"Typecast" by Hidden Hospitals, Thursday, November 24, 2022 (updated repost)

Last March, I wrote about the track that comes directly before "Typecast" on Hidden Hospitals' 2018 album Liars,  "Pulling Teeth." Liars is the second LP by the Chicago-based progressive rock band. Singer Dave Raymond started in a short-band called League in 2004 before joining a band called Damiera, a math-rock band which evolved into another band called Kiss Kiss. Finally in 2011, with member changes, Hidden Hospitals was ready to release their debut EP. The band's co-founder, guitarist Steve Downs departed before the band recorded Liars. With only Raymond left on guitar, the band experimented with synthesizers throughout the record. 

TELL ME A STORY I'VE HEARD BEFORE.  On the Little Fires podcast Dave Raymond explained some of the craft behind his lyrics and writing process. Raymond's discussion of rock music is perhaps the best description of the visceral feelings listeners get when listing to Hidden Hospitals. He says: "It ain't leather jackets and ripped jeans. It isn't sex and f--king slamming whiskey, it's just saying yes . . . whatever's coming at me is going right through me or over me. That's f--king rock 'n' roll." Raymond talks about working with J. Hall, producer and lead vocalist for the Helmet-influenced Hundred Years War, and about how Weezer's Blue Album changed his life musically, and ultimately switched his genre preference from Hip-Hop to rock and even helped him listen to The Beatles through the context of Weezer. Speaking of "Typecast," Raymond described the humorous lyrics as being "what my ego says I am." In psychological terms, though, it's actually the id carrying out these fantasies while the ego is moderating the life full of exploring a destructive self-serving addiction.

KICKING A DEAD HORSE THAT KICKS BACK. "Typecast" picks up the pace from "Pulling Teeth," which is an engaging song too. The heavy guitar of "Typecast" and the somewhat irregular drumming sound like they are playing competing rhythms, yet somehow when Raymond sings his quiet lyrics within the layers of sound, the song seems to even out. Like "Pulling Teeth," "Typecast" works in several metaphors, clichés, and mental images that take a bit of listening to make sense. The meaning of the term typecast refers to actors who are only cast as a particular role, often because of their excellence portraying that role or the actor's performance is so culturally linked to that role, the actor cannot be cast in any other role. However, the song seems to do little with acting, but rather deals with type-casted person, giving into their unadulterated self. What we have instead is a singer who lucidly tell his faults as a lover. The tone of the song is so sharp and biting that it seems that actually the partner of this lover or even an outside perspective is pretending to be the singer. "Typecast" sets up a truly toxic relationship in which the speaker wants control to the point where he even controls the level of spontaneity his lover is allowed to bestow. He says, "A scripted romance is half full of heart." He tells his lover to "Tell [him] a story [he's] heard before / One where [he] knows the ending." The lover is instructed: "Show me the moves I've loved you for, but nothing else." The singer can't help but admit that "I'll leave us broke[n] beyond compare / Terrorize your safest thoughts / I'm not the one you think you love."

Read “Typecast” by Hidden Hospitals on Genius.