Lover, Beloved

This sounds like a love song. And... it's about love, but is it a "love song"?

It starts by positing "lover" and "beloved" as opposites. In fact, when the lover "pursues," the beloved does not stand and wait to be caught, let alone turn and run toward the lover. No-- here, the beloved "flees." They are "from countries apart," but they stay apart, "Each one alone in the land of the heart."

They do have some things in common. Both are "forever stripped bare" of pretense. One desires, the other is desired, passively. They are both "there... in the night," we presume, in bed.

The lover, however, is also somehow a "liar," a dealer in false pretense. He is also a "hero" and a "thief"-- he saves the beloved from isolation, yet steals her solitude, for instance. Thus, his efforts and intentions cancel each other out, and ultimately, he "brings no relief." Frustrating! This is true whether she considers him a "brother" or "husband."

While a lover is a "brave cavalier," nevertheless his love "rais[es] hatred and fear" in the beloved. This is for the above reasons, but also while each "crav[es] the touch" of the other, this desire is for something lacking, and a lack is a weakness, a vulnerability.

Finally, "each bears the burden of loving too much." The lover is distraught that his love is unrequited; the beloved is being smothered by all this affection and attention.

But what about a lover who has died, who has crossed the River "Styx"? He "will send/ Flowers from beyond the end." Even though he is gone, she still relishes his memory. He is "her lover for eternity" since he is no longer in control of his leaving her thoughts, once he has left her side. It seems the only good boyfriend is a dead one.

In the play Torch Song Trilogy. Harvey Fierstein opines: "It's easy to love the dead. They make so few mistakes." Also, they ask so little of you.

This song is pretty, like a love song. But it presents love as a battle between predator and prey, with one party forever hungry for more closeness, and the other desperate for less.

Next Song: The Ballad of Miss Amelia

12 Mortal Men

This song is a reference to a Carson McCuller's story, or rather, its epilogue. The men in the title are in a chain gang. This is a group of prisoners usually made to do road work as part of their sentences. To prevent their escape on the road, they are chained together at the ankle. Like men working on railroad or any other menial, repetitive, rhythmic task, they often sing; the Sam Cooke song "Chain Gang" referred to such a system as late as 1960, and there are chain gangs in the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke and 1969's Take the Money and Run.

We don't start with the chain gang, but with the town they work near. "Where I'm from," the speaker begins, "there's poverty/ All kinds of inequality. Nobody comes here, nobody leaves." So, not your typical tourism hot spot.

In fact, the local prison seems to be the main, um, industry. The "whipping report," which one assumes is an official record of their punishments, is on display "in the library," perhaps one of the few public buildings in town aside from city hall and the schoolhouse.

Now, we meet the chain gang. First, you "hear one voice start singing," accompanied by their instruments, "twelve picks... ringing... in the dirt." One voice, but twelve picks? Oh, they all join in: "Twelve mortal men in a song of liberty."

Why is it important to note that they are mortal? Of course they are; all men are. Perhaps this is to contrast them with an immortal being-- Jesus had 12 apostles, all mortal men. Or perhaps this is to highlight the amazement that they sing-- they are chained, imprisoned, and doomed... yet they sing!

And of "liberty," yet! And both "ecstasy and fear." Fear is understandable, and even hope for liberty, but how are men in such straits to be in ecstasy? Perhaps it is the music, the joy of being outside, the camaraderie of their fellow inmates, even the adrenaline rush that comes from physical labor.

The song closes with a vision, a dream, a wish: "In my heart, I see a crowd/ A thousand souls marching proud." It does not say what their purpose is, what they march for, but "everyone [is] gathered," and "each one is loved."

The song has only three verses. The first is about a hopeless, silent town of free people. The second is about a hopeful, singing gang of chained people. The third imagines a group that is not only free, but "chained" by a common purpose, and loved. The best of both worlds.

Next Song: Harper Lee

Annemarie

This song is heart-wrenching, compelling, hyperliterate, intricate... a mini-novel. It shows that Vega is an artist still at the height of her powers.

Since the subject of the album the song is on is Carson McCullers (a female 20th Century American writer), the subject of this song is likely to be fellow author Annemarie Schwarzenbach, McCullers' lesbian crush, who typically dressed in men's clothes and with who she claimed to have shared a kiss. Of her, McCullers wrote: "She had a face I knew would haunt me the rest of my life." While they never achieved couplehood, McCullers dedicated her novel Reflections in a Golden Eye to Annemarie.

The song starts by referring to the quote about Annemarie: "I saw your face; I knew you'd haunt me for all of my life."

The next three words define how McCullers saw Annemarie-- as completely unattainable: "Rising above me." The rest of the song is a painful list of all the ways Annemarie is superior to her.

"Everyone sees you, everyone knows you," she says. Everyone also "loves... wants... needs... worships" Annemarie. So, even though McCullers would say, "If you would want me I'd be no man's wife," what's the point? After all, "Who could possibly hold one so fair?"

"How can I possibly compare?" she asks, "How can I possibly compete?" Annemarie, is "brilliant"; she "moves through the world with money and family... [and] perfect beauty."

Let's talk about that beauty for a minute. We already know her face is "haunting." But people "worship" Annemarie! At least our speaker does: "If I could see God, His face would be sacred like yours." Just... wow. "But God's face is hidden, and your face is suddenly all I can see."

This is beyond smitten-- this is obsessed.

Nevertheless, Annemarie has issues too, and it seems, a lot of them: "Who could contain you, with all of your pain?" She is "stormy," as well.

But even this the speaker finds attractive: "She glitters with trouble... How can I possibly complain?"

