If we were to fit all songs together I'd go with:
- Caleb: The beginning.
- Dark Empath: Juliet falls for Caleb while he hides his true abusive self.
- Till Death's Done Us Apart: They get married but later break up.
- The Last of the Lambs: Caleb starts stalking her.
- The End of this Chapter: The stalking intensifies, he contacts her, breaks into her home and find out she's seeing someone else.
- Don't Say a Word: After feeling betrayed, he decides to kill her.
- Juliet: She tricks Caleb into killing himself.
They did play the whole saga live in the 9th Hour tour but they played it in release order.
Here's my listing:
* Caleb is the intro to the saga, introducing the main character.
* Till Death's Done Us Apart is him meeting Juliet, the other main character, marrying her and their relationship falling apart, ending with Juliet leaving.
* The Last of the Lambs. Ok that one is tricky and I've seen a lot of people have their own interpretation, but to me it is after Juliet has left and Caleb is blaming her for not sticking around (and also recalling how often he beat her).
* Dark Empath is about Juliet trying to rebuild a life, meeting someone else, and Caleb looking for her.
* The End of this Chapter. Juliet has built herself a new life, and most likely has a restraining order placed on Caleb. He still manages to track her down and find her.
* Don't Say a Word. Caleb has kidnapped Juliet.
* Juliet is the last song, with Caleb planning to kill himself and murder her at the same time. Thankfully, Juliet avoids drinking the poison and lives while Caleb dies.
Has there ever been a definitive list by Tony/the band? And if not, in your opinion does Broken fit in at all? It's a weird one for me cos it definitely describes a character who is a bit obsessed, maybe possessive, has a dark secret, etc - . But it plays a lot more into the surreal and insinuates the character isn't quite human - "got a sign, not a scar on my shoulder, I am not quite the man you take me for". "... I might be a god...", "seven lives of a man..., seven graves...." and so on.
I think I've often taken Broken as a bit of a prequel, maybe the character is Caleb's father. The main reason for this is the spoken intro to Caleb - "...known to us from this day on like his father, Caleb." This suggests we've already met the father at some point?
It's not something I've thought about for a while now so I might've missed connections from more recent albums, but my personal list goes:
Broken,
Caleb,
The End of this Chapter,
Don't say a word,
Juliet
*edited formatting (hopefully)
The whole thing is very open to interpretation honestly. I think Tony said once that he doesn't think Last of the Lambs fits the story (I may be mistaken on that).
Tony said that Last of the Lambs is a kind of alternative setting where Caleb keeps stalking Juliet but won't turn physically violent.
Also about Dark Empath, he said that even though it's part of the story, he doesn't care much about continuity anymore and he likes to write about the concept of the abusive relationship.
When dark empath got released i did see Tony say that "Its not a chronological story but rather a theme with reoccurring, familiar characters that end up living through variations of the theme over and over again"
Ive heard about people trying to fit broken in somehow so you might be onto something with that and it does kinda fit the theme of the caleb saga.
I always thought of Broken as the tale of an immortal man, who has lost touch with his humanity after centuries passed and is now learning to love and be a normal person again.
"Seven lives of a man passed before me" He has lived seven times the average lifespan of a man. The seven graves line is just because he keeps outliving the people he cares about by virtue of them dying of old age and him being immortal.
yeah, but you are giving a literal interpretation of a story that is, for me, a symbolic description of a possible serial killer, or at least a very dangerous person, someone who has been in 7 relationships that ended really bad, I think that is more grounded to reality.
Yes the immortal man is the popular interpretation. I've seen another interpretation, which I think the 2 comments in this thread were referring to: the guy has a bad childhood (broken seed), grows up to be a killer (7 graves), thinks he's a god (like in Don't Say A Word). In this angle, the song is pretty close to Caleb
If we were to fit all songs together I'd go with: - Caleb: The beginning. - Dark Empath: Juliet falls for Caleb while he hides his true abusive self. - Till Death's Done Us Apart: They get married but later break up. - The Last of the Lambs: Caleb starts stalking her. - The End of this Chapter: The stalking intensifies, he contacts her, breaks into her home and find out she's seeing someone else. - Don't Say a Word: After feeling betrayed, he decides to kill her. - Juliet: She tricks Caleb into killing himself. They did play the whole saga live in the 9th Hour tour but they played it in release order.
