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REDRUM ROAD – ROUND THREE – 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 TWO START ⎔ SPECIAL: STORY ROOM
- “You never give me your money/You only give me your funny paper” – In round 1 Backward Wendy is dragging Jack into the storeroom. In 2, backward Jack is storming up the hall to the Gold Room, and here Danny is racing to the hidey hole. So, people are travelling in states of distress at all the beginnings, and this song contains a few similar images (“Step on the gas, and wipe that tear away!”).
- Also, the “funny paper” line could be read as a reference to the newspapers and magazines strewn about this room, and the Suite 3 bedroom in round 2. Also, round 1 Wendy has just seen all of Jack’s “funny paper” (All Work) in the lounge. And it could draw our attention to all the significant reading materials around the Boulder apartment here. The book directly to the doctor’s right is Orange Wednesday, which one of the cover designs suggests is something like a Jonathan Demme 80s comedy.

- “And in the middle of negotiations/You break down” – Danny’s door not fully closing. But also, this is the spot from where Danny will scream when Hallorann gets murdered, in a moment.

- “I never give you my number/I only give you my situation” – Wendy offering her Slims but not (yet) offering up any clues that might lead to the real reason for Tony.
- Incidentally, although we covered this on the other side of the mirrorform, this is the moment when (in round 1) backward Wendy is dragging Jack through the kitchen, which happens to cross paths with forward Jack here stalking to the kill zone.

- “And in the middle of investigation/I break down” – I probably don’t need to explain this one. Though I wonder if we might get a clue to this line’s meaning, or any of the lyrics, by knowing more about the contents of the books around the room.
- There’s also an interesting thing here of bright natural light throughout the rounds. Round 1 features a defeated backward Jack laying in the hard pool of light at the bottom of the lounge stairs. Round two features Wendy holding trauma Danny in a bath of lounge light. And here it’s the doctor. In all three instances there’s a kind of interrogation going on. The doctor about Danny’s trauma, round 2 also includes the post-237 autopsy between Wendy and Jack, and round 1 overlays with Hallorann and Danny trying to get information out of each other.

- Right on the tonal shift, Wendy seems to get her wits and realize she should be trying to break out of the bathroom. Round 1 backward Wendy clubs Jack here.

- “All the money’s gone/Nowhere to go” – Wendy trying to use the knife to break out of the bathroom.

- “Any jobber got the sack” – The cut between these mirror moments plays comedic, with bathroom Wendy’s exasperation functioning almost like a punchline. Also, Hallorann is the only “jobber” who’s about to get the sack, here. In fact, on “sack” his head passes the Suite 3 bathroom window (the yellow dash between his and the doctor’s heads). And that’s where Jack was just chopping with an axe, which is how he’ll get the sack.
- Also, the next line is “Monday morning/Turn it back” and after this line, the Suite 3 window appears on the other side of Hallorann’s head. Monday morning in the film takes place in two locations: the lobby (1:20) and Suite 3 (4:20). The Suite 3 part goes on way longer.
- And one more thing, the scene that mirrors over the entirety of MONDAY is the ghost ball, but especially the Grady/Jack tryst. That’s where Hallorann’s honour is besmirched with a racial epithet.
- “But oh that magic feeling” – Wendy rolling her eyes in relief at the news that there’s nothing physically wrong with Danny. Mirrors over Hallorann’s rescue.
- In round 2, this moment is backward Wendy finding the bruises on Danny’s neck, and in round 1 it’s backward Jack saying he’s gonna bash Wendy’s brains in.
- Also, the magic feeling is about having nowhere to go, and we’ve got the clew behind Wendy’s head here, a reference to Theseus in the labyrinth against the minotaur. The minotaur’s whole problem is that he has nowhere to go. He just wanders around in the maze all day like an idiot. With that in mind, there’s a box of Froot Loops behind Wendy’s head. Loops = nowhere to go.

