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REDRUM ROAD – ROUND TWO – SKIP TO A PAGE
COME TOGETHER ⎔ SOMETHING ⎔ MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER ⎔ OH! DARLING ⎔ OCTOPUS’S GARDEN ⎔ I WANT YOU ⎔ HERE COMES THE SUN ⎔ BECAUSE ⎔ YOU NEVER GIVE ME YOUR MONEY ⎔ SUN KING ⎔ MEAN MR. MUSTARD ⎔ POLYTHENE PAM ⎔ SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW ⎔ GOLDEN SLUMBERS ⎔ CARRY THAT WEIGHT ⎔ THE END
ROUND ONE START ⎔ ROUND THREE START ⎔ SPECIAL: STORY ROOM
- “Joan was quizzical/Studied pataphysical science in the home” – Mirror Jack is quizzically asking, “You a married man, are you, Mr. Grady?” Also, I’ve probably droned about pataphysics long enough, but I appreciate that we’re hearing about it while It’s All Forgotten Now is playing on the movie soundtrack in the mirrorverse. Pataphysics can definitely be added to the list of things society has forgotten about.
- Also, general note: there’s always a can of Maxwell House coffee visible behind the refrigerator in Suite 3, but when this scene does the whip-pan from Danny to Jack, the can is blurred out of recognition.
- “Can I take you out to the pictures, Jo-oh-oh-oan” – Mirror Jack is studying Grady’s face in the mirror, because he recognizes him. And he’s about to say “I recognize ya. I saw your picture in the newspaper.”
- In round 1 of this moment, Wendy is running past the pictures where photo Jack will forever be trapped, and here, Jack is studying a man dressed almost exactly as he’ll be dressed in the final photo. So it’s almost like Jack is warming up to the idea of becoming photo Jack in this moment.
- “Bang! Bang! Maxwell’s silver hammer came down upon her head” – Jack will be standing in this very spot when he’s bringing his silver hammer down on the Suite 3 bathroom door in 68 minutes (an image that will show an axe chewing through a door with Wendy’s head on the other side). But also, backward Jack is reacting to hearing ol’ Jeevesy call himself Delbert Grady, and is starting to process the mental image of him chopping up his wife and kids into little bits.
- “Back in school again/Maxwell plays the fool again” – Jack is asking Danny if he likes it here, and Danny plays the fool, saying “Yes, dad”. Mirror Grady is name-dropping himself and playing the fool of not knowing how that could possibly be of any significance to anyone.
- “Teacher gets annoyed/wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene” – A few things here. On “annoyed” backward Jack is giving a brusque “Fine” to Grady who says cleaning him up won’t take long. Jack is “formerly a schoolteacher”. Forward Jack has just had a moment of annoyance, scanning Danny for whether or not the boy is being deceitful about really liking it here. Then on “unpleasant scene” Jack is echoing the Grady twins, saying “I wish we could stay here forever, and ever, and ever!” which brings to mind hacked up children, but also, the last time we heard this lyric (round 1) we were seeing backward ghost Grady toasting at Wendy next to Hallorann’s corpse in the lobby (along with Ullman telling the Grady story). Next time (round 3) it’ll be Wendy witnessing the All Work pages, which isn’t quite a hat trick, but it’s close, I’d say. As I’ve said a few times, Jack’s “work” comes to be some nonsense verse and Hallorann’s murder, and nothing else.
- Also, it’s not perfect timing, but Jack did just have the advocaat spilled on him, and tries to act cool in front of all the ghosts. Unpleasant scene = averted.
- “She tells Max to stay/When the class has gone away/So he waits behind” – Mirror Jack holds the door open for Jeevesy.
- Also, Jack’s “ever and ever and ever” finishes on “She tells Max to stay”. Jack wishes he could stay.
- “Writing 50 times I must not be so, oh oh oh” – At its most open, we can see that the top set of diamonds is ten diamonds across, and the rows are five down. So, while there’s never 50 on screen at one time, that’s what we’re being told this rug has. Readers of my larger theories will note that this is what I call the bloodrug (due to the double-helix/DNA patterns in the diamonds), and that it seems to function like Jack’s version of the bloodfall. It appears three times sideways–once here, twice in at the 2nd entrance–and once vertically, hanging to the left of the photo where Jack becomes trapped forever. So, there’s four bloodrug appearances and four bloodfall appearances (three in Danny’s visions and once to Wendy). 8 is not 50, but I think there’s something to be said for how these bloody things are encouraging us and Jack to not be so…murderous. Oh oh oh.
