Harper Lee

In this song, Carson McCullers (a female American novelist) name-drops and compares herself-- favorably-- to her literary contemporaries. She is discussing them with her husband, Reeves.

She dismisses many outright as inferior. Virginia Woolf, she says, has "genius" but "leaves [her] cold" since she isn't as "bold" as McCullers herself. She also finds herself superior to Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and F. Scott Fitzgerald (her Ballad of the Sad Cafe she rates better than his The Great Gatsby).

She claims Truman Capote "plagiarized [her] cadences." Oh, and he knows that she knows this.

She does admire Marcel Proust, saying he "comforts" her, and that his "words" have a "timeless quality." But... his Remembrance of Things Past just goes "on and on and on and on/ For seven volumes."  Its "length is very long." Indeed.

As for playwright Tennessee Williams, she can't fathom why his play A Streetcar Named Desire did better financially than her own novel-turned-play A Member of the Wedding. McCullers' only use for Graham Greene is that he "loves [her] poetic sensibility."

And she feels that Catherine Anne Porter is "the best one now." But only for now: "In about a year, I'm gonna show her how" it's done.

But she's most upset that Harper Lee, to whom she is compared, is "poaching on [McCullers'] literary preserves" and stealing her thunder. McCullers feels Lee gets more attention than she (Harper Lee is also a woman) deserves. After all, McCullers had written three novels and more, while Lee only had the one, To Kill a Mockingbird.

McCullers also mentions that she never reads her reviews because they might give her a "big head," an inflated ego. I think she is fine in that department already... she has already predicted that she will win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Do tell.

I purposely avoided mentioning the works of most of those other authors, because many of them are still household names in 2017. Their works still taught in high schools and colleges, and have been made into movies... and they themselves have been depicted in films by actors like Meryl Streep (Woolf), Tom Hiddleson (Fitzgerald) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote).

Carson McCullers, meanwhile coined the phrase "the heart is a lonely hunter." So, there's that.

Next Song: Lover, Beloved

Horizon

"God is the horizon," said Vaclav Havel, a Czech playwright who became a dissident and was imprisoned, only to become his nation's leader after his release. I only learned that Vega wrote this song about him because she said so when introducing the song in a concert.

I had thought it was about South Africa's Nelson Mandela, but it also could have been about Poland's Lech Walesa India's Gandhi, or Israel's Natan Sharansky, imprisoned by the Soviets (OK, so he hasn't been made head of state in Israel... yet), or even Joseph from the Bible. It's also the story of some women, including Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi (she was under house arrest, not jail, but still) and Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto. Even Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed and then led his country, after a fashion.

The relevant verse comes later in the song, however. It starts simply: "There is a road/ Beyond this one/ ...the path/ We don't yet take." It could be the afterlife, or simply the future.

"I can feel how it longs/ To be entered upon," she continues, "It calls to me with a cry/ And an ache." She feels pulled toward it, compelled to travel its length.

What powers its attraction? "Love pulls us on to that/ Distant horizon so true."

Now we get to the biography: "I knew a man/ He lived in jail... When he was free/ He led his country."

What allows someone to rise from a prison cot to a president's chair? "He dreamed of a line/ That we call the Divine." The line being, as we now know, the horizon itself.

How do these rulers tend to lead their countries? "He taught the way of love/ And he lived in that way, too/ Love pulled him on to that distant horizon so true."

What makes us go forward, onto the next path, and the next after that? What allows us to enter the realm beyond the horizon of this life? Love.

Love of country, of self, of principles and values, of one's fellow humans. Love, even, of love itself.

Next Song: Carson's Blues

Portrait of the Knight of Wands

The first song about tarot in this "deck" of songs is "Fool's Complaint," and you can read more about tarot in that entry. This song is, as its title indicates, about another card the knight (equivalent to a jack in a regular playing deck) from the suit called Wands (or Batons).

Since the character is in motion, his card signifies travel and change.

In the speaker's view, the knight has just witnessed the results of a battle, and now views the "last bastions" and "ruins." His reaction is anger; he has "thunder in his face... clouds gathered in the sky." 

There is still hope in the scene, however-- not all the plants are dead. The "flowers" especially remain.

