History TearJerker / TheCaretaker

* Even with all that, the context behind the track's creation hits more personally: it was dedicated and performed at a tribute show to Kirby's late friend Mark Fisher (the writer of the liner notes for ''Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia'', later referencing the album in his 2014 book ''Ghosts of My Life''), [[DrivenToSuicide who tragically took his own life]] earlier in the year the track was released. While it was originally intended to just be for that tribute show, the piece was later on released on physical format and for free online, with Kirby simply asking that if listeners enjoy the piece, they should at least donate to Mind or any similar mental health charity in Fisher's name.

* "Burning despair does ache", following on from "And Heart Breaks" presents the patient's beloved memory as having been mutilated by degeneration almost to the point of non-recognition. It slowly ambles from key note to key note, becoming more and more distorted and malformed as it progresses. It is as if the music itself is ''in pain'', and it is hard not to feel sympathy for it as the memory it represents desperately tries to reconstitute itself, even though it is impossible.
* "Mournful Camaraderie" is a continuation of "Burning despair does ache", but with a pervasive, almost soothing yet deeply upsetting drone that follows the same malformation of "Heartaches" presented in the latter. It brings with it a sense of finality, that we really are witnessing the last moments of true lucidity of a mind which shall soon be destroyed by the disease that inexorably drags it towards its inevitable conclusion.

* "Mournful Camaraderie" is a continuation of "Burning despair does ache", but with a pervasive, half-soothing, half unnerving drone that follows the same malformation of "Heartaches" presented in the latter. It brings with it a sense of finality, that we really are witnessing the last moments of true lucidity of a mind which shall soon be destroyed by the disease that inexorably drags it towards its inevitable conclusion.

* Even with all that, the context behind the track's creation hits more personally: it was dedicated and performed at a tribute show to Kirby's late friend Mark Fisher (the writer of the liner notes for ''Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia'', later referencing the album in his 2014 book ''Ghosts of My Life''), who tragically took his own life earlier in the year the track was released. While it was originally intended to just be for that tribute show, the piece was later on released on physical format and for free online, with Kirby simply asking that if listeners enjoy the piece, they should at least donate to Mind or any similar mental health charity in Fisher's name.

[[TheStinger For thou did'st give thy life for mine,]]\\

-->''[[Literature/TheBible O Jesu Christ, thy Cross doth call me]],''
-->''[[TheStinger For thou did'st give thy life for mine]],''
-->''[[TheStinger For thou did'st give thy life for mine]].''
-->''[[TheStinger Thy Sacred Heart for me is breaking]],''
-->''[[TheStinger Thy Sacred Heart, for me is breaking]].''
-->''[[TheStinger For thee, my love at last is waking]],''
-->''[[TheStinger For thee, my love is waking]],''
-->''[[TheStinger My life forever more be thine]],''
-->'''''[[GrandFinale My life forever more be thine]].'''''

** This sample was also used back in the Caretaker's earliest albums, such as his debut ''Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom''. This makes it even more heartbreaking especially for those who have followed his work since the very beginning; at the end of it all, after the long and brutal decline, that one beautifully haunting aria resurfaces one last time before the silence of death consumes all else.

---->''Just before the battle, mother,\\

---->''Farewell, mother, you may never\\

If I'm numbered with the slain.''\\

--->''Just let me kiss him one more time,''
--->''And lay then my friend in the grave.''
--->''My beloved, these thy cheeks so pallid,''
--->''Awaken in me this longing,''
--->''For my love will not die.''

Some will sleep beneath the sod.''\\
''Farewell, mother, you may never\\

Some will sleep beneath the sod.''

---->''Farewell, mother, you may never\\

--->''Just before the battle, mother,\\

--->''Farewell, mother, you may never\\

* ''Everywhere at the End of Time'' is this pretty much by design, especially for those who have seen loved ones go through dementia.

* The Finale to Stage 5, "Sudden Time Regression Into Isolation" features the last gasp of clarity before "Place in the World fades away"; rather than the intricate melodies from earlier in the stage, the only recognisable sound that rises from the sounds of the patient's internal hellscape is the tiniest sequence of piano notes. Everything the patient holds dear has been so thoroughly destroyed by their disease that this is the most their brain can recall.

