Kradam, The Rock Opera: Act II, Scene 2
Act II, Scene 2
The beginning of Act II, Scene 2 brings us back around to where we were in Act I, Scene 4, when Adam sang "Music Again." Adam is clear again about he feels and what he wants. Kris has to make some hard decisions
If I Had You and Strut In terms of music style, IIHY and "Strut" are very different from the songs surrounding them, yet they sound pretty similar to each other. My theory is that "Strut" was written to echo the style of IIHY so that IIHY wouldn't stick out like such a sore thumb in this part of the story. IIHY and "Strut" are basically parts 1 and 2 of what Adam needs to say to Kris.
IIHY, Adam says, "... is talking about how I can have all this glitz, glamor, fame, and fortune, but if I don't have you, if I don't have someone special in my life to share it with, it doesn't mean anything... and how, at the end of the day, all we really need is love." Adam is basically saying, I think, that he loves Kris more than anything, and he will put Kris before anything else in his life.
In "Strut," Adam states that he wants the same thing from Kris. Adam says, "Lyrically, what I was trying to go for was talking about how, when you're really comfortable in your skin, and you own your presence, and you're proud of who you are, and you strut your stuff, that's how you're going to find the love you're looking for."
I think that what Adam is saying is that he doesn't want to be with someone who's closeted, who's hiding who he really is, who's ashamed of himself. Adam sings We're a complicated nation / And now we're in a situation /Let's take a maple leaf vacation /And get yourself some validation. Basically, Adam is assuring Kris that there's nothing shameful about being gay, despite what a lot of Americans believe. He essentially says, "Look, if you want, we can go to Canada and you'll see that it's really ok." (Note: Apparently Adam has tweeted specifically that this is "make-believe" vacation. I'll have to think about what that might mean!) Adam just wants Kris to be himself; that's the Kris that Adam loves.
I don't imagine that Adam is asking Kris to officially come out to the whole general public; Adam has too much business sense to ask that. He just wants Kris to be himself and to stop hiding who he is.
Editorial Comment The sense that I get from this scene and from Act I, Scene 4 is that Kris doesn't have the different parts of himself very well integrated at this point in his life. There's the Kris who is coming to terms with the fact that he's probably gay and that he's in love with Adam, and then it seems that there's still Kris, the humble church-boy from Arkansas, who is still trying to be a loyal husband and what he thinks it means to be a good Christian man. It's obvious from an outsider's perspective that these parts of Kris contradict each other, but Kris may not see the dissonance as well as somebody else might.
Cognitive splits like this are very common; they're how we cope with conflicting realities. It's how, for instance, a pediatric surgeon is able to spend her day fighting to save a child's life and then go home and read a bedtime story to her own children. And it's how many soldiers are able to witness the worst instances of trauma and brutality and still be reasonably normal around their families. We often cope with the dissonance in our lives by unconsciously blinding ourselves to it.
Lifetime Adam has once again asked Kris to face reality, and it sounds like that's a hard thing for Kris to do. In "Lifetime" Kris sings I wake up, put my poker face on/It's roughly the same hand/I was dealt yesterday.... Living doesn't come first try
It takes a lifetime getting it right.... To become the melody.... The man I know I could be. Kris has spent so much of his life hiding and denying, probably even to himself, that's he's gay that it's hard to do or be anything else.
I Need to Know I'm pretty sure that INTK is another prayer. Like in "Send Me All Your Angels," I think the "she" is God, rather than a lover. Kris is asking if God is listening, or even there at all. He needs to know which path God wants him to follow.
Aftermath and Let it Rain I think it's fairly obvious that "Aftermath" is about encouraging someone to come out, and "Let it Rain" seems to reflect that Kris decides he's going to do it.
This is actually, I think, the coolest part of the whole opera, for I believe that "Aftermath" and "Let it Rain" are actually a hidden duet. Here's why:
1. The tempo and rhythm are exactly the same. If you listen to them together, it sounds like just one drum beat.
2. They are singing about the same thing, often at the same time. You can see this if you follow along with the lyrics.
3. Adam wrote "Aftermath" with his friends, which probably would have made it easier to get away with integrating it with "Let it Rain."
Click to viewIf you listen to the two songs together, it sounds a little weird in the beginning because not all of the chords in the accompaniment are the same. But, if you keep listening, Kris and Adam sound more and more like they are singing the same song. It's really beautiful towards the end. You can hear how their voices move together, swelling at the same time, and going in and out of the choruses together.
It may seem odd for Kris and Adam to be singing different melodies at the same time, but this is actually something that is pretty common in musicals, operas, and choral music. If you want to see an example of this, listen to "Tonight" from West Side Story, starting at about 2:30. Normally, you would get to hear each melody separately before they were put together, but that wasn't exactly possible in this situation.
Aftermath
Have you lost your way
Living in the shadow of the messes that you made
And so it goes
Everything inside your circle starts to overflow
Take a step before you leap
Into the colors that you seek
You get back what you give away
So don't look back on yesterday
Wanna scream out, no more hiding
Don't be afraid of what's inside
Gonna tell you, you'll be alright
In the aftermath
Anytime anybody pulls you down
Anytime anybody says you're not allowed
Just remember, you are not alone
In the aftermath
You feel the weight
Of lies and contradictions
That you live with every day
It's not too late
Think of what could be
If you rewrite the role you play
Take a step before you leap
Into the colors that you seek
You get back what you give away
So don't look back on yesterday
Wanna scream out, no more hiding
Don't be afraid of what's inside
Gonna tell you, you'll be alright
In the aftermath
Anytime anybody pulls you down
Anytime anybody says you're not allowed
Just remember,
You are not alone
In the aftermath
In the aftermath
Before you break, you have to shed your armour
Take a trip and fall into the glitter
Tell a stranger that they're beautiful
So all you feel is love
Love, all you feel is
Love, love
Wanna scream out, no more hiding
Don't be afraid of what's inside
Wanna tell you, you'll be alright
In the aftermath
Wanna scream out, no more hiding
Don't be afraid of what's inside
Gonna tell you, you'll be alright
In the aftermath
Anytime anybody pulls you down
Anytime anybody says you're not allowed
Just remember, you are not alone
In the aftermath
Let It Rain
So many things are trying to keep me
And so many voices try to reach me
To tell me that this is not the way
To tell me that this is my mistake
Oh let the rain keep falling down
'Cause it won't
Stop me from getting where
I'm bound
Maybe I'm crazy, maybe it's too late
But I'm gonna make it, don't care what the skies say
So oh, let it rain, let it rain
I know that this is not the way
That you imagined it would be
Oh, but nothing you say is gonna stop me
No matter the weather that you bring
Oh let the rain keep falling
Down
'Cause it won't stop me from getting where I'm bound
Maybe I'm crazy,
Maybe it's too late, but I'm gonna make it,
Don't care what the skies say
So oh, let it rain, let it rain
Let it rain,
let it rain
So many things are trying to keep me
So many voices are trying to reach me
So oh let the rain keep falling
Down
'Cause it won't stop me from getting where I'm bound
Maybe I'm crazy, maybe it's too late, but I'm gonna
Make it, don't care what the skies say
So oh, let it rain, let it rain
Let it rain
Let it rain
Let it rain
Let it rain
So many things are trying to keep me
Continue to Act II, Scene 3