- “Nowhere to go” – As the backward doctor and Wendy sit, Jack is stalking to kill Hallorann and looks up the lobby’s back hall with all the art. What he doesn’t realize in this moment (because he has no shine ability), is that Danny is hiding behind the black door at the end here, in the shiny cabinet with the broken door (see proof below). Danny has nowhere to go, he’s found his hiding spot. And that’s a magic feeling.


- “Nowhere to go!” – Jack overlaying with Horse and Train, a painting in which a dark horse races toward an oncoming train. The train has nowhere to change direction to, but the horse does. Still, our sense is that the horse and train will collide. In the static nature of a painting, both figures will remain locked in this pre-death formation forever. Just as murder Jack here might’ve wished to not murder Hallorann and not get locked in the hotel forever in the form of an unfeeling photograph, and just as backward Wendy here might’ve wished to never reveal to this sophisticated doctor the truth about her shabby marriage.
- Also there’s a good bit of homicidal Jack in the three rounds. Round 1 features backward Jack stalking Wendy up the stairs, round 2 features Jack exploding at the idea of leaving the Overlook (right after a shot of the bloodfall), and round 3 is Jack moments away from killing Hallorann, getting into place.

- “One sweet dream/came true/today” – Danny in bed trying to remember a vision he had earlier, among other things. This section of the song plays through half the Hallorann-approaches-his-doom segment. When Jack’s axe collides in a moment, we’ll see Danny’s scream face, which is part of the sweet dream Danny’s trying to recall.
- In round 1 Danny has just stolen 237 from Hallorann’s head, and in round 2 he’s emerging to his parents from the trauma of 237. Here he’s deciding he doesn’t wanna talk about Tony anymore, the little boy who shows him terrible things. Like the twins who flash again outside 237, and the scream face that’s about to be realized, and the bloodfall that’s not long after.

- “1234567/All good children go to heaven” – On the fourth refrain of this line, Hallorann is just about to get axed. He’s axed on five and on the floor by six. By seven he must be dead.
- In round 1, at Hallorann’s axing, Wendy’s just entering the lobby, charting the same path as Hallorann’s death march. In round 2, on the third refrain, we’re seeing Jack’s-eye-view starting to move toward the ghost ball, but at the same moment, Hallorann is just breaking through to the forest service. So it’s as if a ghostball-bound Jack crosses the spot where he’ll kill Hallorann right at the moment of Hallorann’s death.
- And this is super obscure, but in the round 2 Hallorann distress call scene, he walks past a Car and Driver magazine with the Porsche 911 on the cover. And here, Danny has his Emergency! lunchpail.

- “3” – On this number in “1234567” we see the middle of three scream faces from Danny during Hallorann’s death. Also, if we count the first scream face vision he sees at the beginning, this is the third time we ever see this shot.
- I admit, I’m disappointed the scream faces don’t happen on 2, 3, and 7. But it’s something, anyway.
- The dialogue in the mirrorform here is the doctor asking “Do you remember when you were brushing your teeth?” When he was brushing his face, he saw what we’re seeing through the mirrorform. And this image epitomizes Danny’s horror at Hallorann’s doom, and his role as Hallorann’s possible saviour. So, is Danny one of the “good children” who will “go to heaven”? Maybe this cost him his spot. For the record, I think you have to be pretty monstrous to think that. But certainly you can imagine Danny’s ensuing guilt for everything that happened.

- During the 7th refrain, Jack emerges, and it’s funny to think that Jack could be excited at the notion that his son is about to enter the kingdom of heaven, by his own hand. If this was such a grand thing, Jack should not be the slightest bit miffed about his own entrance into the Overlookian afterlife. But when he can’t find Danny in the maze, and the cold collapses him, his air is of defeat and grave frustration. He should be glad! He’s going to get to stay in the Overlook forever and ever and ever. Just like he always wanted!

Click here to continue to Redrum Road: Sun King – Round 3
MAIN PAGE ⎔ SECTION PAGE ⎔ SITE MAP ⎔ GLOSSARY
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