What edifice was attacked? A building or a whole fort or town? We know there is a church nearby, since we see its "belfry," which lies "silent."

The knight is silent as well, and will not relate what has happened. But it was something that was part of "the wider lens of history."

Then comes this enigmatic line: "His mission, the transmission of technology."

Well, yes, that is one interpretation of the "change" his card signifies-- new invention. But why is that his entire mission? After all, the "technology" he wields is, basically, a stick. Another suit is the Sword; isn't that a more technologically advanced bit of weaponry than a cudgel? Yet another suit is the Cup, which implies metal-working, tableware (and all its attendant culture), and even wine-making. Even the Pentacles, the only abstract sign, points toward mathematics, perhaps even astronomy, astrology and religion. The Wand, which relates to magic, is almost anti-science. 

Further, what's the point of bringing technology to a church and a ruin? Is either going to embrace it? 

In any case, he espies a "cannon" and "muttered" that it is "To keep the bishop on his place." He is unhappy about it, but it unclear that he is unhappy that the church is rebellious... or happy about that but unhappy that his power has been checked by the royals and their army, of which he may be a part. 

We now turn toward the knight's state of mind, and find it "melancholy," and "severe"; "his inner burden weighed upon him heavily." Perhaps he was supposed to deliver technology to this building but arrived too late. 

But, like the flowers before, a new sort of "bird" appears to show that life will go on. 

What was the building that is now a ruin? "All the ancient knowledge lay in pieces on the ground." Perhaps, like many abbeys, there was a library here. The book The Name of the Rose is about just such a monastery, in which the monks safeguard, read, and copy old scrolls. Only now all is lost.

It seems the knight had some connection with this place. Was the place for or against technology? Was the knowledge bad because it was ancient and therefore superstitious? Or was the knowledge ancient and therefore rudimentary but fundamental, like that of ancient Greece, upon which so much science has been built? 

Also, was the knight delivering technology to this place? Perhaps he thought if he could modernize some of their ways, he could stop the royals from seeing it as a "bastion" of "ancient," outdated practices and therefore not a threat to progress? But now he sees the library asunder and the church under the watch of the army. They went for the military option, of course.

Or was he spreading knowledge from it, out into the world? And now he returns for more, only to find that because he was gone during the battle, he is the last hope for its dissemination? Does he wish he had been there to help defend it? Is he glad that he wasn't, in that he gets to live on and carry forth its mission, a heavy burden at that? Did he ever even read any of the invaluable scrolls he delivered?

It is not possible to say. The speaker seems selfishly unmoved by any of these scenarios, however: "The cause of all his suffering was not for love of me." It seems that yes, more is on his mind than romance. (Unlike the military men in "Knight Moves" and "The Queen and the Soldier.")

Ultimately, a tarot card is only so big and can transmit only so much information. Like a scroll, or a messenger.

Next Song: Don't Uncork What You Can't Contain.

Last Year's Troubles

This song doesn't seem to need much explanation. Vega contrasts the romanticized way poverty and crime are depicted in Dickens novels (and the movie versions thereof), old ballads, operas, and other entertainments with the poverty and crime of our day, which we see for ourselves and in our news.

"Maybe it's the clothing," she says, "the earrings, the swashbuckling blouses," and the "petticoats." Even their "rags are so very Victorian."

Criminals used to be daring, robbing people on the highway or at sea. Today, a "pirate" is someone who illegally downloads a movie-- hardly a role Erroll Flynn could sink a cutlass into.

Overall, those old problems "shine up so prettily" and "gleam with a luster they don't have today."

Meanwhile, today's homeless "just don't give it their best," she smirks sadly. Also, there seems to be a difference in place as well as time. The above comment is about "the ones here at home." "Here," she repeats, meaning America, "it's just dirty and violent and troubling."

Is there more or less "trouble" now or "last year"? "It would be the same, would be my guess," she concludes.

Which is worse, the threat of debtor's prison for bankruptcy and being hanged for pickpocketing... or the fear of being shot for your sneakers or having to live near a drug den? "Trouble is still trouble," she decides. As for crime, "evil is still evil."

So why are last year's troubles romanticized?

Because everything eventually is. Time softens all tragedy. Conquerors like Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun were played for laughs in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Night at the Museum.

