to make it seem like the death was just an accident or an unfortunate happening that nobody could’ve done anything about.

‘Lamb will be lead to the loam’ -> really nice phrasing, lamb denoting Ms Leading for her being an innocent party in this and a ‘sacrificial lamb’, led to the loam denoting buried six feet under, dead.

>And you will return
Mr. Usher assures that killing Ms Leading will work to restore TP&P’s influence over Hunter.

>2:04 – 2:08 Instrumental
Never noticed this little transition before lol. It’s like Mr. Usher is basking in his brilliant idea then notices that TP&P isn’t totally on board so, twigged, he immediately goes back to putting on pressure.

>I see a hesitating grimace held above your chin
TP&P is hesitant towards the idea of murdering Ms Leading. Actually he seems deeply uncomfortable with it. Again, TP&P may be a manipulator and a con artist, but he’s not a killer. Such an idea is not familiar ground for him and does feel to be going too far.

Wonder what aspect of this proposed murder exactly is bothering him? The aspect that it’s unfamiliar, that Ms Leading is actually totally innocent and isn’t contesting him/getting into this because she has some desire TP&P can twist, that it elevates his misdeeds into something more serious and indefensibly punishable than tricking people into bad deals? Perhaps even a gut feeling of caution that Hunter wouldn’t respond to this how Mr. Usher says?

>Like you haven’t thought of this before
Mr. Usher criticises TP&P for his awkwardness towards the idea, because the thought has definitely crossed TP&P’s mind to escalate to murder, though he hasn’t acted upon it.

>And though the sentiment keeps you from letting go / You know it’s irresistible
Interesting. What sentiment is Mr. Usher referring to that is preventing TP&P from ‘indulging’ in this perfect plan of murder?

Fear, anxiety, but maybe…

…Guilt?

>To hear those voices hush, you must be cold / In times when peace of mind is bought and sold
Crazy interesting intonations here too.

‘To hear those voices hush, you must be cold’ -> Reprising ‘sacrifice another life’ from Where The Road Parts on ‘cold’. Wow, no idea what that’s pointing to exactly but it’s fascinating. If it’s evoking the ‘sacrifice another life’ aspect it could be Mr. Usher nudging TP&P to shed his present self-concept as a guy who doesn’t commit totally cold-blooded murders into a guy that does? Maybe even some kind of vaguely fond or familiar sentiment towards Ms Leading where he’s actually glad she got this good relationship and kinda doesn’t want to ruin it? Probably not that, but. Yeah it probably is moreso for the idea of Mr. Usher urging, like an empathetic mentor, that TP&P needs to become more heartless, utilitarian, and unaffected by emotion like him — but the flipside of that, which implies TP&P does have sentimental attachments to certain things or would feel guilt about offing Ms Leading, is like, huh.

I mean, for how nasty TP&P is, you can see the method in him where he’ll blame his victims for being sinful or accepting sin upon themselves, and he usually has a lot of fun judging people while doing it, but he’ll also involve himself with them. He likes the atmosphere of the Dime, he bothers to bully Hunter and let him attend the Dime’s reopening, he probably enjoyed being part of that Mayoral run. All the debauchery, exploitation, scamming, corruption and so on has the ancillary effect of letting TP&P socialise while being open about how awful he is (’it’s so good to be so bad’). It’s like… I wouldn’t quite call him lonely, since he does purposefully position himself at a distance from others, (so that he can grind them into the dirt), but my impression is that he’s an extrovert, and does relate to others in this really backwards and messed up way. Knowing himself as a murderer might stain his self-image just enough that he can’t play with people anymore, only scare them off.

I guess the fundamental difference is that TP&P seems full of this genuine glee, even if that’s a hedonistic glee that comes from deceiving and manipulating others, while Mr. Usher is a no-nonsense reptile. He’s telling TP&P to shelve his toys and commit to a colder, joyless, purely mercenary lifestyle of coolly eliminating threats and securing profits. The soullessness of this prospect appears to intimidate even TP&P with an ego death, or at least mark the end of him actually enjoying the place he has in the City.

But he is this desperate, and he is looking up to Mr. Usher, so he ultimately does hear something in the rhetoric. (Mr. Usher is being pretty reassuring about it too).

Then again I could be reading this way too sympathetically and ‘the sentiment’ isn’t guilt so much as fear, and ‘those voices’ aren’t the last shreds of what you might call his conscience so much as his self-preservation and paranoia about being unmasked, (ie, he’s terrified envisioning being caught or punished for murder, way more than for anything else he’s done), but.

‘In times when peace of mind is bought and sold’ -> Mr. Usher invokes TP&P’s own dealings as proof that the world is a mercenary place, devoid of real sentiment.

>Cause someone, like you, would break you and put you in the ground
Escalates the previous sentiment that Hunter would kill TP&P by extending it to an axiom; Hunter is going to kill TP&P because it’s what weak scum like him deserves, and Hunter will probably enjoy it. Playing on TP&P’s own worldview by dredging up these anxieties that TP&P is already thinking — if he were in Hunter’s position, he would be slavering to kill TP&P.

>And you won’t return
Under his breath, Mr. Usher voices his real intentions, though not to TP&P. Mr. Usher knows killing Ms Leading will provoke Hunter into proper violence toward TP&P, and lead to escalating reprisals upon reprisals until they destroy each other, which is perfect for him, since Mr. Usher wants both of them gone.

>Don’t you want to see him fall apart / So you can pick the pieces up and put him back together? / Finally building up the perfect pawn
Mr. Usher finally sells TP&P on the idea of killing Ms Leading by making the argument that, by taking away the last thing Hunter has that gives him happiness, strength, or pleasure, it will finally break his spirit for good and he will have no foundations left and nothing to cling to except for TP&P. The way I phrased that implies TP&P would substitute himself in a Ms Leading-ish position (LOOLLLllllllllllll) but I think it’s more like, Hunter would be so totally broken that TP&P could do whatever he wanted with him or demand whatever he wanted of him and train him to enjoy that as if training a dog, like he wouldn’t know what else to do.

‘I’m the only one left who knows the real you’ would be pretty strong leverage, theoretically, on Hunter. You know?

>Another shadow lost in the dark, another shadow lost in the dark
Amazing lines. Love these, how it’s sung, everything. Evokes the image of this countless mass of people trapped in this dark void of misery, confusion, corruption, deception (take me to the river!), and for Hunter personally Cascade, which is where TP&P wants him to be again (or even lower), with this thick confusion of one’s self and utter hopelessness on how to escape it; ego destruction, enslavement and dependence beyond any light or salvation (also makes false lights like TP&P effective). Also gives TP&P a frend 🙂

>4:34 – 4:49 Red Hands Intro Drums
I think that’s what these are? Arrangement of a meeting between Ms Leading and TP&P. (At Ms Leading’s place?)

>4:50 – 5:40 Sad Melpomene
TP&P kills Ms Leading. Envision this one as like, Ms Leading at the meeting spot and waiting, or hearing a knock upon her door, uncertain and unaware of what’s going to happen, and at the end, TP&P’s silhouette appearing menacingly in her doorway, coming in to kill her — and fade to black.

Gloria | Act V | The Fire (Remains)

Gloria

Music Video (Includes intro/credit segments)

Gloria
Open-eyed oversight led me to here
Looking for an avenue to simply appear
One too many steps into the wrong direction
Leading me to throw up my hands

Soon, I’ll know exactly where I stand
Found in a flood of incendiary plans
Oh, I’ve been falling fast into the rhythms without rhymes
I won’t be giving up again
Yeah, I’ll be getting up again

I heard a voice; it said: “e dolore magna gloria
Bring me your heart, and then you will awake
In a state of surprising euphoria
But don’t tell anyone”

I was in love with inner ambiguity
Then I learned to turn emotions into weaponry
One too many words said with the wrong inflection
Leading me to throw up my hands

Am I giving up the ghost again;
Surrendering, so that my evils will amend?
Oh, I’ve been falling fast into the space between the lines
But I’ll be getting up again
I won’t be giving up again

I heard a voice; it said: “e dolore magna gloria
Bring me your heart, and then you will awake
In a state of surprising euphoria
But don’t tell anyone what you saw here”

Now, I’ve never heard that sound before
I am nothing but an infant wave stuck in a savage ocean

Soon, I’ll know exactly where I stand
Found in a flood of incendiary plans
Oh, I’ve been falling fast into the space between the lines
But I’ll be getting up again
I won’t be giving up again

I heard a voice; it said: “e dolore magna gloria
Bring me your heart, and then you will awake
In a state of surprising euphoria
Don’t fear the words that I say”

I heard a voice; it said “e dolore magna gloria
Bring me your heart, and then you will awake
In a state of surprising euphoria
But don’t tell anyone what you saw here”

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
More confident in himself and primed to make an imminent move against TP&P, Hunter returns to the opium den and has another encounter with the Apparition. The Apparition encourages Hunter’s present course, and assures him he will be venerated by shedding the Son persona and allowing his true heart to predominate again.

