"The Road to Hell" form Hadestown
“The Road to Hell”, a song from Hadestown, ultimately describes everything that will happen in the play. It tells who all the characters are and their purpose in the story, how there is a long journey to get to Hadestown which many will take, all to have it end in a sad tragedy. This is very contradicting to the melody shown in this version because you'll hear this upbeat melody making the listener happy and ready to hear more even though they are being told that a horribly sad thing is awaiting the characters of this tragic tale. The song all starts with you meeting the fates. In simple terms, the fates are your conscience more the insecurities than anything. You literally hear the song go, “And you always hear them in the back of your mind” (The Road to Hell). Most people have that voice telling them what to do, or that what they're doing is wrong. The difference between that consciousness and this one is how they show themselves; here you hear the Fates describing the fear that the characters are going through, telling us their insecurities, not just what they're thinking. The song goes on to tell you who some of the main characters are, for instance, Persephone. She is one of the gods in this story; more known as the god of spring and summertime. You also hear about her lover Hades; The god of the underground mine, well known as Hell. You meet your last god, the one that shows everyone to their final destination, Hermes, “Who could help you to your final destination/Hermes/Thats me”(IDK). Hermes is the narrator of this story making sure many people can hear the story of Orpheus and Euridice. That leads the song to introduce you to Orpheus and Eurydice, your main protagonists trying to save the spring. The introduction only gives us so much information but if you look at the end of the play “The Road To Hell (Reprise)”, you are looking at the concussion, you will see much more of the real tragic love story; told how you would expect the beat being very down it invokes a feeling of melancholy. Some of the first lyrics in this are, “ Don’t ask why, brother, don't ask how/he could have come so close”,(The Road to Hell (Reprise)), This has the listener really questioning how someone could get that close and still lose everything in the blink of an eye. Both “Road to hell” and “Road to Hell (Reprise)'' tell the same story but in completely opposite ways. While watching this play you can hear many different modern themes. For instance, Individualism shows itself heavily when listening to “Road to Hell”. You see all these people on stage working separately. Noone helps the other, everyone has their role and they don't stray from their job. Although, later they seem to break the mindset all banding together in the end. In “Road to Hell (Reprise)” you hear everyone singing together. Showing that sadly you can’t just try to fix the world by yourself; everyone is banded against you once you try to fix anything that big. Sadly what the world needs is a tragedy to fix it. This is verywell portrayed in Hadestown.
