Been wondering what on Earth Dave Malloy’s Ghost Quartet is about? You’re not alone pal.
According to the wikipedia article (don’t attack me and my sources this isn’t academia okay) there are four timelines:
The ‘fairytale’ of Rose, Pearl, the Astronomer and the Bear
The House of Usher (a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story)
Scheherazade and the ghost of Thelenious Monk (a famous jazz composer)
The subway murder ‘fable’
And because this is Dave Malloy we’re talking about, of course these timelines are interwoven despite spanning seven centuries.
However, there’s a fifth timeline as well, the one with the four friends who are the storytellers of these timelines but also are kinda there.
Okay let’s get started for real now. The way I’m going about this is telling you what songs go with which timeline (many are related to more than one!) and what they mean to the timeline:
A pretty loose intro; mentions other timelines but barely, mostly introductory to the philosophy of the show
Track 7: Any Kind of Dead Man
I actually have no clue what this song adds to the show besides being a bop but what I do know is that I love it. Also Gelsey hands out percussions to the crowd during this just like they do for Balaga in Great Comet so the more you know!
They sing about whiskey and give some to the audience. Listen, I understand this timeline the least okay. And by least I mean not at all.
Not much to explain. You can check the lyrics but it doesn’t give you a part of the stories.
Not on the recording; just a scene, right before the last song. In it it finally comes together that the friends are (modern?) Rose and Pearl, and Dave (the subway driver), and Brent (the pusher). So they’re the same as in the subway murder timeline but not quite, because they’re also all the other versions of themselves. Read the scene for yourself.
2. Rose & Pearl & The Astronomer & The Soldier & The Bear
This song provides a ~clear~ outline for the timeline; the short summary behind the book, if you may
Before we even really know about the story of Rose and her quest for, among other things, the secret baptism, we’re told about the child she stole.
Rose (Brittain) steals the honey from the soldier (Gelsey), who’s having a highkey existential crisis
If you’ve ever wondered what Dave Malloy’s diary would look like look no further
This is one of the clearer songs; Rose sees poetic things in the stars thanks to the astronomer, and asks him not to take the stars away form her. But she sees her and her sister in the stars and sees how ‘the younger one is in love but the lover is in love with the older not the younger’ and then Pearl also asks him not to take the stars away from her so even though you already knew you just know this can’t end well.
Rose Red meets Scheherazade, asking her for stardust, but Scheherazade isn’t sure she has any left
Rose discovers what’s been going on between the astronomer and her sister; she goes back to the bear with all he asked for in exchange of mauling the astronomer and turning her sister into a crow, but he tells her to do it herself; he really just wanted the honey.
Track 20: The Wind and Rain
Since the bear didn’t turn her into a crow, Rose pushed her sister in the river, in which she drowned. Her bones get fished out by a miller (Dave) and left on the bank to dry. A fiddler (Brent) passes by and makes (you know what’s coming) a fiddle out of her breast bone. I’m going to reach here but the song ends by saying how the fiddle would ever only play that one song, ‘the wind and rain’, which is used to describe the story of the sisters. This feels like full circle with the beginning of the show, because the stories only really begin to get told once Rose and Pearl talk about the fiddle.
Rose & Pearl (aka not quite from the fairytale) meet and Pearl tells Rose about her great grandmother’s story
On this track, Dave is the driver, Brittain is the photographer, Gelsey is Pearl who gets pushed onto the tracks, and Brent is the pusher. Note the lyrics “In the game I’m a soldier / In the game there’s a bear” which is one of those bridges between timelines as Gelsey is also the soldier from the fairytale
It’s implied Pearl dies in this song from being pushed on the tracks even though we’ve already been told about her death (news flash the show isn’t exactly chronological)
As it turns out the photographer was Rose, since she needed the picture of a ghost and Pearl on the tracks wasn’t dead yet but in a way she was already dead too. Both alive and dead at the same time, Pearl really was a ghost when the photograph was taken.
Edgar tells Lady Usher the story of the subway platform to distract her mind; Pearl plays the game on her phone, gets pushed on the tracks, tries to climb out but resigns herself and sees Rose at the last moment. She smiles for the camera, before the train hits her.
Rose is at a loss; she knows she did everything wrong but doesn’t know how she could’ve done them right either. I’m going to reach here but the way I understand it, she’s saying her sister dying (and kinda letting herself die since she gave up on getting out) felt like the train ran through her too.
Lady Usher (Gelsey) suffers from a mix of hyperesthesia, hypochondria and anxiety. She and her husband Edgar (Dave) have one daughter; Roxie (Brittain). Roxie herself has a daughter; the one Rose steals for the secret baptism, also known as starchild (but Rose is also starchild). Roxie is now depressed, and it’s implied the astronomer is the child’s father and abandoned her.
So this track is not on the official album because it’s not sung. Basically it recalls how Roxie had an imaginary friend called Rose (whom she calls a Starchild) but you can read it for yourself here.
Basically Roxie’s brother is the pusher? I think. Also for that one verse Brittain and Gelsey are singing as Rose and Pearl but which version of them to hell if I know. Someone with artistic vision plz explain.
Basically Roxie and Rose are the same person (but also Roxie’s daughter is also Rose) so when Roxie asks ‘where’s my sister’ and gets answered with ‘you don’t have a sister’ it’s about Pearl dying from being pushed on the tracks. After being reminded one last time her daughter is gone, Roxie dies herself. (Quick recap: Rose-Rose stole Starchild-Rose from Roxie-Rose)
This is basically a bridge that bridges the characters of Lady Usher and Scheherazade (you know since they’re both played by Gelsey)
Listen I could try to explain but I want you to appreciate how it all goes back to the original short story would you please read at least read its summary (see link at top of the post) and then read the lyrics just for me please.
5. Scheherazade & Thelenious Monk ghost version (but mostly Scheherazade)
Rose Red meets Scheherazade (Gelsey), asking her for stardust, but Scheherazade isn’t sure she has any left, a reflection of how she feels about how she’s aged
Another track not on the album since it’s a scene, in it Scheherazade’s sister (Brittain) asks her how Rose Red stole the starchild, and they discuss the ghost of Thelonious Monk being hidden behind a door near them, hidden away in 14th century Persia with the last piano in the world. Read it here.
Scheherazade has been telling the Shah the story of Rose and Pearl, a nod to how just like in Arabian Nights, Scheherazade connects her stories but doesn’t reveal it from the start, which is also what Ghost Quartet does.
Okayyy I have no idea if this will make any sense to anyone (I’m still a bit confused myself but hey) so if you really want to understand the most you can, I really suggest just hitting up Genius and reading all the lyrics (you get bonus annotations from Dave Malloy if you do so!) The premise of this post was that you had already listened at least only once so if you haven’t and feel put off, just take a deep breath, listen to the album a few times, and then come back to this post!
Now I’m not going to pretend like I really do know what I’m talking about so if you find I interpreted anything wrong please tell me I’ll adjust! I left some parts out (this post is long enough) but if I missed something crucial tell me as well!
Hopefully this was helpful!
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