What’s in a name?
‘Gloria’ — Glory. Hunter will be glorified by shedding the Son persona and returning to his own heart. Also contributes to the framing of the Apparition as a divine or angelic force that can and will defeat evil.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:16 Instrumental
God! This song is great. Gloria marks the turning point for Hunter, a shift out of darkness and confusion into certainty and light, a release and reversal of all the pressure that has been building since Red Hands and especially the pressure that has been building since The Moon. Hunter is finally in touch with himself again and coming to his state of his greatest power, being both true to himself and having the lessons of everything he has experienced revealing themselves to him in a positive fashion.

Visually, Gloria has a sick music video that explains everything better than I could. Certainly check it out here.

Musically, this sounds like it’s echoing the beginning of 1878 but I can’t put my finger on how exactly. That it would be makes sense though — this song is about Hunter returning to his roots, and bringing in the brightness and purity of 1878 hammers that in while also expressing incredible power and hope for Hunter personally.

>Open-eyed oversight led me to here
Man!! Hunter’s intonation, the lyrics, the bass… great stuff.

First of all: setting. Hunter’s in the opium den again, but as we can hear, his mindset is a lot more purposeful and positive. He’s once again thinking back on the chain of events that got him into his present situation — as we’ve heard before, he’s blamed his immaturity, his need for comfort, his arrogance, his unchecked ambition, so on, always these terrible personal flaws that he runs from and tortures himself over. But this time he’s hit on the true root cause that really, actually got him into all of this mess.

It was his innocence.

Hunter did not know any better of how bad the world could be when he left the Lake because he was innocent. He did not understand Ms Leading’s profession because he was innocent. He could not know how badly the war would hurt him because he was innocent. And he did not know to rebuff the Priest’s manipulation, again, because he was innocent. Had Hunter been more savvy to how rotten or wicked the world was from the outset, if he’d been exposed to corruption and knew what it looked like, he likely would’ve been able to preempt how things would go wrong and avoid these mistakes. ‘Euphorically floating on wax wings, where is the sun?’.

At the same time, it’s not like his innocence was itself a flaw. It’s one of the most, if not the most, positive aspects of Hunter — so him identifying this as the factor that set everything into motion is him finally accepting how his life wound up like this without necessarily grinding himself into the dirt as an inherently foolish, bad, or doomed person, though he obviously accepts he messed up.

>Looking for an avenue to simply appear
This is the other half of how Hunter wound up in his situation: he was extremely reactive and impulsive in how he approached problems, and in how he generally navigated his life after losing Ms Terri. He would drift along then latch onto whatever looked like it could be a solution, or a serviceable life course, without really knowing where he was going or thinking about where he wanted to go (’Sturdied up boulders and loosened the river / to fork where it finds the best / passage’), to try and get out of the darkness.

>One too many steps into the wrong direction / Leading me to throw up my hands
And at some point, at many points really, Hunter just gave up and let the downward momentum of his pain and missteps take him, rather than fight against them and assert himself more positively as his heart truly would like to. The breaking point probably was This Beautiful Life, though, where Hunter did give up on himself as being able to have a happy life at all.

>Soon, I’ll know exactly where I stand / Found in a flood of incendiary plans
That all said, any questions has about the type of person he is or how true to himself he can be will be answered, as he is now actively conspiring to burn down the Dime. He is finally resolved to contest TP&P.

Nice juxtaposition on ‘flood’ of ‘incendiary’, too. Incendiary evokes both the literal aspect of the arson, the symbolic aspect of the flame/fire dynamic, and the emotional aspect of his plans being outrageous and liable to offend.

>Oh, I’ve been falling fast into the rhythms without rhymes
Alluding to how Hunter has a consistent pattern of experiencing hardship -> running from it, killing and remaking himself in the process -> experiencing worse hardship -> running from it, killing and remaking himself in the process, etc etc, without thinking through where he’s actually winding up. Like the purpose of him running from hardship is that he will not have to experience more hardship, but because he doesn’t approach things with a level head, he always gets himself in a worse situation, which makes it insensible (’without rhyme’).

>I won’t be giving up again / Yeah, I’ll be getting up again
But this time, Hunter is resolved to stand up and do something about the bad situation he’s gotten into. Love this line! YES HUNTER! GO HUNTER! He sounds so strong and confident!

>I heard a voice; it said:
This intonation is NUTS hello? My lord. So soft it’s like a prayer, but so quietly strong and calming and transcendent.

Hunter shoots up on the opium again. The voice he hears is that of the Apparition of his younger self speaking to him.

>“e dolore magna gloria / Bring me your heart, and then you will awake / In a state of surprising euphoria
Superb!

E dolore magna gloria = From pain comes great glory.

The Apparition tells Hunter to shed the Son persona, and all the fear and anxieties he has about perhaps doing so, so that Hunter’s true self, the version of him that was cared for and doted upon and nurtured by Ms Terri’s selfless love, can predominate and take decisive action against evil for himself and his loved ones. There are obvious reasons why Hunter may fear doing this, and may fear revealing and acting by his true identity, but the Apparition is assuring him that doing so will not simply be liberating, but will venerate Hunter with unmatched, unquestioned strength, happiness, power, rightness, truth and glory! The pain he suffered and will suffer is a building block towards his absolute victory and salvation; it was not pointless, it is what gives him the footing to make this decision now.

‘Then you will awake’ -> Alluding to awake as in The Moon / Awake; Hunter will break through the shadows and confusion and be reconnected to his self and to truth.

Massive framing of the Apparition as an angelic force, guiding Hunter towards right and ultimately towards God; the ‘essence’ of God distinct from the false and empty paths to God that TP&P sells.

>But don’t tell anyone”
Hunter must not tell anyone where he’s getting these ideas, since they’re coming from a drug-induced hallucination of his younger self and he’d sound absolutely insane if anyone knew that.

>I was in love with inner ambiguity / Then I learned to turn emotions into weaponry
YESS HUNTER!! GIVE ME THIS ENERGY GET MADDD! MAN! It’s been so long since Hunter has been like this, this is all the way back to stuff you’d hear in The Lake and The River. Feels so good. The boy is back.

‘I was in love with inner ambiguity’ -> ‘When the world beckons your approach, it swallows you whole’; ‘Euphorically floating on wax wings’ — referencing Hunter’s adoration of his own potential upon leaving the Lake. He is saying that he was too attached to the idea of making something grand of himself, and all the thousand great ways his life could perhaps turn out, once he had the agency to choose what his life would be on his own.

‘Then I learned to turn emotions into weaponry’ -> Red Hands, Dear Ms. Leading. Probably other stuff too but those are the main ones here; his rejection of Ms Leading. (’Crimson hands brandish wounds which masquerade’).

>One too many words said with the wrong inflection
SEE I SWEAR I’M NOT CRAZY TO BE FIXATING ON ‘INTONATIONS’ AND ‘INFLECTIONS’ AND ‘OH THIS LINE WAS REPEATED A BIT DIFFERENT’. Hunter was aggressive and angry (with Ms Leading, towards the General’s story, when being goaded into the Mayoral run and towards his old self in general in Act IV) when he should have let himself be honest and vulnerable.

>Leading me to throw up my hands
And with the inflection change (har har!), this is now saying that Hunter got combative and aggressive at junctions and towards people he shouldn’t have; throwing up his hands as if to start punching people, that he got aggressive without thinking. Beyond Ms Leading now, probably references his Mayoral run.

>Am I giving up the ghost again; / Surrendering, so that my evils will amend?
Hunter questions if his plans to combat TP&P ultimately amount to another occurrence of his typical pattern, only this time discarding the Son identity, so as to make up for all the sin he has committed firstly in adopting it, then in propagating it. Questioning if he’s taking the easy way out in a sense, if it’s possible he could fix the wrongs he’s committed while keeping the Son persona. Probably, he feels too guilty to hold onto it while also wanting to do good, but also discarding it is the fundamentally right option for once.

One life for another, sacrifice another life, go take another life, so abandon a life from before, I’m prepared for a burial at sea, my identity was wasted on you — is shedding the Son persona another in a long line of Hunter throwing out one failed life course for something different?

>Oh, I’ve been falling fast into the space between the lines
Hunter’s true identity has been lost in a kind of freefall between all these different iterations of himself he’s committed to over the years.

>But I’ll be getting up again / I won’t be giving up again
But this time, he can say that he is standing up as his true self, not as a Soldier or a Boyfriend or a Mayor but as Hunter, and not getting lost or swept along courses that could sway him from the demands and desires of his true heart. Probably not conscious, but finally on the course to resolving the power Ms Terri gave to him. (Rescinds ’Lost before cause had effect found in Babel’).