Even Hitler is has been a sitcom character already (it was called Heil, Honey, I'm Home, and thankfully it was quickly cancelled. But this year, Netflix launched one called Look Who's Back). And anyone strict about anything-- from grammar to soup-- is called a "Nazi."

Meanwhile, the heroes are played with, too. There is a movie called Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, and a new photo app can put your face on Benjamin Franklin's head.

We romanticize the past. Already, the 1980s victims of AIDS are compared, in the musical Rent, to the Bohemians of  La Boheme, which was set in the 1840s. Rap somewhat romanticizes today's urban poverty.

We gave an Oscar and Tonys to a singing Oliver Twist years ago... and this year a rapping Alexander Hamilton looks to sweep the Tonys.

Someday, people will look at today's leaders with the same bemusement. Lord only knows what they will have Barack Obama sing on Broadway in 100 years.


Next Song: Priscilla

Freezing

For the story behind this album, please see the previous entry, on the song "Lightning"; it's on the same album.

In this case, a more famous person sings it: Linda Ronstadt.

The song is very short, only 13 lines. But still haunting and mysterious.

The first 7 lines ask a hypothetical question: "If you had no name/ history/ books/ family... if you were only you, naked on the grass, who would you be, then?"

So, with no name to define yourself, or family to claim you, or history to put you in any past context, or even any books to give a clue as to your interests, would you still have an identity?

It is an interesting question-- what defines a person? What gives that person an identity, a self? Is it only a matter of what name we are given, what people call the place we are born,  the stories our families shares with us, and our possessions?

If I had been born in another country, and had some other name, language and religion, would I have the same personality, interests, and talents? What if I woke with total amnesia, and had been abandoned in some place no one knew me? Who would I be, then? It's a hard question to consider in an age of DNA identification and instant global communications.

Then comes the line, "This is what he asked." All we know of the question-poser is that he is male.

The speaker considers the question and, as anyone might, responds that she "wasn't really sure."

Then, perhaps sarcastically, she says, "But I probably would be cold."

The song ends with the next line-- like something out of Edgar Allen Poe or The Twilight Zone-- "And now I'm freezing."

So... did it happen? Did this mysterious stranger go through with it, strip her of her identity-- her name, family, and memory-- and leave her "naked in the grass"? Was he so cruel as to want to see if she was right? If she had given another answer, would his method of torture have been different?

Now, if she remembers the question, she remembers what a "name" is. She knows what a "family" is. If someone finds her, or if she finds someone, to help her, she may be able to get those things back. She would be taken to a hospital, or a police station, or at least someone's home, and the journey to get her identity back would begin. The authorities would be contacted, her photo would be taken and shared with the media, etc. Certainly a tale of a "mystery woman with total amnesia" would be a top news story. Again, if she finds help before she freezes too much.

No pun intended, this is one of Vega's most chilling works. In a short space, she limns the borders of a self, then erases them... leaving only questions floating in a vacuum as cold as outer space.

Next Song: Book and a Cover

World Before Columbus

This simply-worded and -structured song is one of Vega's loveliest. The sentiment is pure and deep, without being... sentimental.

It imagines the speaker's world without the one she loves. If he left, or died-- or for some other reason his love and life were "taken from" her-- the "color" would leave her life. She would lose "half [her] sight," she counts so much on being able to know his perspective. After the colors faded, the "light" itself would go, not just "dim," but "dark."

Her world would be "cold"-- the very "trees would freeze"-- and "cruel."

Now, popular misconception holds that, before Columbus, everyone thought the world was flat, but he proved it to be round. In fact, the world's shape-- and even its size-- were known to the ancients, even without sailing anywhere (they observed lunar eclipses, in which Earth always cast a round shadow; only spheres do that).

Still, we know the myth of the "flat Earth" theory, and here, the speaker so depends on her lover that without him, her world would be "flat." Someone could "sail to the edge, and [she]'d be there, looking down."

"Looking down" has many meanings. She would be "sad," but also "looking down" over the edge, as if saying she was contemplating jumping off it. Later in the song, she confirms this: "I'd swim over the brim."

