photo by Daniel Muller

(Editor's note: This column previews Cursive's concert in Omaha at Slowdown Saturday, March 3, with Ume and Virgin Islands. Doors are at 8 p.m. with the show starting at 9. Cost is $15 today and $17 for the day of show.)

Like plot lines woven together, cursive writing joins the letters of a word. In the case of I Am Gemini, Omaha's Cursive threads two main characters through a 13-song concept album. The twins, Cassius and Pollack, are like two consecutive Ts, identical and struck through with a slash.

To single out one scene of a full-on drama of songs is to take it out of context, but let's put "The Cat and Mouse" to the test on its own. With a number of diminished chords, it represents a fractured, violent call to action. One twin, the mouse, is going to overthrow the cat — do away with the dead ringer.

Speaking through a cell phone Friday morning somewhere outside of Wichita, songwriter Tim Kasher says he hadn't studied music theory until recently, but he has been drawn to the ugliness of diminished chords nonetheless.

"Those are chords I tend to use fairly often," he says. "I think when they're placed carefully throughout the regular majors and minors, they definitely add, to my ears, an extra layer."

For those without a script, the question of which twin is which is up to our interpretation. Changes of voice within a song can be particularly perplexing. It's possible the final section of the chorus — the lyrics that read, "I know what you are, I know what you're doing" — represents a shift from the evil twin to the good twin or vice versa.

But let's draw the shades back and provide the backstory. Kasher says, "To get you up to speed, the song is in the latter half of the album. It's a point at which the antagonizing twin brother has already fully taken over and has had his fill of wreaking havoc. So this is when the protagonist tries to reclaim his life by attempting to kill the evil twin."

For anyone who listens to "The Cat and Mouse" removed from the full album, though, Kasher says it might be easier to understand than others on I Am Gemini.

"Well, I think that a song like 'The Cat and Mouse' may be able to stand on its own because the symbolism and references it uses are more universal," he says. "In the literal sense, the scars the song talks about are the scars on their scalp since the twins were conjoined. Scars in the grander sense of symbolism and writing are the scars that we carry throughout our lives."

Plus, he says, the bludgeoning at the end of the song doesn't need context to be full of intrigue.

What's kept clandestine, though — no longer thinly veiled as a number of previous Cursive tracks — is the self-referential story Tim Kasher has buried under this operetta of sorts. What part does he play in all of this?

It's all pure conjecture, of course, and it's incredibly fun. Art should sometimes be hard, and I encourage you to take your best shot at this.

CHORDS

A#m-A#dim
A#m-A#dim
A#m-A#dim
A#m-A#dim
A#m
A little mouse creeps as the mighty tomcat sleeps
                         Cdim                              Fm7b5
He's been up for forty nights, he needs his forty winks
                D#dim                  Cdim
To think of all the mischief his teeth did sink
        B
I can nearly taste it

A#m
Some scars heal and practically fade away
                    Cdim                Fm7b5
While some reveal a past you can't escape
                D#dim              Cdim
And others still are entirely fake

A#m                                   F#6
So what's it going to be, my long lost brother?
F
Show your scars
A#m                           F#6
Are you going to be my long lost brother
F
After all?
A#m                       F#6
I don't really need a long lost brother
F                 G#maj7
Tearing me apart
F#                                  G#
Let's start knocking them nine lives off

A#m                        D#m                              F#dim
I know what you are, I know what you're doing
A#m                        D#m                   F#dim   F
I know what this is, it's a bloodletting

A#m-A#dim
A#m-A#dim
A#m-A#dim
A#m-A#dim
A#m
When the cat's away, it's said the mouse will play
                     Cdim                              Fm7b5
Oh, but this little mouse was brainwashed to behave
                D#dim                                     Cdim
Now the cat's out of the bag and someone's got to pay
B
Here kitty kitty

A#m
All my life I've been made to do what's right
       Cdim                        Fm7b5
Well, all my life is going to end tonight
       D#dim                          Cdim
And you, my pet, are my first sacrifice

A#m                                   F#6
So what's it going to be, my long lost brother?
F
Pass or fail
A#m                            F#6
Are you going to be my long lost brother?
F
Heads or tails
A#m                      F#6
I never really had a brother
           F
But it doesn't hurt to be double sure

A#m-D#m-F#dim-F
A#m-D#m-F#dim-F
A#m                        D#m                              F#dim
I know what you are, I know what you're doing
F                           A#m                     D#m
I know what this is, it's a bloodletting
F#dim                      F                                      A#m
I know what you are, I know what you're after
D#m                       F#dim
You're a dead ringer, you're a doppelgänger

A#m                D#m                              F#dim
Kill the demon, kill your doppelgänger
A#m                D#m                              F#dim
Kill the demon, kill your doppelgänger
A#m                D#m                              F#dim
Kill the demon, kill your doppelgänger
A#m                D#m                              F#dim
Kill the demon, kill your doppelgänger

A#m-D#m-F#dim-Fm7-D5

Michael Todd is Hear Nebraska's managing editor. He mapped out those chords with the confidence of a small turtle. Comment with your corrections. Reach Michael at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.