>Chorus Repetition
YES GO HUNTER!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!

Music video has this chorus focus on the death of the Son — something to read into there?

>2:20 – 2:28 Instrumental
Love this little buildup. Hunter has a momentary break in the visions of the high to think? It’s like he’s floating on top of water.

>Now, I’ve never heard that sound before
‘That sound’ would perhaps be the sound of his own heart in such a powerful and exalted state; this conception of himself as Hunter before anything else?

>I am nothing but an infant wave stuck in a savage ocean
Bringing back the imagery from Waves — lovely way it’s done too. Wow wait oh no this is phrased way too elegantly for me to explain very well.

So, a wave is a ‘life course’. You can think of all the iterations of himself that Hunter has lived as a ‘wave’. However, the wave that Hunter truly is, the life course that is truest to himself, is not one he has been able to pursue; he is too easily knocked away from it by adverse events and difficulties of life, so he winds up moving by momentum along a different track, until another great wave with greater momentum crashes into that second track and sweeps Hunter along on a third track, etc.

So now it’s like, Hunter is this small, infant wave that is building to become something massive, but all these different life courses are battering into him and choking him down before he can swell — this time though, he finally is beginning to swell and surge before anything else can batter him off his path. His momentum is the one that will overpower other forces this time; his potential wants to be realised.

>2:44 – 3:19 Sick Guitar Solo
Unsure; music video segment for this part is pretty interesting though.

>I heard a voice it said…
Yessss…..

>…”e dolore magna…
Yeesssssssss

>GLORIAAAAAAAA
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

You can hear many voices on the buildup to this one. The depiction of it in the music video is also — Hunter goes from being in this bedroom, then is led by the Apparition to return to the opium den (set limitation?), but this time it’s full of people dancing and having fun including Ms Leading and the General. Hunter seems confused or out of place here. TP&P then shows up, burns into a blast of smoke and fire, and strikes Hunter, who falls into darkness.

Dizzy Dial in the Youtube comments makes an extremely good observation that this may be depicting Hunter’s dilemma as he imminently faces death in A Beginning — where Hunter considers where he will go or what will happen after he kills himself, and is initially scared of there being no afterlife, then comes to wonder if there could be an afterlife and he’ll be reunited with everyone he’s lost.

What these chorus repetitions would be depicting then is the Apparition telling Hunter not only to not fear pain, but not fear death, as even death will venerate Hunter massively. I mean the General is at the party, and that guy is definitely dead, and Ms Leading will be dead soon if she isn’t already. You can also read TP&P being the one that throws Hunter into darkness after showing up at the party as… well, TP&P doing his thing again, aside from the literal element of TP&P’s death shortly predating Hunter’s: Hunter doubting the existence of the afterlife because of charlatans like TP&P, even though his heart points him towards its existence and towards it being a nice place. (Remember that Hunter almost reunited with Ms Terri in Saved, too, though you can also read it as him just being extremely delirious while he dies — I imagine the ambiguity over whether there is an afterlife or not is intentional, but the final tone in A Beginning is extremely hopeful and suggestive of the possibility that Hunter does wind up going to Heaven, or something like it.)

God, I love Gloria.

>Don’t fear the words that I say
More angelic framing; ‘fear not!’, aside from the Apparition’s advice understandably being scary and intimidating to Hunter, but also filling him with this awe and power.

>4:30 – 4:56 Instrumental
Hunter comes down from his high and exits the opium den.

>4:57 – 5:17 Ambiance
Interesting, unsure, what’s that rattling around? Probably scene establishment for The Flame (Is Gone).

Light | Act V | The Flame (Is Gone)

Light

Casey’s Lyric Video (Includes the ending/transition segment of The Haves Have Naught)

Light
Son, your father’s not all good
But still, I love you more than I thought I could
And when the menace in my mind
Finds me, I simply look to your eyes

And boy, someday I hope I do
See the man you will grow into
And when your heart’s in disarray
Know that your father, too, has made mistakes

Son, your father’s lost his head
Still, I mean every word that I’ve said
Though, the truth can truly cut
Here in this confessional, with my blood

And boy, someday I hope I do
See the man you will grow into
And when your heart’s in disarray
Know that your father, too, has made mistakes

I’ve been cruel to the ones who have stayed by my side
And foolish enough to believe in my pride
But vanity never could keep me from caring for you
I’ve strayed too far away from the trees and the lake –
The innocent road that I chose not to take –
But still, I can bring you to bathe in the river;
To wash out the world long before your heart’s withered away

And boy, someday I hope I do
See the man you will grow into
And when your heart’s in disarray
Know that your father, too, has made…
He’s made mistakes

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Sensing that things in the City are becoming more dangerous, and that the conflict between himself and TP&P will soon come to a head, Hunter sends his wife and son to live safely in the peace of the Lake and the River. Though Hunter’s son is a product of his false Son persona, Hunter finds he truly loves him and bids him off with this important message.

What’s in a name?
‘Light’ — Being a song about Hunter’s son, basically expressing the sentiment of children being a font of hope for the future or happiness or ‘the light of my life’, though more intimate than that. Act VI would also be about Hunter’s son, and he breaks the cycle of corruption, so he is also an ‘agent’ or force of light.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>Son, your father’s not all good / But still, I love you more than I thought I could
Man doing this kind of read on this song feels weird, it stands on its own doesn’t it?

First thing to take though, Hunter’s a father. The child is with his wife/the Son’s fiance, not Ms Leading, and though they’ve been married since Act IV and the wife sounded to want kids early on, it’s unclear exactly how old Hunter’s son is. He’s probably not an infant, given that Hunter sees fit to speak to him and tell him all these things before they part, but I can’t imagine he’s older than say the 6-9 range. Total guess though. Young enough to adore his father as superman, old enough to understand concepts like ‘the future’ and being good and so on.

So, Hunter’s talking to his son for what could (and will) be the last time, intending to send him to live at the Lake and the River rather than the City, as the City is becoming precarious. He starts by confessing that he’s not as perfect as he seems, but that he loves his son all the same. Hunter did not think he could be a good father, and given that his son is a product of his empty relationship with the wife, who he has raised under his false Son persona, he was dubious on the idea of whether he’d even be able to love the kid or express any love he did feel appropriately. In the end though, fake persona or not, Hunter can firmly say that he does love and care for his son.

Man. Think about that for a moment — Hunter already had his share of questions about Ms Terri’s identity, but what’s it going to be like for Hunter’s son in the future realising his father was an identity thief for the entire span that he knew him? And then an arsonist and a murderer? Do you think the son even knows Hunter’s actual name, or if he’s always known him under the Son’s name? Hunter’s going to be leaving the kid with a good deal of mysteries himself… less than Ms Terri, though, given this song.

>And when the menace in my mind / Finds me, I simply look to your eyes
Whenever Hunter feels angry, lost, unsure, despairing, those feelings are replaced with hope, love, and happiness, and optimism when he looks to his son. You can hear it in the intonation too; he seriously loves this kid… hence why he’s giving this confession about the type of person he really is, and how he truly feels about him, before they’re separated, as if to answer some of those questions that Hunter knows are going to be in his head later.

>And boy, someday I hope I do / See the man you will grow into
Hunter wants to see his son as a grown man and still be part of his life, though the fact Hunter is saying this suggests he already has a feeling he may not get to see his son grown up. Hunter can tell how things in the City are moving and is prepared for his personal situation to get complicated, that he may get imprisoned, the blackmail may be revealed, he might get killed, etc…

He’s not exactly okay with these possibilities, but does have the growing resolve to face them, knowing his family is safe and he has a son who’ll succeed him.

>And when your heart’s in disarray / Know that your father, too, has made mistakes
Aw, Hunter. Every kid thinks their parents are perfect. It’s important for them to know it’s okay to feel scared or uncertain, and to know their idols have gone through tough times or slipped up too, so such problems or mistakes aren’t undefeatable or necessarily the end of the world.

>Son, your father’s lost his head / Still, I mean every word that I’ve said / Though, the truth can truly cut / Here in this confessional, with my blood
Sounds like Hunter acknowledging that he’s about to commit himself to some risky business, and potentially find himself out of his son’s life, but even though he’s choosing this, he does still care about his son, that every show of love he’s given him was genuine, and isn’t just abandoning him. Also sounds like Hunter acknowledging that his actions and absence are going to hurt his son and leave him with massive questions — something Hunter’s familiar with given his own experience with Ms Terri, so he’s softening the blow by giving these assurances and confirmations for his son to remember when he inevitably does think back on who his dad really was or what his dad really thought.

