Victor: Background

“‘Victor'” uses a musical bed of programming and warm horns underneath disturbingly vivid lyrics taken directly from English poet W.H. Auden, about a cuckold who murders his cheating wife.”—Bret adams on All Music

“I opened a book that I had of [Auden’s] collected poems to ‘Victor,’ and I read it through. Although ‘Victor’ the poem is very, very long, I condensed it for the song. It really caught the essence of what the record was about: dealing with the dark side of love and how it can push you to do things that are pretty horrific. So, it seemed to suit the record quite well.”—Alex on Rockline, January 1996

“‘Victor’ is the last of the quirky tracks. It has a bit of a new-age feel, and the horn on it is great. The song itself is a shortened narrative (with Lifeson doing a top-notch narration) of the W.H. Auden poem of the same name. The poem itself is a depressing work about a man who kills his loved one because of voices he hears (or so the sections that are on the song reveal).”—Cygnus X-2 on Prog Archives

The piece “is sort of strange with this monologue throughout as synths, percussion, and horns provide the soundscape. Don’t like it.”—Mellotron Storm on Prog Archives

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