LogFAQs > #949593587

Awesome! Wasn't sure I was quite gonna make it to the top 10.

I figured when I nominated Act IV that Bitter Suite IV/V was either gonna a huge hit or huge miss for you just because, as you says, it goes so hard at the corrupt priest angle that it's completely audacious in every way. This is another TDH song that's always a blast at concerts - the Pimp/Priest songs pretty much all are because of how bouncy they tend to be. He definitely has that cartoony, comic-book villain-y vibe nailed perfectly.

That lack of subtext that makes it so lovable means there's not a whole lot to say about it, but I do feel compelled to even further highlight the We can lead you to salvation with the right denomination line. It's such a wonderful piece of poetic writing that's just fun to sing along with, and that's without even considering the super clever triple entendre in there. The surface-level satire is obvious enough, but then you can also look at it from the perspective that the "salvation" being offered could just as easily be meant as an invitation to his brothel, or that it's a commentary on that well-traveled idea that pretty much every denomination of Christianity insists that theirs is the only true path, which is something that as a self-described Christian myself has always bothered me about churches as institutions and always will.

Nice to see If All Goes Well took such a big jump, especially since a big drop preceded it! It's pretty interesting to see that, actually, because there's been a pattern I've gone through many, many times with Dear Hunter songs (and the band as a whole, I guess), including with my first exposure to them with A Night on the Town:

First listen: "Huh, this is pretty good stuff and there's some interesting ideas in there, but it's not really clicking with me on a really deep level."
Second listen: "Oh, I didn't notice that before... Or that... Oh, damn, that's a really solid lyric... Man, what a nice harmony they got there."
Third listen: "Okay, I think I love this song."

And then it just keeps going from there. They're the only band I can think of that doesn't have a single song I've come to like less over time - it's all been upward trajectory. So I'm curious what would've happened if you had, you know, infinite free time and listened to every song five or ten times prior to ranking. Whether you'd have ended up having that same relationship with a lot of their stuff or if I'm just a weirdo.

Anyway, as far as the track itself goes, it's definitely a big-time earworm. TDH pulls out the call-and-response style of song every once and a while and pretty much nails it every time. It's also kind of notable in being the last song in the whole story where Hunter's ego is really out of control, and with that being such a big part of his character (i.e. why bad things tend to happen to him more times than not), it ends up being kind of memorable in that way. The character in If All Goes Well feels like a different man entirely from the one we see even a few songs later in Ouroboros and then the majority of Act V... Which I guess is another reason that it plays even better on re-listens and so forth.

Very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Runaway Train!

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