>I’ve been cruel to the ones who have stayed by my side / And foolish enough to believe in my pride
Hunter zeroing in specifically on some of those ‘mistakes’, in reference to Act II through Act IV

>But vanity never could keep me from caring for you
Hunter’s son is way more important than Hunter’s ego; even though he’s the result of some of Hunter’s worst decisions, Hunter’s naturally inclined to dote on him and care for him without the context of how he came into the world really mattering.

>I’ve strayed too far away from the trees and the lake – / The innocent road that I chose not to take – / But still, I can bring you to bathe in the river; / To wash out the world long before your heart’s withered away
Hunter sends his wife and son to go live at the Lake and the River, where Hunter used to live with Ms Terri. Similar to how Ms Terri wanted to protect Hunter’s innocence, Hunter wants to do the same for his son, and try to give him a happier and more peaceful life with less strife and more opportunity than Hunter’s life wound up having. At the very least, he wants to give his son the option to preserve his innocence and live a life of idyllic peace, rather than his entire life being constrained to the City and the corruption that surrounds it, alongside any personal drama apt to occur revolving around Hunter. Lots of nostalgia for Hunter too, thinking back on this place from his childhood.

Really sweet song, basically Hunter’s goodbye to his child and also his equivalent of Inquiry, where he’s the one in the role Ms Terri formerly had and ultimately makes the same selfless decisions for his child that Ms Terri did. Wouldn’t be surprised if/when Act VI happens, themes from this song wind up getting some follow up/focus, being one of the last instances by which Hunter’s son would know or remember his dad. Wonder if Hunter gives him any physical mementos…?

Hunter’s wife and son exit the City.

The Haves Have Naught | Act V | Gloria

The Haves Have Naught

The Haves Have Naught
-Mr. Usher-
Just look at that shopkeeper, peddling his wares
Shouting his sales pitch, but nobody cares
Don’t you wonder what keeps him there, day after day?
Begging for gold, as his hair turns to gray

Blindly they’re bounding apace
Starving for mercy in a merciless place
Only a fool would make martyrs from heathens
And find them so lively when they’re barely breathing
Just barely breathing

-Hunter-
Just look at that toymaker, grinding his gears
Turning no profit, but he doesn’t care
He keeps smiles on faces, day after day
The children keep sadness and suffering at bay

Blissfully bounding apace
Searching for mercy in a merciless place
Only a monster makes fodder from saints
And finds them so worthless when they’re full of grace
So full of grace

-Mr. Usher-
But what better use of hookers and thieves
Than greasing the wheels of perfect machines
That hum into life a harmony of industry?

-Hunter-
But what is the use of cutting them down
To smother and choke the soul of our town?
I know there is another way

-Both-
But, what is so wrong with giving them purpose?
(Just how could you weed them out?)
(Degrading them without doubt)

A man like yourself could bring worth to worthless
(You’re bleeding them dry)
(They live and die like you and I)

Without the guidance of rulers and tyrants
(And under your guidance; the hands of a tyrant)
These people will just tear themselves apart

-Hunter-
Just look at that charlatan steeped in deceit
A threat to the young, to the old and the meek
Don’t you wonder what made him so vicious, so sick?
So far out of balance, so cruel and so callous?
So married to malice?

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Mr. Usher arrives in the City and meets Hunter, its Mayor, with a proposal. Incorrectly reading Hunter as a more corrupt person than he actually is, Mr. Usher suggests he reemploy the poor, criminal, and dispossessed citizens of the City as drudge workers in a massive industrialisation effort. Again boosting Hunter’s confidence in himself, Hunter rejects the proposal, seeing it as profoundly inhumane and Mr. Usher himself as a monster beyond monsters.

What’s in a name?
‘The Haves Have Naught’ — basically, ‘The Wealthy Upper Crust Have Nothing’ aka ‘The 1% Are Morally Bankrupt’. Alluding to how Mr. Usher proposes that Hunter could become very powerful by exploiting the underclass of the City, but Hunter rejects this proposal as it presents nothing he values or wants.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter, with Mr. Usher as a duet.

🌲🌲🌲

>Just look at that shopkeeper, peddling his wares / Shouting his sales pitch, but nobody cares / Don’t you wonder what keeps him there, day after day? / Begging for gold, as his hair turns to gray
Woah hello! Right in to this one. We’re continuing immediately from the ending instrumental passage of Mr. Usher (On His Way To Town), with Hunter and Mr. Usher talking as they go about the town. They have probably been hanging out for a while now, with that being represented by the ending passage of Mr. Usher (OHWTT). But what are they talking about?

Well, Mr. Usher, as we’ll see, has probably been proposing to Hunter ways to stimulate and innovate business in the City. Hunter has been wary about this proposal so far, and we’re coming in to this song as the conversation reaches its most crucial point, where Mr. Usher presents his argument for why Hunter should accept, and Hunter giving his argument as to why Mr. Usher’s proposal is wrong. Despite the tense underbelly, my impression is that their meeting and talk up to this point has been basically cordial, in the carefully diplomatic way of politicians.

And also, hey new voice and it’s not just me going ‘oh that’s so-and-so’s intonation, trust me’, it’s a different dude singing! Yeah, this song is a duet so Casey wanted the speakers to be distinct, more distinct than he could get by doing the intonation thing. Say hi to Gavin Castleton, who’ll be singing as the voice of Mr. Usher through this song, while Casey sings (like usual) as the voice of Hunter.

SO, Mr. Usher and Hunter are on a street, and Mr. Usher points out a shopkeeper to Hunter. The shopkeeper is old and has been in business for a long time, but he’s plainly not making much money. He’s poor, barely scraping by, and not profiting from his business. Mr. Usher cynically suggests that there’s no worth in the shopkeeper continuing in this business, and that the shopkeeper is not just stupid, but scum on society’s boot for clinging to this useless enterprise.

Pretty harsh stuff. Why is Mr. Usher saying this to Hunter? Well, because he seems to want Hunter to close the man’s business down. Why would he want that? Probably two ways to take it: we’ll see that Mr. Usher is trying to sell Hunter to the idea of introducing more industry to the City, so he either wants Hunter to seize the man’s business so it can be replaced with some kind of industrial factory-type thing, or he wants Hunter to reemploy the man as a worker in such a factory. Probably both.

Why would Mr. Usher want Hunter to industrialise the City? Again, two main ways to take it. Mr. Usher either thinks he can profit from the City’s industrialisation, or he thinks it will work to inflame hostilities between TP&P and Hunter. The answer here is probably both, again. Part of the demographic Mr. Usher wants Hunter to target is ‘hookers and thieves’ — Dime workers. He is telling Hunter to instate a framework by which he can dismantle the Dime, by reemploying its workers in something ostensibly productive and useful, which will be monumentally difficult for TP&P to counteract even with his blackmail on Hunter. Why? Because by spearheading this push into industrialisation, Hunter’ll be raking in boatloads of money and boosting the City’s GDP to the stratosphere. With that kind of money and that kind of influence, and with a good public face still, he would actually be in a stronger position than TP&P. That is the nature of what Mr. Usher is trying to sell to Hunter.

Of course, I doubt Mr. Usher actually wants Hunter to stay in the picture. Hard to figure without Act VI, but I think Mr. Usher both wants to industrialise the City and remove Hunter/TP&P as players here, so he’s principally looking to have Hunter and TP&P destroy each other first, to establish a power vacuum that Mr. Usher can fill, then swoop in and do whatever he wants.

Anyway, getting a bit ahead of myself here. For now Mr. Usher is just arguing that poor people are worthless and they/their businesses would be better utilised as factory drudges/factories, not zeroing in on things that could necessarily hurt TP&P.

>Blindly they’re bounding apace / Starving for mercy in a merciless place
Lovely line. Mr. Usher’s contempt for not just poor people, but humanity in general is immense. He sees the world through a merciless, cruel, and utilitarian lens, where the weak are meat for the strong and no essence of ‘goodness’ truly exists. Most people are selfish, naive idiots who either don’t see, don’t accept, or can’t adapt to the cruel nature of the world they live in, hence why they’re doing so poorly and earning more of Mr. Usher’s contempt. Probably explains why he’s so upfront and blunt in sharing these views to Hunter; he thinks he’s objectively right to view such weak people as worthless, doesn’t see a need to mince words about it, and doesn’t have any chink in his beliefs that would even let him put on a more palatable persona for Hunter.

>Only a fool would make martyrs from heathens / And find them so lively when they’re barely breathing / Just barely breathing
Mr. Usher criticises Hunter’s idealistic view of the City folk. By Mr. Usher’s perspective, these people that Hunter cherishes and wants to protect are worthless scum who do nothing for themselves or those around them, dependant on the charity of others and clinging to ideas of some fundamental essence of ‘goodness’ to keep them alive. Honestly to Mr. Usher it sounds like these people are barely even human. Again though, by framing them as being utterly miserable and set in their lot, he’s encouraging Hunter with the idea that it’s not like uprooting their worthless lives will make them more miserable, and if it does then who even cares.