- “But when she turns her back on the boy/He creeps up from behind/Bang! Bang!” – First off, backward Jack is passing the older 237 ghost, who’s buried in the audience here (her face is just up from forward Jack’s shoulder, by the table light): both Danny and Jack crept up on the 237 ghost.
- Next, Danny asks Jack if he would ever hurt him and Wendy, surprising him with this question. Also, the reason backward Jack got advocaated was because a ghost woman passed, causing Grady to stumble into Jack. She went off in the direction of the washroom and disappeared, so backward Grady and Jack are creeping up behind her, here.
- And, a split second off from the “Bang! Bang!”, backward Jack gives Grady two claps on the back, leaving the advocaat stain. Also, you might recall from the bonus materials that I have a theory that the man at the bar just right of forward Danny’s head here is actually George Harrison, all dolled up. He sadly misses out on appearing during any song he wrote (if it is him), but I still think it’s pretty cool that he would appear for the first time (in the mirrorform) as Jack claps Grady’s back, and the audio goes “Bang! Bang!” That feels very punctuating, like the first “right now” in round 1 Come Together.
- On the second chorus we get the view of the Suite 3 bathroom again, as if to remind us that Jack will indeed be bringing his silver hammer down there.
- Also, Stanley’s daughter, Vivian Kubrick appears here (to the left of both Jacks, smoking), and will remain on screen for a while. I wonder if this was to help invoke again that notion of Kubrick being as perfectionist as McCartney was in recording this song. Also, Vivian and the woman next to her are dressed in all white and all black, like a taijitu. But silver is like grey in being a midway between the two. Is that what Kubrick thought the silver in silver hammer stood for? A greyness? An ambiguity? Of course, McCartney wrote this and Golden Slumbers (both three songs from either end of the album), as if he wanted the 1st and 2nd place medals.
- Also, the woman next to Vivian bears some resemblance to her sister, Anya Kubrick (for whom there aren’t any(?) pictures in that era), which would fit with the general theme of daughters getting murdered. But don’t quote me; I could be wrong about that.
- There’s a lovely piano roll while the drinks are spilling backwards off mirror Jack.
- “PC 31” – Right as the lyrics come back after the bridge Jack goes into a little dance. But what’s more, in this stanza, PC (Police Constable) 31 takes Maxwell before a judge, where he “stands alone”. Which is to say, Maxwell is representing himself in this trial. This is interesting because the drink that Grady just unspilled on him is called advocaat, which means “lawyer’s drink”. So, mirror Jack has just lost his representation, and must now defend himself. Forward Jack is testifying to his son that he loves Danny and would never do anything to hurt him.
- “The judge does not agree” – Lloyd is telling Jack that the matter of who’s buying his drinks does not, in fact, concern him at this moment.
- Also, this is pretty obscure, but two of the toys Danny is playing with here (the SWAT van and the pink lorry) appeared during the kitchen scene where Wendy was hearing about how “Rutherford was serving a life sentence for his conviction in the 1968 shooting”. So a judge did not agree with ol’ Rutherford.
- “A noise comes from behind” – On “behind” the ball rolls up.
- Also, there’s a Kubrick seated right behind Jack here. Just to continue with the possible subtext of Kubrick being Maxwell.
- Spooky moment during the finale when Lloyd’s hand appears to push Danny toward 237. Seemed worth mentioning, for all the sneaking up from behind that Maxwell does.
- “Silver hammer man” – The god Apollo was known to possess a silver and a gold quiver, which he would stock with golden arrows. He was also a god of music and poetry, but that’s not of particular significance to Redrum Road at this moment.
- Fans of my Sand Creek massacre theory will find some poignancy, perhaps, in the combination of this gleeful murder ballad with the combination of Apollo (Theatre) and the Nakoda girl painting.
- Jack does a goofy little dance to the end music, and it’s quite on point. It almost seems to mock McCartney’s love of this kind of music. The other Beatles hated this song, but McCartney must’ve been pleased with himself to put them through the hell of recording it.
Click here to continue on to Redrum Road: Oh! Darling – Round 2
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OTHER MAIN PAGES FOR SHINING ANALYSIS
THE MIRRORFORM ⎔ THE BEATLES ⎔ THE RUM AND THE RED
BACKGROUND ART ⎔ OVERLOOK PHOTOGRAPHS ⎔ GOLDEN SPIRALS
PHI GRIDS ⎔ PATTERNS ⎔ VIOLENCE AND INDIGENA ⎔ ABSURDITIES
THE STORY ROOM ⎔ ANIMAL SYMBOLS ⎔ THE ANNOTATED SHINING
EYE SCREAM 