After lauding explorers like Columbus, she then reconsiders and decides that they sought relatively worthless treasure: "land... riches... trinkets." But "oh, they never will have you." Even his "hair" is made of "gold" and "copper." She asks, "How could they weigh the worth of you, so rare?" They would totally miss the fact that his love is precious beyond that of any precious metal or gem.

Is the speaker over-dependent on her lover-- that without him, she would have no light or warmth in her life, not even a will to live? Perhaps. But I don't think this song lapses into codependency-- it merely engages in the kind of exaggeration that typifies love songs. Would it be as powerful to say, "If your love were taken from me, I'd be upset for a long while, but fine in the long run, especially with my strong support system of friends and family?"

And what of Columbus-- did others reach the "New" World before he did? Historians seem to agree that this is the case. Nevertheless, it was Columbus-- not a nice man, by current scholarship-- whose voyages opened (what came to be known as) the Americas to interaction with the rest of the planet, and who established a base here whose descendants remain to this day.

Again, this heartfelt song is one of Vega's purest expressions of affection, and one of her just-plain-prettiest songs. Maybe if someone had felt like this about ol' Columbus, he would have just stayed home with her.


Next Song: Lolita

Wooden Horse

Here, Suzanne Vega treats the mystery of Caspar Hauser. This person appeared one day in 1800s Germany. He, then a teen (possibly 16), made several claims: that he had been held in captivity all his life until then, that his father was a now-deceased cavalryman, and, later, that people were trying to kill him. Over the course of his short life, many kindly people took Hauser in, some of whom later denounced him as a congenital liar; it may have been that he was simply a person with mental issues that included a loose grasp of the truth.

He has been the subject of endless speculation, including that he was of noble blood; this claim has since been weakened by DNA evidence. Whole books have been written on the case of Caspar (or Kaspar, or Gaspard, depending on the language of the author), and much "information" is available online.

Vega's haunting song starts with a line that explains, from Hauser's point of view that he "came out of the darkness" of solitary confinement. He brought one artifact of that time in his life-- one of his toys, a "small, white wooden horse."

Then he makes a claim about this toy: "What was wood became alive." It entirely possible that a person kept in confinement, not even able to see his jailer, would impute life to an inanimate object, if only to keep from deeper insanity. We witnessed this phenomenon in the film Castaway, in which a man (played by Tom Hanks) maintains his sanity on an otherwise uninhabited island by befriending a volleyball on which he draws a face (The brand of the ball is Wilson, and thus he names it; it has been noted that Hank's wife is one Rita Wilson).

"In the night, the walls disappeared/ In the day they returned," Hauser continues, describing the idea that, while dreaming, his thoughts were unconfined. But when he awoke, he was again limited by his reality.

On the day he first became known to the public, he did so by handing a note to a soldier, telling him, "I want to be a cavalryman like my father." This seems to be all he was able to say, at first, aside from "horse." The song repeats that part of Hauser's story.

Barely audibly, Vega sings "And I fell under/ A moving piece of Sun/ Freedom." This may be the reaction of someone who has only recently become aware of the seeming movement of the Sun across the sky after lifelong imprisonment.

Taken into various people's homes, he was occasionally left alone. In several cases, he emerged with unexplained wounds. He began to feel, as the song relates, "afraid [he] may be killed." Since someone was bothering to harm him, he concluded "I know I have a power" that his attacker wanted to extinguish.

As it happened, ive years after he emerged, Hauser was dead, killed by a stab wound. Doctors could only conclude that it may have been self-inflicted. As little is known of Hauser's death as of his childhood and life.

The song, like Hauser's story, and the stories he told about himself, lacks rhyme. And-- given that so many aspects of his life are either unknown, fabricated (by Hauser himself as well as by his supporters and detractors), or the subject of Hauser's being brainwashed by his early jailers-- there is not much reason, either.  

There are monuments in Germany to Hauser, one at his grave and one at the spot at which he was stabbed. A library's worth of books, as well as films and other songs, have treated the subject of this mysterious man and his enigmatic existence.

Vega's conclusion seems to be that, from a few shabby threads, one can weave an identity, a life, and a legacy. This may also be due to the human penchant for seeing patterns where there are none-- we abhor a vacuum as much as Nature itself, and fill it with ourselves.


Next Song: Tired of Sleeping