Man. Zero empathy. You can contrast this again against TP&P, who isn’t a great guy himself, but at least understands the mental effects his villainy has on people (and loves it). Like he’s quick to judge the people he judges as bad or exploitable people, when to Mr. Usher it’s more like they’re animals or numbers or dirt.

>Just look at that toymaker, grinding his gears / Turning no profit, but he doesn’t care / He keeps smiles on faces, day after day / The children keep sadness and suffering at bay
Hunter gives his rebuttal. He zeroes in on the important things that Mr. Usher doesn’t see when he looks at those around him — for example, the ‘shopkeeper’ is not just a faceless ‘shopkeeper’ grubbing for cash in a failing business — he’s a toymaker, who passionately puts his heart into his craft. The money isn’t as important to him as the joy and wonder he’s able to bring to children, who in turn bring joy to those around them by their innocent wonder and happiness. So Hunter doesn’t need to wonder why the toymaker has remained in this business so long; to him, it’s obvious that it’s a labour of love that makes the world just a little bit happier.

>Blissfully bounding apace / Searching for mercy in a merciless place
Hunter concedes that the world is cruel, but that’s why people such as the toymaker do things to make it a little less cruel. It’s not that they’re blind or stupid, it’s that they are choosing hope, trust, comfort, and kindness over materialistic, utilitarian strife and misery. It’s by their own desire to find mercy that they propagate it and indeed start making mercy something that can be found.

>Only a monster makes fodder from saints / And finds them so worthless when they’re full of grace
Hunter sees incredible virtue and beauty in those who can still bring humble happiness, and pursue goodness, despite the darkness and harshness of the world they live in. Given how horrible Hunter knows the world can be when you’re cornered in the dark, the strength and pureheartedness of such people as the toymaker is truly inspiring, precious, and marvellous to him. Apart from just being a rebuttal of Mr. Usher, we’re finally hearing Hunter assert himself on his values with a real kind of confidence — Mr. Usher is so completely antithetical to everything Hunter cherishes or believes, it’s actually stabilising how his utter villainy draws out Hunter’s own soul and convictions.

>But what better use of hookers and thieves / Than greasing the wheels of perfect machines / That hum into life a harmony of industry?
Mr. Usher contests Hunter again.

‘But what better use of hookers and thieves’ -> WHOOPS! Mr. Usher, were you snubbing Hunter (an identity thief) and his lover (an ex-hooker) intentionally, or did you skimp on your research? Apart from Mr. Usher dismissing the downtrodden (escalating to criminal) again, I take this as an indication that Mr. Usher went into this conversation severely misreading Hunter. He can probably figure that Hunter is corrupt and compromised by TP&P due to the reopening of The Dime, but he apparently doesn’t know much else about his character, or perhaps hasn’t even realised yet that identity theft was involved and Hunter has a whole life and aspirations disparate from the Son persona.

Anyway, so this is where all that ‘Mr. Usher is trying to get Hunter to industrialise the City’ stuff comes from. He seems to be telling Hunter here that he can repurpose ‘useless’ people like hookers, thieves, misc criminals, and the poor as workers for major industries, and everyone would be better off for it. Genuinely, Mr. Usher doesn’t seem to see the benefit of what Hunter’s saying, and rather seems confused as to the rationale why Hunter is resisting his proposition. Like okay, the stupid failing toymaker soon to go out of business makes children happy… buuuut how about cleaning the streets AND generating some FAT GDP? You know, contributing to society and all that?

Maybe he’s just a good enough manipulator that I’m buying him at face value too, but he sounds pretty upfront in his sentiment here that society only matters for its profit margin, and that trash people are best utilised as servants.

>But what is the use of cutting them down / To smother and choke the soul of our town?
Hunter again rejects Mr. Usher. He can see Mr. Usher’s broad point that investing in heavy industrialisation could bring the City into an economic boom, and the broad point that ‘hookers and thieves’ generally aren’t contributing much, but he doesn’t regard it as worth it if it means strongarming people out of their existing passions/pursuits or forcing them to become these dehumanised ‘labour units’. He sees Mr. Usher’s plans as oppressive, miserable, and inherently damaging to the soul and character of the City and its people, even the lowest rungs of it, who don’t deserve to be stomped on in this way.

>I know there is another way
Hunter also sees how Mr. Usher’s proposal can be used against TP&P, but refuses to be so controlling, dehumanising, or cruel. He would rather use other methods to combat TP&P — given that Hunter already had scorched earth ideas back in The Moon, hearing this horrible alternative of Mr. Usher’s may be encouraging him more and more to the idea that yes, actually, the scorched earth idea (or some other idea of strong, good-infused resistance against TP&P) is maybe worth trying. (Such resistance also solves the ‘hookers and thieves’/’misery in the City’ problem as TP&P is the driver of lots of that.)

>But, what is so wrong with giving them purpose? / (Just how could you weed them out?) / (Degrading them without doubt)
LOVE these verses with their voices overlapping. Parentheses is Hunter, no parentheses is Mr. Usher. The two get into the most involved part of their argument, their worldviews inherently conflicting.

‘But, what is so wrong with giving them purpose?’ -> WOW. The real mindblowing part of this isn’t so much that Mr. Usher thought this would work on Hunter, but that he doesn’t seem to see why it’s not working, ie, he actually is so out of touch to be asking this as a serious question. I guess it’s easy to view people as units or resources when you’re sitting on the top of things, and not really care about their personal dreams or aspirations, huh. If he even can. The only purpose to life anyone could have is in Mr. Usher’s world is one either relevant to him or that can be reflected as a number.

‘(Just how could you weed them out?) / (Degrading them without doubt)’ -> Meanwhile, rather than address Mr. Usher’s arguments anymore, Hunter is standing there flabbergasted that he’s hearing such words actually come out of a person’s mouth. He’s beyond even hypothetically entertaining the merits or lack of merits in the proposal, he’s busy questioning Mr. Usher’s character as like… it’s so absolutely rotten and cruel, Hunter can barely believe it’s real.

>A man like yourself could bring worth to worthless / (You’re bleeding them dry) / (They live and die like you and I)
Mr. Usher tries to appeal to a corrupt ego that Hunter doesn’t have, while Hunter tries to impress the point that these people he’s regarding as cogs or numbers or cattle are, well, people, individuals, hearts, souls, and trying to get Mr. Usher to empathise on the point that treating them cruelly is wrong.

>Without the guidance of rulers and tyrants / (And under your guidance; the hands of a tyrant) / These people will just tear themselves apart
Mannn. Pretty impressive to have this guy show up and blow TP&P out of the water in two songs as far as wickedness goes.

‘Without the guidance of rulers and tyrants / These people will just tear themselves apart’ -> Yeah, holy hell. Mr. Usher is one of those types who doesn’t think other people are capable of making good or sensible decisions, so forcing them to bend to your will instead and oppressing them is actually a virtuous thing to both their and your benefit, as they’re too stupid or irrational to know what they want or what’s good for them. As we’ve seen though, Mr. Usher is simultaneously too out of touch to understand why people’s passions make them happy. Might just be Mr. Usher trying to sell this idea to Hunter or misreading him again, but I get the impression that this is upfront about how Mr. Usher views the world.

‘(And under your guidance; the hands of a tyrant) / These people will just tear themselves apart’ -> Hunter’s view of this exchange is more sane, though. If Mr. Usher is allowed any kind of influence or power over the City, he’ll drive its citizens into absolute misery.

>Just look at that charlatan steeped in deceit
The conversation ends and Mr. Usher leaves, having failed to sell Hunter to his proposal. Hunter watches him as he goes, sparing some final thoughts for what he has just witnessed.

First of all, Mr. Usher reads to Hunter as a charlatan, a liar. Hunter is now experienced enough to be able to pick out such false deals and sniff out unscrupulous agreements — more than just the premise of the offer being evil and twisted, not to the benefit of anyone it’s purported to benefit, he can likely figure that Mr. Usher would have screwed him over, too.

>A threat to the young, to the old and the meek
More than just a liar, Mr. Usher strikes Hunter as dangerous. He’s the type of person good and innocent city folk desperately need to be protected from, and the type of person Hunter wished to rebuff when he got his seat as Mayor. Probably one of the most heinous examples of it, too. In that way, by rejecting him, Hunter has come into his own as a leader, even if TP&P has been forcing him into a pit.

