Assorted TPK Questions, Theories, And Observations

this is gonna be a load of random thoughts in no particular order LET’S GO

1 - Test sequence demo theory

In Toasty drop 2 we have 3 test sequences labeled 1, 3, and 5. 3 is the initial leak and the most advanced, 5 is the first lossless leak and chronologically would actually be 2, and 1 is the only one we didn’t previously have. I haven’t done any deep investigations or phase inversions but based off initial listenings and skimmings, 1 seems to be nearly identical to 5 (actually 2) except it cuts off after the end of Paper Swords missing Dive, High Hopes, and Dogs/Perfectly Well. I find it very interesting that those 3 tracks (excluding perfectly well but it’s weird) are the 3 we have definitive earlier demos for (dogs being the dialogue version). Based on that evidence I suspect those 3 demos were likely recorded along the same time as the construction of test sequence 1 and not considered complete enough to make the tracklist yet, but if you split it up adding those to the end would make a pretty cool demo version of the album.

2 - Witch Not From 2019, Then What Is It?

In Toasty drop 2 there’s 2 files titled Witch (Iso Test Day 2) 2 and Witch New Demo Iso Test Day 2 however to me they sound identical and are less than a megabyte apart in file size so for the purposes of this post I’ll consider it 1 track. It’s a fully different version of the witch instrumental notably starting with much darker chords and at least in my opinion having a more “MCRish” sound focusing more on electric guitars and drums than orchestral instrument. I like to call this one “Dark Witch” just because it’s an easy name. Someone originally leaked it on a CX thread claiming they got it from someone who said its from 2019 and transitions to Perfectly Well. The PW claim is pretty easily disputed considering that even though the end chord sounds similar to the beginning of PW on the test sequences, the unsequenced version doesn’t have that at the beginning meaning it’s just part of the Dogs outro. It being 2019 would have made sense with the 2019 WBTR instrumental being leaked but apparently it’s 2012. based on the file name you’d think it was made before the regular version of witch but to me it really feels more developed. I’m thinking it could have been made sometime after sequence 3 in an attempt to reign the album in a little and make it feel more like an MCR album before the project was inevitablely scrapped. or it could just be an old demo who knows.

3 - Pog Slide

The Pog Slide file is pretty clearly an orchestral arrangement of Falling Down. IMO it sounds way better than the weird techno version on the album. I would like to imagine this was made after sequence 3 and just never got finished, but it’s also possible this was first and they just liked the NES version more.

4- I’m Batman, You’re Batman, We’re All Batman!

According to lord Toastous, everything labeled Batman is from 2019. We can confidently say that in 2019 they were working on revitalizing TPK, based on the contents of some of the Batman sessions i think Batman was just an internal name for new 2019 material. it could either be by the band naming it that way, or whatever leaker originally had these files named them all that way as a code word possibly to keep a secret that they had new TPK material. The song just called Batman Map could have been a new unnamed song for 2019 TPK so they just slapped the Batman name on it. It’s very interesting that in the sessions there’s a nearly complete playthrough of Falling Down and a melody that seems way too close to High Hopes to be a coincidence. Originally I thought these were demo versions during the song writing process but now with the new context I’m thinking they were in a jam session and just revisiting old content to see what they still vibe with or what they wanna cut from the new album version. Since the test sequence version of Falling Down sounded so incomplete and the Pog Slide verison was lacking any vocals it would make a lot of sense why they would wanna revisit that song and rerecord it for the album, and High Hopes had different lyrics in the Batman session so maybe they weren’t gonna keep that exact song on the album but rewrite a new version with a similar chord progression and falsetto style. The Batman stuff is easily one of the weirdest parts of the entire leak lore. PS I think it would be cool to call 2019 TPK The Gotham Kingdom

5 - Fake Your Death Is Helena

3 Cheers starts with Helena, the lead single that’s very personally important to the band members and has some overlapping themes of loss with the rest of the album, but otherwise doesn’t really fit in with the overall story. It’s a good prelude but the real narrative starts at Give Em Hell Kid and if you only ever listened to the album starting on that track you would never realize anything is missing. I think Fake Your Death was meant in a very similar way to TPK with it being more about the band, and even though it shares the same themes of pain and loss with the concept, it doesn’t necessarily have a place directly in the story. Witch also sets up the intro to the story on track 2 with its iconic opening chords like Give Em Hell Kids opening bassline. It’s also kinda funny to think that after 3 cheers they did the black parade and now after TPK they’re still doing the black parade

6 - War Beneath The Rain 2019

If Gotham Kingdom Comes was fully realized I’m sure WBTR would have been on it but I’m very confident this is just an excerpt from a Batman style jam session and not an actual studio mixed album ready instrumental. The sparkly noises at the beginning are the end of whatever they were playing before, there’s also some mistakes like the piano cutting out for a few notes a little bit before the second chorus. It’s possible it was just a spur of the moment thing that piano man started playing it and everyone else went along but I think most likely someone said “hey let’s play war beneath the rain next” and we just didn’t hear it since they were only recording directly from the output of each of the instruments, partially evident by 1 guitar being in the left ear and the other guitar always in the right.

alright that’s it for now I’m sure I’ll think of more things eventually to yap about, let me know your thoughts on everything