** This sample was also used back in the Caretaker's earliest albums, such as his very debut "Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom". This makes it even more heartbreaking especially for those who have followed his work since the very beginning; at the end of it all, after the long and brutal decline, that one beautifully haunting aria resurfaces one last time before the silence of death consumes all else.

* Stage 5's penultimate track is titled "Synapse Retrogenesis". In medicine, Retrogenesis refers to a theory that views the progression of Alzheimer's disease (and dementia by extension) as the inverse of neurodevelopment. The patient loses skills learned in adulthood first, then lose their basic life skills learned as children in the inverse of the order that they learned them, because their brains are degenerating and can no longer hold in the knowledge. All of this is accompanied by the cells themselves degenerating and dying, starting with demyelination and ending with cell death. Eventually, the brain becomes so damaged that it is no longer able to control the body, and death ensues. Thus, by this point, the trauma of the patient's death is inevitable and completely unstoppable, yet the horrors of their condition and its destructive force ''just keep coming.''

* "Internal Bewildered World" is a heavily modified recording of "Miserere" from an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFX9XethRb8 1899 version]] of ''Il Trovatore'' by Giuseppe Verdi. Though the track itself is so heavily extended that its words are almost unintelligible, the lyrics from the section used have been identified with the track, and come off both as haunting and extremely sad:

* Just the fact that the series starts off with pleasant, almost lullaby-like pieces that are nowhere near as distorted as the subsequent stages gives off this uneasy pleasantness of nostalgia. The fact that things go FromBadToWorse from there is also rather depressing within itself.

* Just the fact that the series starts off with pleasant, almost lullaby-like pieces that are nowhere near as distorted starting especially in Stage 4 gives off this uneasy pleasantness of nostalgia. The fact that things go FromBadToWorse from there is also rather depressing within itself.

* The disease is also relatable with the so-considered boulder in the cover art (titled "Happy in spite"), which has been interpreted as representing a failure to recreate a face (or person in general due to the matchstick) that the Caretaker saw before, due to the deterioration of their ability to recognize things.

--->''Just before the battle, mother,''
--->''I am thinking most of you,''
--->''While upon the field we're watching''
--->''With the enemy in view.''
--->''Comrades brave are 'round me lying,''
--->''Filled with thoughts of home and God''
--->''For well they know that on the morrow,''
--->''Some will sleep beneath the sod.''

--->''Farewell, mother, you may never''
--->''Press me to your heart again,''
--->''But, oh, you'll not forget me, mother,''
--->''If I'm numbered with the slain.''

* Stage 5's penultimate track is titled "Synapse Retrogenesis". In medicine, Retrogenesis refers to a theory that views the progression of Alzheimer's disease (and dementia by extension) as the inverse of neurodevelopment. The patient loses skills learned in adulthood first, then lose basic life skills learned as children in the inverse of the order that they learned them in childhood because their brains are degenerating and can no longer hold in the knowledge. Eventually, the brain can no longer control the body, and death ensues. By this point, the trauma of the patient's death is inevitable and completely unstoppable, yet the horrors of their condition and its destructive force ''just keep coming.''

* "Burning despair does ache", following on from "And Heart Breaks" presents the patient's beloved memory as having been mutilated almost to the point of non-recognition. It slowly ambles from key note to key note, getting more and more muddled as it progresses. It is as if the music itself is ''in pain'', and it is hard not to feel sympathy for it as the memory it represents desperately tries to reconstitute itself, even though it is impossible.

--->''Ah! How slow death is in its coming, to he who longs to die!''

* Stage 5's penultimate track is titled "Synapse Retrogenesis". In medicine, Retrogenesis refers to a theory that views the progression of Alzheimer's disease (and dementia by extension) as the inverse of neurodevelopment, beginning with demyelination and ending in the death of the brain's grey matter, ultimately resulting in the death of the patient themselves. By this point, the trauma of the patient's death is inevitable and completely unstoppable, yet the horrors of their condition and its destructive force ''just keep coming.''

** "What Does It Matter How My Heart Breaks" is the second rendition of the "Heartaches" {{Leitmotif}}. This version is significantly more despair-induced than the last ("It's Just a Burning Memory"), to the point of feeling resigned and completely hopeless. And this is only the third track...

* The disease is also relatable with the so-considered boulder in the cover art (titled "Happy in spite"), which has been interpreted as representing a failure to recreate a face (or person in general due to the matchstick) that the Caretaker saw before, due to the deterioration of their skills to recognize things.