>Don’t you wonder what made him so vicious, so sick?
The same as Mr. Usher couldn’t understand why the toymaker would stay in a failing business, Hunter can’t understand why Mr. Usher is so heartless and cruel. Like, TP&P is one thing. He’s bad. He’s awful. But this guy… God, he’s pitch black. How does anyone get to be like that? Not even Hunter, at his worst, is anything like that.

>So far out of balance, so cruel and so callous? / So married to malice?
Aside from leaving the question hanging of just how someone as wicked as Mr. Usher could exist, Mr. Usher’s callousness and cruelty have restored some of Hunter’s confidence. Not in the sense of ‘there’s a guy worse than me!’, but more like, Hunter’s natural reaction to this man was to challenge him, rebuke him, refuse him, and ultimately Hunter could not understand or empathise with him at all, as he’s utterly, purely evil. It’s a kind of confirmation that Hunter himself is still good, and will still rise to resist evil where he can. And this time, he did it completely correctly. He didn’t get carried away, he kept firm and true to himself, and the guy left.

It’s another one of the slowly building pillars in his confidence not just in himself, but against TP&P. Maybe it is possible for him to do something… maybe.

>3:36 – 4:09 Instrumental
Something again but I’m not sure. Man, what is that stuff that’s shuffling around? Leaves?

>4:09 – 4:12 Instrumental
Hunter, feeling the way the wind is blowing in the City, returns home to his wife and son.

Mr. Usher (On His Way To Town) | Act V | Light

Mr. Usher (On His Way To Town)

Mr. Usher (On His Way To Town)
The shutters close when he’s around
The children shut their eyes
In fear of what they must surmise
When all the gentlemen hang their heads down, down, down
Yeah, Mr. Usher’s on his way to town

He keeps his sights set straight and true
His idle hands won’t flit or flutter
Never does he slip or stutter
Still his mind is menacing away
Yeah, Mr. Usher’s on the prowl today

He needn’t dirty up his hands
He’ll twist your heart until you’re manic
Lost in endless streams of panic
Pray you’re not the one he finds
If Mr. Usher’s got you on his mind

Any time the plan’ll get a bit off track
He’s the only one who can bring it back
The main manipulator, yeah
The wolf who leads the pack
You better lock your doors and shut your windows tight
Pull the shades down and turn off the lights
Always feed the hand that leads to teeth that bite
Because, if he has no use for you
He’ll take you to the river
Take you to the river

He’ll have you hanging by a string
Or noose, if he prefers you perish
All your dreams become nightmarish
If you block his path or plan
Yeah, Mr. Usher always gets his man

Mr. Usher always gets his man
Yeah, Mr. Usher always gets his man

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
A new character is introduced, Mr. Usher, a wicked, sadistic, and powerful businessman who sees potential for himself in the City. Piqued by TP&P’s revival of The Dime and the corrupt nature of the Mayor Hunter to allow it, Mr. Usher travels to the City to put the wheels of his plans into motion.

What’s in a name?
A straightforward on-the-tin title: it’s the introduction of a new character, named Mr. Usher, and he’s on his way to City.

Whose viewpoint?
Omniscient.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:25 Instrumental
Man, this tonal shift. Similar to how King of Swords is tonally distinct compared to everything else in Act IV, the old school big swing band vibe of Mr. Usher stands out as an outlier. Why? Well, this is just the kind of guy that Mr Usher is, and given that he’s an important character, his introduction is going to leave a strong impression.

So what kind of guy is Mr Usher? Just off the instrumental, we can figure that he’s a very old-school type of person, refined, poised, but also quite dark and sinister. He gives the impression of a high-bred and successful man who is broadly conservative in his dress and demeanour, who doesn’t speak a single superfluous word or take a single needless action, and who has no need to fear anything. He’s confident, purposeful, and doesn’t waste his time on things he considers worthless or beneath him.

>The shutters close when he’s around / The children shut their eyes / In fear of what they must surmise / When all the gentlemen hang their heads down, down, down
So off the bat: Mr. Usher is scary. Actually, he’s terrifying. People know he’s dangerous, has bad intentions, and do their best not to draw his attention or ire when they see him making his way down the street.

Already this is a massive departure from, say, TP&P, who we’ll use as a point of comparison. TP&P’s schtick is conning people, so he needs people to think he’s a respectable person, that is, he invests much into concealing his misdeeds and hides his wickedness behind the ‘good’ persona of a Priest or a welcoming friend who is here to help you, but Mr. Usher does not. He does not at all. Mr. Usher is openly dangerous and seems to take pleasure in the fear he engenders just by walking down the street — he likes those in his proximity to be scared of him, intimidated by him, uncomfortable around him, aware of what he could do to them, so on.

So if TP&P’s nature is that of a two-faced liar, who manipulates people so they can’t usurp his plans, Mr. Usher is more of a pure sadist who enjoys causing pain for its own sake. He likes seeing others in fear and pain, not because that means they’re vulnerable necessarily, or because that makes it easier to use them to his ends (though that is a benefit), but because their pain and terror and dismay and death itself is fun to him. If anything, hurting people is the point behind his methods.

We can also tell that Mr. Usher fears no consequences for his cruelty. Contrast again TP&P, who beneath his charisma, actually is quite anxious about being unmasked and losing his influence over others. Mr. Usher is secure and confident in his ability to deal with problems, unconcerned with public opinion, and simply does not need to hide his nature since he knows nobody can scratch him. Very powerful guy with a clear grasp of himself and others.

>Yeah, Mr. Usher’s on his way to town
And he’s on his way to the City, presumably, to do something. Suggests that any time you see Mr. Usher out and about you can guarantee he’s up to something nefarious, and that you’re better off not looking into or getting involved in. A finger in many pies kind of guy. But all the pies have razorblades in them. That he put there.

Let’s think about why Mr. Usher might be going to the City. The biggest thing that’s happened there recently is the reopening of The Dime — we’ll find out later that Mr. Usher and TP&P actually already know each other and have some kind of history, so I wonder if the invitations/advertisements TP&P gave out for the Dime’s reopening made their way to Mr. Usher, and that’s ultimately what caught his attention. Brothels are illegal and quite tightly regulated now, yet TP&P’s having this grand and successful reopening? Interesting.

>He keeps his sights set straight and true / His idle hands won’t flit or flutter / Never does he slip or stutter
Self-explanatory, Mr. Usher is not the type of person who messes around or makes any superfluous moves. He knows what he wants, knows how to get it, and seizes it without hesitation, compromise, or doubt. He’s also extremely experienced and good at what he does — he does not make mistakes and does not ever slip up.

‘Keeps his sights set straight and true’ -> ‘With all the history to guide, you’ve got a passion in those eyes / So aim it straight and true’, making the comparison between the way Mr. Usher pursues his goals and a gun, since Mr. Usher’s goals are often deadly and do involve literally killing people, on top of his fast and certain nature in how he pursues his goals.

‘Flit or flutter’, ‘Slip or stutter’ -> ‘But, the gambler only stood and stuttered’, underlining Mr. Usher’s control by drawing the comparison of what he is not like — he is not the type who would have been caught off-guard like the gambler in TMCOH, or like Hunter for that matter.

>Still his mind is menacing away / Yeah, Mr. Usher’s on the prowl today
Mr. Usher is a predator who causes pain and destruction anywhere he goes. He is constantly plotting of ways to bring more malice into the world.

>He needn’t dirty up his hands / He’ll twist your heart until you’re manic / Lost in endless streams of panic
Now, everything said, Mr. Usher is not the type who personally shows up and does gruntwork. When he wants something done, or has a goal he wants to pursue, he achieves it by making others do it for him. To that end, he manipulates people, but unlike TP&P who has to construct a whole fake persona and make sales pitches of how great listening to him will be for you, Mr. Usher zeroes in on your fears, anxieties, and doubts — and exacerbates them. He’s not the type to go ‘this is what will relieve you…’ or ‘everything will be fine, you just listen to me’, so much as ‘you’re doomed, you’re dying — here’s what I’d do. What, does it make you uncomfortable? You don’t have any choices’, more in that tone where even the solution he presents is one that leaves you feeling uneasy, but is presented as the only available option you have.

Since he’s not the one personally enacting all the crooked things he does, he’s able to keep a healthy degree of distance between himself and crimes that could be pinned on him. People can generally figure he has something to do with things, but never know exactly what exactly he can be blamed for or can single out anything as being his direct responsibility. I mean, if Mr. Usher tells one man he should kill another, and the other man becomes so uncertain and anxious that they twist the idea around until they think they’re the one who conceived the thought, and go through with it, is anyone going to say the crime is Mr. Usher’s fault? Of course not, it’s the murderer’s fault.

He’s that type. Makes you think you came up with ideas he wants you to think, and motivation for things he wants you to do, on your own.

