I need to discuss the new Requiem lyrics because I have…feelings about the Murphy siblings again.
The added verse, to me, changes Zoe’s whole tone in the song, makes it feel like Zoe holds a lot of regret, in addition to anger and bitterness. “you were the flood that swallowed us whole/refusing the love we endlessly gave you” hits me especially hard. Clearly, Zoe wanted to help her brother before he died, she wanted him to get better, to be the brother he was when they were younger, she always wanted her brother back. And that’s pretty clear in Zoe’s reaction to Evan’s story, especially in If I Could Tell Her and You Will Be Found.
But hearing it unprompted in Zoe’s own words really drives the point home. The verse mostly focuses on the other Murphys being “swallowed whole” by Connor, of them being unable to control him (“you were fire, out of control/the blaze that couldn’t be tamed”) and that just kills me, because it implies that they were trying, that she, specifically was trying.
It paints her anger in an entirely different light. Not only is she angry and resentful towards Connor for how he treated her, and rightfully so, I think she’s also angry at him for killing himself. It’s obvious in Larry’s verse in the original Requiem, that he’s angry at Connor for committing suicide, but it never comes through in Zoe’s lyrics. At least, until this version. Now, she’s angry at him for forcing her to “play the grieving girl,” for ending his life.
The Zoe Murphy in this version of Requiem isn’t just angry at how her brother treated her before he died, isn’t just unsure how to go about mourning someone who made her life so difficult. The Zoe Murphy in this version of Requiem absolutely didn’t want her brother to die, is absolutely grieving him, and is absolutely furious because, from her perspective, he refused to see that they were trying to help him, that she was trying to help him, refused to reach out to her, and ultimately killed himself, because he couldn’t see that his family did, in fact, love him, and that he wasn’t alone.
And that’s honestly even more tragic than it was before.
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