Harbor Song

An imagined/remembered relationship with an actual person, not unlike "Some Journey" or other of her works.

In this story, the man is "rich," and lives in a home with "golden curtains."' The woman (the speaker herself) is desperate and has "no place to go." She asks for shelter, and he is... ambiguous.

Once he does take her in, she realizes that, wealth aside, her host is no prize. He is a huge drinker and a huge-er smoker, plus he cannot "be true" in the sense of romantic fidelity. In fact, he actively pursues other... pursuits.

"But still I feel the wind in from the harbor," she says, and longs for him. Wind is aimless and boundless. A harbor is a place of shelter for ships, but temporary shelter by design and designation. This harbor wind recalls her unstable life before.

So the thought of returning to her meandering life is frightening, and she longs for the stability her rich boor of a host provides, which she confuses with an attraction with the man himself... who is, ironically, a free spirit who is often absent from his palatial manse, leaving her behind.

She imagines him lying in state, next. She is not standing beside his casket, as a wife would, but as just another figure "in line" to pay her respects. She still finds him "handsome" and calls him "dear." But even physical attraction, "longing" and "dear" fall short of "love."

It's possible that the funeral is a memory, not a dream like the rich-man scenario. We learn this from the last verse, in which the woman travels-- with direction and purpose, not aimless, fearful wandering-- she comes upon "harbors." There, she smells the "salt" of the sea and the "bay rum" (a concoction used in men's grooming, made from actual rum)...

...and also smells his "ghost." Which implies he really did live, and then really did die.

The last line is telling. In her dream of him being wealthy and her hopeless, he pursued business and pleasure-- leaving from the harbor without her-- while she stayed home, "longing" for him.

But in her memory, he is "beside" her, walking along the harbor shore of various lands. Which implies she has memories of accompanying each other to different ports of call. Travelling together... probably more, since she recalls his scent so clearly.

It is interesting that she did spend time with him, remembers him as an equal, and misses him... but fantasizes about missing him in an entirely different context... with he being powerful and emotionally, financially, and physically distant.

Maybe if he were already distant while he was alive, he would be easier to live without, now.


Next Song: Machine Ballerina

If You Were in My Movie

This is a series of sexual fantasies involving role playing. This is the idea of using professions or other activities as play-acting, so as to provide a setting for sexual experimentation. Ironically, playing a role creates an emotional distance that can allow one's true urges to surface: "It's not really me doing this," the brain rationalizes, "I'm just pretending." To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, "the mask is the true face."

The first scenario here is that of the doctor and the patient. This is one of unequal power, in which the doctor is the authority and the patient is in his hands (literally). In this version of the story, the doctor makes a house call, and touches the woman-- "diagnostically," of course-- on her stomach and throat. First.

Then she imagines the man as a detective "examining" the woman and a priest who somehow "give(s) the girl a thrill" while "keep(ing) her body in check."

These other scenarios are also ones in which the man has the power. The woman wanting to be taken is somewhat anti-feminist, perhaps, but it is an understandable response to society's double standard when it comes to sex: a woman does want sex, but unlike a man, she is not allowed to want it.

So she imagines she has to have it because it is forced upon her by someone in power over her. Not to the degree of rape, perhaps, but still very stern persuasion. Not "have sex with me or I'll hurt you," but "have sex with or I'll leave you" or some other undesirable outcome.

This scenario gives the woman permission to want sex, because she cannot be judged if she had no choice, right? Another potent, long-popular manifestation of this idea in popular culture is the vampire, coming into the woman's bedroom window at night and just taking her without permission... that monster!

Then she imagines her lover as the opposite of the noir detective, the noir gangster. This criminal, however, is the least powerful of the bunch! One might expect someone with no regard for the law to be ultimately free and self-determining. But he is "double-crossed" by his own moll, the "blonde." He is apprehended and brought before a jury, left only to mumble the weak excuse that he "hadn't done anything yet."

It is interesting that this is the final scenario. She wins because she gains the upper hand, but at what cost? Now the man is emasculated... weak and uninteresting.

While it is a step forward, perhaps, to have the woman in control, there is still another step to be taken-- equality. The speaker cannot yet imagine being another doctor the first calls upon to consult with, She is not his fellow detective, as in so many cop-buddy shows and movies. She is not a nun equal to the priest... who so enrapture each other they toss their vows and clothes aside.

And she is not his partner in crime. She is the moll roped into the mobster's control, who sees that the game is up and so rats him out to the pigs like a pigeon. Mixed animal metaphors aside, how telling that she can only imagine herself as under her lover's power, or he in hers...

...even though she is the director. After all, she imagines that he is in her movie.

Next Song: As a Child

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

Some Journey

The most important word in this song is the first: "If." The song is largely speculation, followed by a return to reality "as it is." In this, the song echoes the structure of a sonnet— one set of circumstances, followed by a “volta,” a turn toward the opposite.

The speaker feels that if the conditions had been different— the setting, the lighting, the clothing, the entire atmosphere— romance would have bloomed between her and the one she is singing to. 

She imagines the two of the having met on a train speeding "eastbound." By the description of their clothes, they would have been heading toward the Orient. He would be wearing "silken robes," and she, a mere, sheer garment made of "smoke and fire/ for [him] to see through." Oh, my.

Or, what about a "darkened room" of some mysterious sort? She describes a room in which people "pass" but "do not stay," perhaps some sort of hotel. He would have "taken [her] upstairs" to, presumably, a bedroom... where who-knows-what would have happened when he "turned the lamplight low." 

Without them knowing each other, they could have shared a consequence-free tryst (or a few). Knowing her reality would never have had to be revealed, she could have indulged his fantasies, and have played his "little girl... wife... mistress... lady fair..." or even "woman of the road."

In any case, she would have them vanished, "disappeared like the snow," or he would have "never come back home to [her]." No morning-after consequences.

There is an emphasis on clothes— things you can disguise yourself with— and motion. Even the clothes are made of "smoke and fire... lace like foam from the sea," things that are formless and ever-moving and fleeting. Even in the "room," well, no one stays there, and in the upstairs room, she would simply vanish.

There is no stasis, no solidity, in the romantic world of her imagination. Also, very little light.

The train passes through a “black, sleeping” town. Other words and phrases also evoke darkness: “smoke,” “darkened,” “shadows,” “never see the day,” and “turn the lamplight low.”

Then the dreamer awakens to find the opposite is true. She is in a land of buildings, not trains. Of homes, not hotels: "We live in the city." And? "And everything stays in place."

In her reality, there is an “open sidewalk,” very public. “Well I know your face,” she says, cringing at the over-familiarity. (it's "well I know," as in "I know it well," not "Well, I know...") 

There is also an atmosphere of openness: “We talk and talk/ We tell the truth,” and disappointingly, “there are no shadows here.”

She wonders if he has had the same thoughts: “When I look into your eyes/ I wonder what might have been here.” (Yes, Vega rhymes “here” with itself. What can you do?)

And still she wonders, if— instead of the static, bright, too-honest city— they had met on some inky, hazy, sultry journey, with identities masked and mystery swirling … if…

The song ends with a question repeated throughout: “Where would we be now?” The key word here is “we.” She imagines them, if they had been able to meet with some “shadows” around, being able to maintain a relationship. Not here, in the blare and glare of the city, but some other “where.”

The journey could never end, of course. The “where” would have to keep changing, if the basis of the relationship is the lack of stability. They would have to stay on that train.

Still, it doesn’t sound like she’d mind that.

Next Song: The Queen and the Soldier