>Pray you’re not the one he finds / If Mr. Usher’s got you on his mind
Mr. Usher operates by targeting specific people. He focuses on one or two key people at a time to twist or torment to get his operations done — very efficient — then once he’s used them all they’re good for, discards them.

>Any time the plan’ll get a bit off track / He’s the only one who can bring it back
Love this verse and these singers. Anyway let’s talk about his name, Mr. Usher.

Mr. Usher is one of the few characters, alongside Ms Leading and Ms Terri, whose name is explicitly given. Why? Well, it’s because he’s an extremely important character whose role can’t just be summed up as ‘the Son’s mother’ or ‘the hooker’ or ‘the Businessman’. Understanding who he is and what he means to the story, and Hunter, requires this more specific term of ‘usher’ — because his principal role is that he ‘ushers’ in the end of the story. He’s the one who activates the last Rube Goldberg pieces into motion, he’s the one who breaks stalemates, and he’s the one whose presence ensures things resolve to their proper end.

Basically, Hunter and TP&P are presently a bit stuck. Hunter is slowly growing more and more resistant towards TP&P, but still needs some kind of trigger before he will move against him. Equally, TP&P has recognised that Hunter is growing slightly more defiant, but does not know what to do beyond the same song and dance of demoralising Hunter with character insults and blackmail threats. Something has to give, and Mr. Usher is the one who will orchestrate that ‘something’ by needling both of them into action, that action being one that destroys both of them so Mr. Usher can seize the remains and assert his own dominion over the City.

Otherwise said because he’s so into destroying people he’s an excellent mechanism for wrapping things up.

>The main manipulator, yeah / The wolf who leads the pack
Like Hunter and TP&P, Mr. Usher is a wolf. He does not look to conform with society, rather being the type to carve his own niche or assert his own will over others. But even among wolves, Mr. Usher is superior, being able to control and direct the actions of these ambitious and often scummy individuals, who look up to him for guidance. Any kind of backhanded or scummy organisation you can imagine, Mr. Usher can easily get himself invited to and take over without fuss.

>Always feed the hand that leads to teeth that bite / Because, if he has no use for you / He’ll take you to the river
It’s always in your best interest to play along with Mr. Usher, because if you don’t — he’ll kill you. (’Take you to the river’ = drown you in the river, maybe with cinderblocks).

Contrast TP&P again. TP&P controls people with blackmail, moral debt, so on, but ultimately he doesn’t kill anyone. He degrades and enslaves people, but he doesn’t kill them. Mr. Usher is more vicious than TP&P in that he has no qualms about flat-out murdering those who prove troublesome or who stand as obstacles to his plans. This probably contributes to his fearsome reputation — people know others disappear when they cross Mr. Usher.

The Pimp and The Priest reprise on ‘take you to the river’ probably pointing to Mr. Usher’s flat-out villainy, exemplified in how he’ll routinely murder others for not going along with him, and twisting the formerly hopeful (?) sentiment of ‘take me to the river’ from ‘get me out of here!’ into ‘die.’ I mean I suppose that’s one way to get out of ‘here’, here being Mr. Usher’s sphere of influence… and probably the only way. Want to escape him? Then die.

>He’ll have you hanging by a string / Or noose, if he prefers you perish / All your dreams become nightmarish / If you block his path or plan
Verse basically reiterates the main ideas already stated: Mr. Usher is a proficient manipulator, in total control of everything around him, who enjoys keeping people in a state of anxiety and terror. He kills those who annoy or obstruct him, and does so casually without any great deliberation or fanfare.

>Mr. Usher always gets his man
Scary dude. Being in Mr. Usher’s sights, Hunter better watch out…

>3:59 – 4:59 Instrumental
This is definitely something but I can’t figure out what. With the abrupt stop to the swing atmosphere going into this tonally very different passage, gives me the impression of us shifting more into Hunter’s world, with Mr. Usher arriving in the City and meeting to speak with Hunter, and perhaps them having a (rather tense, beneath its cordial veneer) conversation before Mr. Usher makes his observations of the people around them in The Haves Have Naught.

Melpomene | Act V | The Haves Have Naught

Melpomene

Melpomene
Cold had I calloused
Walls were raised to bear the weight I’d not take
Too slow were my senses
Muted musings lost their way; disconnected
Only silence remained, holding my breath in the dark
Gasping for air with the lungs of a lark

So warm was your welcome; humble in its embrace
Tell me, just how did you save me;
Pull me up from the grave?
Though my youth did mislead, I would retreat to you
Right back to your arms with my spirit aglow
Where the pains of the past exit en masse; through you
Too lost when we part, with the lungs of a lark

I, far removed from myself, had denied what I lost when my heart had withdrawn to the fray
In a whimsical way, I would flee from the truth
I could bury in youth
You would have me, if I’d fallen again
Would you bring me back out of the dark, with my lungs of a lark?

Cold have I calloused, but these walls are coming down

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Troubled by the reopening of the Dime, Hunter goes to see Ms Leading. They are back in a relationship again, and Hunter feels able to be himself and feel happy again around her, giving him a refuge of warmth and love in what is otherwise a very dark situation. His confidence in himself is slowly rebuilding from this point of stability.

What’s in a name?
‘Melpomene’ — This is the name of the greek muse of tragedy. With this being a song about Ms Leading, it points to Ms Leading as Hunter’s ‘muse’, ‘inspiration,’ ‘power source’, during the midst of the horrible and tragic situation he has found himself in. It is probably also foreshadowing that Ms Leading’s fate itself will also be tragic.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:20 Instrumental
Wow! After all the grunge, bleakness, and darkness of every song up until now, the gentle happiness of this song is startling. With Hunter’s life being so terrible at present, and him having just faced the agony of being responsible for the revival of The Dime, how is he possibly in any kind of state of mind that could be called ‘happy’? Or ‘peaceful’, even ‘pleasant’?

The answer is that he’s with Ms Leading. Hunter has gone to see her, and is able to feel comfort and warmth again in her presence, as he has finally put aside the fears and misgivings he expressed in Waves and Wait. He will express over this song the reality of their mutual love, which is stabilising to Hunter.

>Cold had I calloused / Walls were raised to bear the weight I’d not take
‘A cold calloused heart, sitting still in this cave of a chest’. So this song begins with Hunter acknowledging the mistakes he has made in previously rejecting this relationship, rather, not so much the relationship specifically (in the sense of the ego-damage Red Hands mishap, since he had already moved past that by the end of Cauda), but the very concept of love as he knows it being a real thing he should dare to want or pursue. So the sentiment he is addressing is moreso the one we see in This Beautiful Life, Life and Death, Waves, Is There Anybody Here?, etc, where he concedes that he does feel strong affection for Ms Leading, but is terrified of pursuing it at risk of losing his coping mechanism for the pain of This Beautiful Life.

Hunter faced a lot of traumatic experiences over the war, but the one that truly broke him was the revelation of Ms Terri’s life as a prostitute, expressed in This Beautiful Life. Ever since then, Hunter has been frantically suppressing the pain of This Beautiful Life, that being the impetus for him adopting the Son persona, so he could remake himself as a better person (the type who doesn’t idiotically spite their mother’s sincere attempts to protect them and profane her memory) and dissociate from this inherent pain of ‘being Hunter’. The immediate consequence of this is that he numbed himself to his own heart (’One of these days, he will learn to love again’ — his original plan in Cauda/WIMTBA was to return to Ms Leading, he dismissed this idea by the end of the war to instead escape the pain of his own life), then turned away from love (Waves), then fled his love of Ms Leading again to invest instead in the Son persona (A Night On The Town/Is There Anybody Here?).

Love has always been Hunter’s greatest desire, his central value, and the thing he feels he betrayed in both his mishap with Ms Leading and by pursuing the truth of Ms Terri. It’s his core. So of course his struggle to reinvent himself as someone else through Act IV means, fundamentally, trying to escape his own desires and reverence for love — and of course he ultimately failed, hooking up with Ms Leading again (Wait).

Anyway the point of this line is basically to express all of ^ this ^ — Hunter is finally examining his actions and feelings towards Ms Leading from a more sincere perspective. Every time he has rejected her or kept his distance from her has been to try and avoid that deep, traumatic pain of: losing his mom, betraying his mom, losing his agency and then being powerless to save his mom, finding out how his dad treated his mom, etc etc and so on. Basically it’s that same basic issue as in Act II where he’s scared of submitting to love because it could backfire and hurt him like what happened with his mom, with the Act III/IV elements included of Hunter being doubly scared because any tie to his own identity is intrinsically painful and could destroy the new, ‘better’ self he’s built.

By this point though, Hunter’s kind of beyond all of that. His ‘better’ self is completely hollow and subverted, and the situation all that running from pain has got him into is worse than just being ‘painful’, it’s evil in a way he fundamentally can’t accept and can barely even live with. So yes he returns to Ms Leading, and to his own desires and reverence for love, if only to escape the confusion and darkness that is everything else… and finds that actually, embracing his feelings of and desire for love and Ms Leading is not such a scary thing anymore.

