#joey singing “if i am good will you come back” while Madeleine begs him not go ask her why she's sad is going to end me

[azures-grace]

"Stop making up death wishes and just take my life.. line..." he says...

Or at least that's a cliche to represent what he meant...

That's what I meant...

[clockworkouroboros]

Hi guys, ready for some more crazy The Amazing Devil nonsense? Because I sure am! Basically, a while ago (like a week after The Horror and the Wild came out) I made a post comparing Wild Blue Yonder and That Unwanted Animal, because they’re basically a song about the same couple on the same night, but from wildly different perspectives. I still wholeheartedly believe that — there are just too many things that match up (I don’t think I even got all the connections in that post) — but I’m here to add a new thought: Battle Cries also fits in with this.

It’s not quite as on-the-nose, and I didn’t notice it right away because Battle Cries is full of references to other songs, both musically (the end of all things motif) thematically (Rockrose and the Thistle) and lyrically (catch references to almost every song on the album somewhere in there). It’s a masterpiece, and I still don’t understand how Joey and Madeleine did it. Anyway. So I noticed the connections to WBY and TUA, but I didn’t read anything into it, since there are references to other songs in Battle Cries.

But I’ve been thinking about it, and it really seems like it’s about the same couple, on the same night as Wild Blue Yonder and That Unwanted Animal. So this post is me going through Battle Cries and finding/pointing out as many references as I can.

I’m going to start with Madeleine’s part: she begins, “I’m at the brink, don’t laugh/at those winks I’ve masked/who’ll save you when you fall?” Now, I’ve thought of this as a direct reference to That Unwanted Animal for well over a month. I mean, consider: “well hello, my hollow Holofernes,’ I wink but you don’t get the joke” in TUA. Not only are these the only two mentions of winking in the whole album, but both also reference jokes/laughter at the same time.

I also want to point out “who’ll save you when you fall” with TUA, because the climax of That Unwanted Animal is “hold the hand of the god-child, they said as he falls from the sky, be good to me I beg of him,” which also fits with this. She saves him when he falls, and it destroys her. (That’s one possible interpretation, and one that fits with this post.)

“Who wins this war? You’ve a knack/for applause from the back of the stalls but you lack/the conviction to look at me straight/and say yes” are Madeleine’s next lines in Battle Cries, and I really can’t figure out how a lot of it would tie into WBY or TUA, except for the last part. “You lack the conviction to look at me straight and say yes,” which ties into Battle Cries later with “don’t lie with your eyes, you know I despise that look.” It also fits into TUA with “don’t you hear that scratching/I ask your eyes” and Joey’s “I’ve got something in my eye” in WBY. In all of this, she’s looking for confirmation of something in his eyes, and he can’t deliver that.

I’m skipping over “don’t be uncouth, be a man, don’t lie with your eyes you know I despise that look” because I already covered it in the last paragraph, and the next section doesn’t really have any direct parallels to either song, and that’s the end of the first verse!

Obviously “these plates they smash like waves/place your smile in mine” is a direct callback to TUA (“these plates they smash like waves/place your hand in mine”) although it does seem to be more of a relationship sort of thing, rather than a “hold the hand of the god-child” thing in this. (I personally think “Place your smile in mine” is supposed to mean a kiss.)

Also, not to read too much into something (I say, reading too much into everything TAD-related) but “these lines aren’t wrinkles, dear heart” reminds me very much of “I’ve got knuckleburn from typing all these lines into your chest.” I already have a theory that all mentions of lines in this song are intended to be read both as lines on skin (“these lines aren’t wrinkles” sort of thing) and as lines like in a play (“come on love, please don’t start, sing your notes play your part”.)

Also, an interesting thing to note: Madeleine never sings the “it’s applause” part of “that creaking you hear in my bones is not pain, it’s applause,” she just stops at pain. Which I think ties into this somehow, but this post is going to be long enough without me getting into that. So I’m just throwing it out there as something for y’all to consider. Feel free to add onto this with your own ideas if you so desire!

Madeleine’s part in verse 2 again seems to refer to TUA/WBY. I mean, even the “we were gods” (and Joey’s “we were kids” response) goes hand in hand (ha) with the God-Child. They (or even just Joey) were gods and children at the same time. (Alternatively, this could be Joey refuting Madeleine’s point: “we were gods,” she says, and he replies with a sad, nostalgic smile, “no, we were kids,” but I prefer the other reading because the gods theory is very near and dear to my heart.)

The “come at me, you blaggards” section has a lot of things that interest me, but they’re in Joey’s part, so I’m skipping over it for now, and instead going on to “I’m not a drunkard, a daughter, a creature, God knows how you dragged us both into the darkness that grows.”