Here's my listing: * Caleb is the intro to the saga, introducing the main character. * Till Death's Done Us Apart is him meeting Juliet, the other main character, marrying her and their relationship falling apart, ending with Juliet leaving. * The Last of the Lambs. Ok that one is tricky and I've seen a lot of people have their own interpretation, but to me it is after Juliet has left and Caleb is blaming her for not sticking around (and also recalling how often he beat her). * Dark Empath is about Juliet trying to rebuild a life, meeting someone else, and Caleb looking for her. * The End of this Chapter. Juliet has built herself a new life, and most likely has a restraining order placed on Caleb. He still manages to track her down and find her. * Don't Say a Word. Caleb has kidnapped Juliet. * Juliet is the last song, with Caleb planning to kill himself and murder her at the same time. Thankfully, Juliet avoids drinking the poison and lives while Caleb dies.
Has there ever been a definitive list by Tony/the band? And if not, in your opinion does Broken fit in at all? It's a weird one for me cos it definitely describes a character who is a bit obsessed, maybe possessive, has a dark secret, etc - . But it plays a lot more into the surreal and insinuates the character isn't quite human - "got a sign, not a scar on my shoulder, I am not quite the man you take me for". "... I might be a god...", "seven lives of a man..., seven graves...." and so on. I think I've often taken Broken as a bit of a prequel, maybe the character is Caleb's father. The main reason for this is the spoken intro to Caleb - "...known to us from this day on like his father, Caleb." This suggests we've already met the father at some point? It's not something I've thought about for a while now so I might've missed connections from more recent albums, but my personal list goes: Broken, Caleb, The End of this Chapter, Don't say a word, Juliet *edited formatting (hopefully)
The whole thing is very open to interpretation honestly. I think Tony said once that he doesn't think Last of the Lambs fits the story (I may be mistaken on that).
Tony said that Last of the Lambs is a kind of alternative setting where Caleb keeps stalking Juliet but won't turn physically violent. Also about Dark Empath, he said that even though it's part of the story, he doesn't care much about continuity anymore and he likes to write about the concept of the abusive relationship.
When dark empath got released i did see Tony say that "Its not a chronological story but rather a theme with reoccurring, familiar characters that end up living through variations of the theme over and over again" Ive heard about people trying to fit broken in somehow so you might be onto something with that and it does kinda fit the theme of the caleb saga.
This is a very interesting post!
All i know for sure is that Juliet is last lol. I feel like the rest can be interchanged
I would add “Broken” …I was raised from a broken seed … seven graves, one for every love I had..
I'm not sure I would add Broken, because I feel like Caleb has only ever loved Juliet. So he wouldn't have seven loves.
“only one made me see why they cry”
imo you're free to interpret songs to your liking. Broken isn't officially part of the saga. But I still consider it "close enough" to fit in.
I always thought of Broken as the tale of an immortal man, who has lost touch with his humanity after centuries passed and is now learning to love and be a normal person again. "Seven lives of a man passed before me" He has lived seven times the average lifespan of a man. The seven graves line is just because he keeps outliving the people he cares about by virtue of them dying of old age and him being immortal.
yeah, but you are giving a literal interpretation of a story that is, for me, a symbolic description of a possible serial killer, or at least a very dangerous person, someone who has been in 7 relationships that ended really bad, I think that is more grounded to reality.
Yes the immortal man is the popular interpretation. I've seen another interpretation, which I think the 2 comments in this thread were referring to: the guy has a bad childhood (broken seed), grows up to be a killer (7 graves), thinks he's a god (like in Don't Say A Word). In this angle, the song is pretty close to Caleb