LogFAQs > #949208335

Alright, since I'm down to my last 10, I'll try and predict their eventual ranking.

King of Swords > Bitter Suite IV/V > Tempest > Runaway Train > Tightrope > Lighthouse > The Line > Gutter Ballet > La Muerta > If All Goes Well

This will probably be hopelessly wrong, heh.

Anyway, just some quick comments on my last few songs to go down, since that streak of losses I was predicting did indeed come.

Definitely bummed Is There Anybody Here? couldn't maintain that score from the first revision. I'm not surprised by what you liked and didn't like about it, though. Figured you'd love the lyrics and be less enthused by all the rest. I do have to say I love the ending instrumental, even if it maybe goes on a little long.

Squeaky Wheel is a track I've never had super strong feelings on one way or the other. I always find myself singing along to the last chorus, and they do some fun stuff with the key changes in it, but it's never been among my favorites from the album. I think the verses just feel a little clunky sometimes, relatively speaking.

As far as A Night on the Town goes... Well, you were close! It's actually my second-favorite song from Act IV behind the aforementioned Old Haunt. It also has some sentimental value because it was the first Dear Hunter song I ever heard. Oddly enough, it took me quite a few listens to really fall in love with it... Thing is, those listens all came in the course of a single day, which is kind of what triggered the realization that I must love it in the first place. And I used to have the same divide between my feelings on the first part of the song and everything after it, but that's mostly because it's a fanservice track in a lot of ways. The latter two-thirds are filled with so many reprises from the rest of the story that it probably is kind of impossible to really care about any of it if you don't have that context.

And finally, the lyrics. This is probably the most heavily analyzed and debated song among fans, but the popular theory is that the Fiance is actually nowhere in this song and in fact does not show up at all until Squeaky Wheel. It really is Ms. Leading that he has a romantic encounter with at the end - there's some reprises from Bitter Suites I, II, and III that confirm her reappearance as a bartender in one of the establishments that Hunter's half-brother's friends drag him to. He's drunk, yeah, but not so much that he doesn't recognize "that subtle smile that did [him] in" before. He still hasn't really forgiven her for the falling out they had back in Act II, though, which is what triggers the feelings in ITAH and really ramps up all the disassociation. But the meeting does jumpstart their eventual rekindling at the end of the album.

Waves is another one I don't have many thoughts on. Super beautiful, as you said, and I always love listening to it (especially because Old Haunt leads into it so perfectly), but it's certainly the most accessible song on the album, intentionally so. "The water rushed up from the boards below, so I started slickin' my hair with the kerosene" has always been a favorite line of mine, though.

Wait is a song that hits me hardest in the context of Ms. Leading, who I really love as a character. It's also cool because it's arguably the first song in the entire story that has some actual positive growth for Hunter, considering he makes the mature choice to recognize that what he did to Ms. Leading back when was worse than what she did to him, leading to their reconciliation. It'd be a happy ending if not for the fact it's all complicated by the public relationship he has to maintain with the Fiance for political purposes, but instead it leads all the insane stuff that happens by the end of Act V. I won't go into that here because, spoiler alert, I'll probably nominate that album if you do this ranking again, but the fact that the song ended up being way more important to the narrative than anyone ever figured gives it an sort of cool poignant feeling that elevates it from how I use to think of it.

Wow. That was more than I figured I'd be writing tonight. I really get carried away talking about the Acts.

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