YMMV / Miracle Musical

• Alternative Character Interpretation: The two most common interpretations of the protagonist of "The Mind Electric" are that he's either an innocent man who was sent to the electric chair or a mentally ill man who was subjected to electroshock therapy. A third option combines the two, wherein the man went for an insanity plea to save himself from execution, only to genuinely go insane after the shock therapy.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: "Labyrinth" is a rap song featuring two guest singers, telling a story about a guy trying to hide from his relationships. It stands in heavy contrast to the calmer, more quiet tone most other songs have. Nothing from "Labyrinth" ever comes up again in the album.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content:
  • "Time Machine (Demo 3)" is often considered better then the final track, sounding like an original Tally Hall song. It's a lot more active and involved than the distant and cold final version. The demo featuring Rob Cantor's voice rather than a robotic synth singing the entire thing also helps, with lines like "I await for all eternity" and "live the dream in a time machine" sounding much more emotional and human.
  • "Stranded Lullaby (Demo)" is also sometimes preferred to the album version due to its way sappier lyrics - so sappy, in fact, that Joe felt embarrassed by them and completely rewrote the song.
• Harsher in Hindsight: "The Mind Electric", a song about mental illness and its consequences, certainly becomes far darker following Joe Hawley's well-documented mental health struggles by 2023. It's even possible to view the song as a cry for help from his perspective.
• Older Than They Think: Some of the songs on this album are confused for being brand-new originals, while they actually date to earlier in Tally Hall's history.
  • "Isle Unto Thyself" dates back to January 2006. The original demo was titled "Matters" and the lyrics were written entirely from the first-person perspective.
  • "The Mind Electric" was originally a Tally Hall demo called "Inside the Mind of Simon" written for Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum in 2005. It required too many instruments and was too expensive, so they had to cut it. The lyrics are mostly the same, but notable changes include "resident minor" and "father, your honor" originally being "Resident Simon" and "Resident Marvin". "Inside the Mind of Simon" also has the line "please mend my mind and let me go free", which changed to "condemn him to the infirmary" in "The Mind Electric".
  • "Time Machine" dates back to May 2006 (or earlier), when Tally Hall played it in a live performance at The Blind Pig. The tone of the song is different, but the lyrics are all the same.
  • "Stranded Lullaby" dates from late 2004, in the form of "Our Lullabye", which was written for Joe's girlfriend in college. It, along with "Inside the Mind of Simon", was released on Broadjam not too long afterwards. This version notably features completely different lyrics, which were scrapped in Hawaii: Part ii as Joe was embarrassed about them.
  • An early instrumental of "Variations on a Cloud" can be heard in this outtake from Tally Hall's Internet Show.
• Signature Song: "The Mind Electric" is the most popular song on Hawaii: Part ii, for its intense story and heavy use in fan projects.

---