Kradam, The Rock Opera: Act II, Scene 3
Act II, Scene 3
We've now reached a point where I honestly had to use a lot of guesswork and logic to figure out the next few songs. As I said in the introduction, you can read about my thought process here
Scene 3 begins with celebration, and everything seeming right with the world. Sadly, though, reality soon starts to set in.
Crazy It seems obvious to me that "Crazy" should go here. This is basically the happiest part of the story, and "Crazy" is "their," song. They only perform it when they're together.
Top of the World This is an unreleased single that Kris wrote with Mat Kearney. Kris has said of it, "It had like a dance beat to it ... but not in a bad way. I thought it was great. I think the song's awesome. You'll hear the song sometime." Mat Kearney also told MTV News "... that the tune he was working on with Allen would rough up the squeaky-clean Conway, Arkansas, native's image. 'It's driving ... it has some edge to it,' Kearney said earlier this month. 'That may make it so they don't want to (include it on the album).'" I've substituted with "Hey Jude" because it seems appropriate here, and Kris loves the song.
Suburban Decay This is Adam's unreleased single, written by Justin Hawkins. Thankfully, we do know something about this song because Hawkins' demo was leaked a while ago. The song, superficially, is about vampires. And, in fact, there was talk of it being used on the Twilight: Eclipse soundtrack.
My guess is that the song has a deeper meaning for Adam, though. Adam has mentioned on more than one occasion that he is a fan of the HBO series, "True Blood," which is a show about vampires. In this story, vampires are a thinly veiled metaphor for people who identify as queer. Vampires have long been considered monsters, and so they have always had to hide themselves from society. But now, many vampires want to live like regular people. They talk about "coming out of the casket" and demanding equal rights. Read more here.
I think that, in "Suburban Decay," vampires can also be seen as a metaphor for being gay. The lyrics are thankfully pretty understandable for the most part. I've put in blue the lyrics that especially stand out for me. My sense from this song is that, even if Kris and Adam want to be out as a couple, their management has other ideas.
Do you remember When
Oh we didn't even have to try
We used to drift into each other
And let the machine wave us goodbye
I used to hate myself
I couldn't wait to cut and die
And now we run among the jackals and undead
Bleeding what's left Of this city dry
And with our blood lust sated...sated
We sleep xxx xxx deserting the day
They wanted us to hide it....hide it
But we thrive on this urban decay
Suburban decay
Oh darling Offer your throat
And I will take you to the edge Of the abyss
Surrender my sweetheart
Though you have no hope Of escaping this
Take orders from above
They try To keep their minion's in Check
They wouldn't know love
If it came Up and bit them on the neck
Better than That I have even less of an idea of what this song is about than I do about "Top of the World." Kris wrote the song with Kevin Rudolf. Given where we are in the story, my guess is that this is some kind of protest song. I've substituted it in the playlist with "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." Kris has performed EWTRTW a couple of times, and it feels like it comes the closest to what I think "Better Than That" may be about. (Update: Kris performed EWTRTW on 5/12. According to my rules, this would now make the song an official part of the opera. Hmmmmm)
Continue to Act II, Scene 4