>Too slow were my senses / Muted musings lost their way; disconnected
Hunter expressing that he took too long to realise that the right move was to surrender to love again and return to Ms Leading, as he had naturally figured to do in Cauda, rather than pursue the Son persona.

The ‘disconnect’ is probably pointing to Hunter’s disconnect from his own heart to be fleeing from love in the way he did by adopting the Son persona; doing so was meant to relieve his pain, and he had all these great rational reasons why the son persona would make him stronger and less hurt (The Old Haunt), but this whole premise was stupid because love is what matters to him and makes him feel safe anyway. Being true to love and finding strength and comfort in it is always what he should have done. (Probably why he’s going to Ms Leading right now too — he’s hurt after the Dime’s revival and wants to feel comfort).

Man, you can hear the triumph on ‘lost their way’ — Hunter feels happy to know for certain where he went wrong, now that he’s in this clearheaded mindset where he’s able to see what happened (and consequently, see what he actually wants to pursue). Wonder if he’s literally saying all this to Ms Leading and feels great just getting these things clear, reconciling, and getting these pains off his chest?

>Only silence remained, holding my breath in the dark
Probably more pointing to mid-late Act IV and early Act V stuff — Is There Anybody Here? into as/after Hunter crossed the point of no return and realised TP&P had subverted his Son persona. You can see this like the world around ‘real’ Hunter disappearing into the darkness, his real self keeping quiet (suppressed) as Hunter plays the role of ‘Son’ Hunter, until his connection to that persona collapses and Hunter begins to lose all landmarks of who he is and where to go (culminating in deep confusion as in Cascade).

>Gasping for air with the lungs of a lark
‘And how long can I breathe this stolen breath here underneath?’. Not long enough, apparently. Hunter has long crossed the threshold where this Son persona is comfortable, functional, or tenable for him — he instead feels so suffocated by it that he’s barely alive while living it. And more than that, since he can’t escape the persona either, he is just always feeling like he cannot express his true self and instead is constantly doing things contrary to himself that keep killing and strangling the real him.

Remember that a large part of the appeal of the Son persona for Hunter was the concept that the agency of not being sheltered would allow him to rebuild himself as a fundamentally stronger and better person — he thought he could become his ideal self by disassociating from his actual self, who he regarded as bad, but also saw the ‘ideal’ self as truer to his ‘actual’ self anyway, ie, that it would allow him to more freely express his true self (The Old Haunt, The Line). He is now heavily taking back that sentiment and saying the only good things his idealised self had were things his actual self also had anyway, or else he wouldn’t feel so awful trying to conform to it now that it’s corrupted.

There’s a lot in the line “Lungs of a lark”. Larks are fragile, and since the line is sung by Hunter, he is also representing himself as a very fragile person trying to express himself. Also, a Lark can imitate other birds, and the Boy is mimicking another person too.

>So warm was your welcome; humble in its embrace
‘With words beyond me, she welcomed me in’, hearkening to Bitter Suite III: Embrace. Points to Hunter both renewing the sentiments he felt back then and devoting himself to them again, and to how Ms Leading received Hunter after he got back with her in Wait: she was extremely kind, accepting, and loving to him. She has moved past any bitter blood from their breakup and is just happy to have and be with him again. (We heard shades of this already in A Night On The Town: ‘where’s your heart?’).

Hunter feels welcome and embraced in her company: he feels loved and is loving in turn. Probably also a euphemistic confirmation that they’re having sex again, too.

>Tell me, just how did you save me; / Pull me up from the grave?
Ms Leading has helped Hunter reconnect to his real self and given him a place where he can be that real self freely. He doesn’t need to put on any guises, pretentions, or lies around her: he can just be his honest unfiltered self with her, and she’ll still love and support him. This is an immense solace for Hunter and he is deeply grateful for it; he feels like she has saved his life and his self.

>Though my youth did mislead, I would retreat to you / Right back to your arms with my spirit aglow / Where the pains of the past exit en masse; through you
Hunter admitting that he messed up in Act II but that he still loves and finds comfort, strength, and thrives again around Ms Leading. All of the pain and trauma he’s been running from melts away in her presence as well. She’s like his sanctuary now, from all the darkness and confusion of the world that surrounds him. More than just a sanctuary too, she makes him feel empowered and alive.

‘Though my youth did mislead’ -> ‘Mislead’ acting as our keyword to know this song is talking about Ms Leading, if we didn’t have confirmation of that.

>Too lost when we part, with the lungs of a lark
All the strength, warmth, brightness, certainty, connection to himself, stability, and comfort Hunter feels when he’s with Ms Leading disappears the instant Hunter leaves her and has to put on his Son persona again. We can imagine the double life he’s living, where everything including his life at home with his Wife is suffocating and fake, with Ms Leading being the one bright point or refuge where he can shed all those lies and freely, happily just be his honest self — in the company of his true lover.

I suppose I’ll take this as the point to ask: is Ms Leading still a prostitute? And I would say no. We already saw her working as a bartender in Act IV, so we know she’s able to get by without necessarily resorting to sex work, and heard her over Act II progressively lean away from prostitution as a lifestyle as well. Plus, with Hunter being the Mayor, the option is open to rely on his wallet for her necessities before she would have to resort to hooking. So even with The Dime reopen, and some time having passed since we saw her as a bartender, she probably is not a prostitute anymore, or at least isn’t one who works in any organised fashion under a pimp like in The Dime. (Plus Hunter just left The Dime to see Ms Leading — probably wouldn’t work if she was present there).

>I, far removed from myself, had denied what I lost when my heart had withdrawn to the fray / In a whimsical way, I would flee from the truth / I could bury in youth
Basically going over the ideas expressed in the beginning again. While trying to distance himself from himself, Hunter convinced himself he had not experienced love with Ms Leading, because he was still hurt and reeling from This Beautiful Life/his experiences in the war and did not want to risk exposing himself to it again. He tried to dismiss everything he knew to be true about himself, his strengths, his weaknesses, and his desires as examples of immaturity (which was, in itself, pretty silly). Hunter hardcore rescinding everything he said in Waves and embracing himself as loving Ms Leading.

>You would have me, if I’d fallen again / Would you bring me back out of the dark, with my lungs of a lark?
Hunter relies on Ms Leading to pick him up and bring him back to the right path when he’s going astray, leaning on her as his support and the refuge for his soul. Ms Leading, being in love with him too, of course is willing to provide this and ensure Hunter isn’t destroying himself, protecting his heart as well as she can. Hunter accepting the reality that Ms Leading seriously just loves him and has always had his interests in mind.

Echoes of ‘Was I just a playful pawn, a trophy you had won / Someone who could lift you when you’re low?’ though I don’t think it’s saying that Hunter is making emotional demands that Ms Leading feels aren’t reciprocated, so much as Hunter just needing this kind of support and that mirroring the Son’s needs as well, but with Hunter actually being loving in response also.

Wonder how many of his troubles and anxieties Hunter has divulged to Ms Leading? Can’t say, but he definitely trusts her to be able to guide him, and give him something true and positive to want to live for.

Also echoes the ‘everything you thought you had…’ motif, but in the sense of feeling accepted and supported in the way that he didn’t in WIMTBA when he realised he’d thrown away everything.

>Cold have I calloused, but these walls are coming down
YAAAAAAAAAAY HUNTER!!!! YEESSS!!

‘One of these days, he will learn to love again’ FINALLY this prediction is fulfilled! Through his renewed relationship with Ms Leading, Hunter can reconnect with his real desires and is letting himself embrace love again as his central value, and more importantly, embrace giving, receiving, and living for love. He’s finally letting himself be honest, vulnerable, and from that, loving and happy even in the darkness of his present life. Hunter is getting his footing back to start resisting this bleak situation and embrace more of what he actually wants.

‘I love you’ in as many words. Really sweet and happy song. With this line being spoken so softly, gives me the impression Hunter has exited Ms Leading’s place and is speaking to himself in this comment, (maybe considering involving her to help him fight TP&P? If he hasn’t already basically done that by divulging his troubles over this song), realising that he’s positively changing before looking up at the streets and the City again.

>3:40 – 4:02 Ambiance
Okay so we have footsteps… then cars… then the opening of a door and people laughing as if in some speakeasy. If the ‘walls are coming down’ isn’t like a fade to black and transition into the reveal of Mr Usher, this might be Hunter walking away from Ms Leading’s place, then getting a ride to some kind of sleazy socialite party where he has to put on the Son persona again. Probably is just a transition into Mr Usher though.

The Revival | Act V | Mr. Usher (On His Way To Town)