Kradam, The Rock Opera: Act I, Scene 3
Act 1, Scene 3
Our story now takes on a darker tone as Kris starts to come to terms with what his feelings about Adam mean.
Mad World By this point in the story, Adam is just generally feeling frustrated and confused about the whole situation with Kris. I think the most significant lines are I find it hard to tell you/'Cause I find it hard to take/When people run in circles/It's a very, very/Mad world. Adam may not have originally selected "Mad World" as a message for Kris when he performed it on AI, but, if he means for it to be part of a narrative, it may be one of the reasons that he continues to sing it so regularly.
Musically, Adam's early renditions of this song, which were very similar to the Tears for Fears cover, would sound rather out-of-place between "Can't Stay Away" and "Send Me Your Angels" (which I think comes next). But Adam has used a different arrangement for his more recent performances. He has less piano and more guitar. You can probably also hear that the opening chord progressions on the guitar sound similar to the ending of "Can't Stay Away." If you're familiar with music theory, the closing pattern of "Can't Stay Away" is i III VI IV VII , and the opening pattern of "Mad World" is i III VII IV VII There's only one different chord. You can compare how his more recent arrangement compares to what he did on AI.
Click to viewSend Me Your Angels I found it really hard to find the right spot for this song, for I thought it could go in a number of different places. I finally figured out that it may have been written to be a companion piece for "The Truth," for they have similar solo guitar accompaniments. I think, for Kris, "the other side" in this song is being gay. He sings Every day I gotta face the fact/That I"m trying to reason with the demons on my back. Kris comes from a community where homosexuality is considered a sin, where it's not ok to act upon same-sex desires.
The Truth and Broken Open Most people hear "The Truth" as a breakup song, and that may very well have been the original meaning of the song when Pat Monahan wrote it. But I'm not sure if that is the primary meaning of the song for Kris, especially in the context of "Send Me Your Angels" and "Broken Open."
"The Truth" and "Broken Open" are stylistically rather different songs. Listen carefully, though, to the very end of "The Truth." Do you hear how the piano at the end never seems to hit its final note? It would be a G#. Now listen to the beginning of "Broken Open." You probably can hear how the opening chord on the piano sounds a bit dissonant. That note that's causing the dissonance is the final G# from "The Truth!"
"Broken Open" and "The Truth" are also connected lyrically. This is the first pair of songs that really look like they could be two parts of the same conversation. Mashed together, they might look something like the following (Kris is in red and Adam is in blue):
Lying next to you
Wishing I could disappear
Let you fall asleep
And vanish out into thin air
I don't want you to go
Don't wanna see you back out in the cold
I remember how we used to laugh
Air you're breathing out fills you with grey
I can keep on losing sleep
If you're ok with being torn in half
Don't run away, find me
It's the elephant in the room
And we pretend that we don't see it
Let's alight in the night
We can fall away, slip out of sight
Honesty is honestly the hardest thing for me right now
When you drop your guard
Melt it in time, so intertwined, quiet
Trying to be perfect
I know the battles of chasing the shadows of who you are babe
trying not to let you down
It doesn't matter, go on and shatter
I'm all you need
While the floors underneath our feet are crumbling
The walls we built together tumbling
I still stand here, holding up the roof
'Cause it's easier than telling the truth
Broken pieces, break into me
So imperfectly what you should be
It's an avalanche that looms above our heads
And we don't believe it
Lay here, it's safe here, I'll let you be broken open
Hide you, confide to you so we can be broken open
Falling Slowly Kris has talked numerous times about how much he loves "Falling Slowly." The song was written for the movie Once, which is a story about two musicians having an affair. For Kris, I think the song may not only be about falling in love with Adam, but also about finally starting to accept himself for who he is. He sings, You have suffered enough/And warred with yourself/It's time that you won.
For a while, now, Kris has been doing a mash-up with "Falling Slowly" and U2's "With or Without You." I'm honestly not sure what including parts of "With or Without You" might mean to Kris, but it might be something like "I'm doing this, whether you like it or not."
Continue to Act I, Scene 4