This section screams TUA especially to me. The drunkard part references earlier in Battle Cries (plus other references to drinking, like in Marbles or FW?), and the daughter part references (directly contradicting) THatW, but “a preacher” is interesting, because in TUA, Madeleine refers to herself as a priest. (“I’m the paper cut that kills you and the priest that you ignored”.) I’ve mentioned elsewhere (probably not on Tumblr, mostly I spew my bs on Discord) that this section is Madeleine directly refuting claims about her from earlier songs on the album, and this is notable because this is the only claim that she makes about herself that she contradicts. But that’s beside the point. “You dragged us both into the darkness that grows” is also interesting within this reading (although I have a lot of thoughts about this line just in general, but I’m trying to stay on focus a little bit), because it really fits with the “‘be good to me I beg of him,’ ‘No, no, not I’” at the end of TUA. Like I said earlier, she saves him, and it (he) destroys her.

(Notice also how Madeleine’s character blames Joey, while Joey sings “we sunk into water no creature can know,” not distributing blame to either party.)

Next is the biggest WBY/TUA section of this entire song: Madeleine sings “I won’t leave without a fight,” while Joey sings “I won’t let you turn our last night into this.” This is a breakup, their last night together, just like in WBY (“one last time, love, come and rip my clothes off”). And Madeleine’s picking the fight, while Joey doesn’t want a bad ending. It perfectly fits the narrative that both WBY and TUA have already created. (Also: “I’m gonna binge watch a box set, drink wine, reminisce” with “the wine stains hide the tears” earlier?)

To move onto Joey’s part, obviously his lines are more lighthearted, hopeful, all of that. In verse one, he seems to be looking back at the night: check out his “the wind feels so warm on the back of my neck, as I walk with the sun hand-in-hand from the wreck, some fictions we took to mean fate, believe me I know.” The wreck goes well with the storm and wind that keeps being mentioned in TUA, plus TUA’s “I make shipwrecks out of my dress and the door below us splinters.” This is afterwards. The sun has come out after the storm. “The wrinkles and bricks” bit that he sings first also goes well with this, especially the “fictions we took to mean fate.” Compare it with Madeleine’s “every brick you hurled I’ll use to build this world” in WBY.

Also, not to bring back a theme, but truth and eyes are both mentioned in Joey’s part, except he’s not accusing Madeleine of lying. “Tell the truth to me love, does my hair look as nice as it did when you once tied it up in your eyes?” Just something I thought was worth mentioning.

Joey’s part in verse 2 similarly complements Madeleine’s. “With you I could summon the gods and the stars, make them dance out the plays that we wrote from the heart, and we’d laugh at the ghosts of our fears.” I’m going to draw from both this and the “come at me, you blaggards” section because, as I mentioned earlier, I have a lot of thoughts about this.

What I really have focused on is the “wielding words” aspect of this section. (“Wielding words against make-believe wizards and tanks” which again, refers back to “some fictions we took to mean fate” but that’s not important right now.) Words as weapons/something to be feared pops up multiple times in this album, and notably, it shows up in all three songs I’m talking about. “Those words we flung for fear of sound” in WBY, “you turn the telly on to drown out your fear and make the bed up silent on the floor so no one will hear us” in TUA both have this idea of words/sound being something to fear. (Consider also THatW’s “you’re the words that I promise I don’t mean”.) However, Joey considers these a fiction at this point: “we laugh at the ghosts of our fears.”

The next section is “but we sunk into water no creature can know, you dragged us along to watch all of your shows, our devils broke rank and out of the depths came an army,” which. Hoo boy. Sinking into water fits with the shipwreck/storm idea of That Unwanted Animal, and the idea of an army coming out of those depths against them works well with all the things they’re afraid might be out there in WBY. (wolves, demons, robot vampire, i dunno!)

Joey’s “I won’t let you turn our last night into this” fits well with the idea of Madeleine coming in and turning the situation into what happens in TUA. And the last verse of the song seems to be an actual ending to this story. While both WBY and TUA end before the night does — WBY with “I’ll bruise you” and TUA with the god-child refusing to be good to her, another parallel, I think — Battle Cries ends with a proper resolution to the situation. It’s the one part of Battle Cries that doesn’t fit with the other two songs, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an extension of those songs.

I know this isn’t everything but this post has gotten really, really long so if you want extra thoughts about this, feel free to send an ask my way! And as always, if you have thoughts of your own, I love seeing people add on to these posts.

TLDR: the songs Wild Blue Yonder, That Unwanted Animal, and Battle Cries are all songs about the same couple on the same night. Battle Cries is only different in that it gives a conclusion to the story.