"Guide My Way",[1] subtitled as "Red Like Roses Part III", is a song that plays during the Volume 9 episode "Of Solitude and Self". It plays during Ruby Rose's Ascension and subsequent fight against the Curious Cat. It was incorporated on the RWBY: Volume 9 Soundtrack.
Lyrics[]
Saw you
In a dream
Are you who you seem?
Was it always in the cards for me
To be aimless?
No direction, nothing pulling me down
From the sky it seems like I always get too
High
Oh the air is cold, I don't know how to breathe
I'm begging, can you
Guide my way out
Of this place?
Red like roses fills my dreams
Open wide
You were born to hypnotize them all
They said their prayers
(Can you, can you) can you hear me up there?
What survives
After all the dust has gone?
Were you there till the end (the end)?
Were you at least called a friend?
Otherside,
Did you mean to make me half or whole?
Will I ever be (complete)?
When will I become all of me?
Guide my way out
Of this place
I can't define
Would it even be enough to change my mind?
Your memory ever-lasting at war with my foolish pride
What is left?
I know it's you and I, when I look inside
I'll be who you were and I'll be even more
A moment of quiet is all it takes
To reclaim a life and a promise made
I am the reflection of who prevails
I'm what inspired the fairytale
A moment of quiet is all it takes
To reclaim a life and a promise made
I am the reflection of who prevails
I'm what inspired the fairytale
(I'm what inspired the fairytale)
Guide my way out
Of this place
(I can guide me, I can guide my way out)
Guide my way out
Of this place[2]
Trivia[]
- The song was described by Casey Lee Williams as "OG beast mode rock city" prior to the episode's release.
- It refers to Ruby's Ascension and her feelings about her mother and the Blacksmith.
- The song could also be interpreted of the Curious Cat’s conflicted feelings, particularly their sense of abandonment from their creators, their weariness from their assigned role in the Ever After, their desire to leave the Ever After, their feelings towards Alyx’s broken promise and their belief that Ruby could be their way out of the Ever After.
- The musical arrangement reflects Ruby taking a different approach relative to the other parts of the Red Like Roses trilogy.[3]
- Casey Lee Williams tried to sound like how Lindsay Jones voices Ruby for the last "I'm what inspired the fairytale".[4]
- Casey debated whether to include the episode version's "Red Like Roses" leitmotif in the full version of "Guide My Way". She ultimately decided to include it partially because the show's audience received it so positively.[5]