So the speaker, McCullers, feels that Annemarie is perfect, even in her imperfections. Are the perfections a way... in? No. Even pained, Annemarie is the impossible dream, the unreachable star: "Who could possibly make you complete?" Even if someone could, in theory, do so, it would not be the speaker: "Could I gather up all that you remain?"

The object of affection is summed up in three words: "Terror, pity, love-- Annemarie." The speaker is terrified of her... and how she feels about her, which makes her vulnerable. She pities the poor little rich girl, whose status makes her beyond the (what McCullers is sure would be) the healing power of her affection.

And "love" is what she considers all of these emotions to be, in sum.

Does she love her? She admires her, to the point of "worship." She is jealous of her status and stature, yet pities Annemarie for the isolation she has on her mountaintop. But does that amount to love?

You can love some you feel is out of your league. But the line, "How could I possibly compete?" makes me feel that the desire is more to achieve Annemarie, and to match her accomplishments, than to accompany her as a partner: "Oh, if I were Annemarie's girlfriend, life would be awesome. Everyone could see I was her equal."

But that will never be. So McCullers gets to play the martyr. No one else is good enough for her... except for the one person who is too good. So she gets to be the victim, and never has to actually have a relationship. She has trapped herself on Keats' Grecian Urn... on purpose.

Next Song: Twelve Mortal Men

We of Me

The song starts with the line: "My squeezed heart divides into two wide wings," which implies that something was pressuring her to choose between two sides, but somehow she was able to choose both. Perhaps the wings take her back and forth between the two sides.

"The world is a sudden place if you don't belong to anything," she says next. What is meant by "sudden" is not clear-- does the world appear suddenly, when there was nothing before? Is it constantly startling with no one there for support or structure? Perhaps the word is "sullen," which would make more sense; a world in which one did not feel connected would be sullen, indeed.

"This must be the irony of fate/ I and the world are always separate," she continues. "All other people have a 'we' to claim/ Except for me, in my own name." If she is feeling disconnected, that is sad, and perhaps it is her fate to be alone. But in what sense is that an "irony"? She just said she belongs not to no world, but to two! That's more belonging, not less.

Now, this is from Vega's album about Carson McClullers (a woman), who was married and divorced, and then lived with another man for a short while without marrying him. I don't see anything about her having children, and the two men never met as far as I can see.

This also doesn't seem to be about Vega herself. She is divorced from her first husband, with whom she had a child she is still close to. And she is remarried now. So this "squeezed heart" idea could stem from that, but then why say there is no "we" for her to be part of in her own name-- what about her own child? Well, the kid does have her father's last name...

I'm going to say this is about Vega herself, as McCullers' story lines up even less, even if Vega-as-McCullers features heavily in the video. McCullers seems too haughty, world-weary, and jaded to have come up with such a tender idea, anyway. True, the part about being "separate" from the world does seem to apply.

The song continues: "I belong to be with the two of you/ And we make three/ As a family/ That is why you're the 'we' of me." Is she trying to get her daughter to be part of her new family with her second husband? We do not know when she wrote the song, but she re-married in 2006 and released the son in 2016. If the kid and her step-father are not close after 10 years... Or maybe they were, but then something caused a rift and she is trying to sew it back up.

The Biblical story of Noah is invoked: "Noah may have got it wrong... Noah's ark admitted only two by two/ We know this isn't always true... because there's one more that could belong."

According to the Bible, the animals that boarded the ark in pairs were the "unclean" ones,  and the "clean" ones came in in herds of seven. But most likely that detail is not what she means to refer to.

Rather, she rebuts the idea that families are made of pairs by saying there can be a family of three-- a pair of parents and a child.

So, what does the expression "the we of me" mean? It probably means "my 'we,' that is, the people I mean when I use the word 'we.'" Namely: herself, her current husband and her daughter. By extension, her current husband's 'we' includes himself, her, and the child.

On a psychological level, "You are the 'we' of me" means "You two are the group I most intensely feel myself a part of."

Wings can be for flight, away from danger. But wings can also be spread over a family for warmth, closeness, and protection.


Next Song: Annemarie

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

Song of the Stoic

While the ancient belief of Stoicism was more complex than that, the word "stoic" today means a person who declines to show emotion.

The speaker here is a "man" whose life's major incident are few. Mostly, he's been "working all [his] days."

Now he's having a post-midlife "accounting": "More years are behind me now/ Than years that are ahead," so it's time to take stock.

First, he wants us to know that at 18, he "faced down" his father who physically abused him-- "18 years of pain." He does not blame his father, but the "demons" of his mental illness. Still, he is covered in "layers of bruises." So the emotion here is dignity, self-assertion.

He left home and "learned to love the road," an emotional response. He learned that some things can be "spoken" and some not.  He does physical labor, earning his "coin" with "another/ Knot within [his] back." There are many emotions here.

He married, somehow, which would seem a major life milestone, but we learn of this only because he was tempted to stray. The other woman had a "gifted touch" but yet they "confine [themselves] to friendship/ And [they] stay out of the bed." It seems that he might have divorced his wife to marry her, had she been single. The fact that she would not leave her spouse to be with him must have been painful.

Now, he is "facing" another foe, "the specter of [his] age." He wants to die already: "My soul, it fights my body/ Like a bird will fight its cage," wanting to escape. He sees death as "peace" and "release."

Yet, he will not kill himself-- "I keep myself upon the earth"-- and simply accept his fate, even as he measures not his gains and achievements but only "what [he's] lost."

So that's his life's story-- abuse, then labor and massive disappointment. Has he ever had the chance at happiness? "Winged things, they brush against me/ Never mine to hold."

Instead, he has resigned himself to grinding labor, saying "I keep my eyes upon the ground/ And carry on."

Why? "Ecstasy and pleasure come at much too high a cost." Since all he has known has been pain, he has two choices-- accept pain and try to live with it... or try for happiness knowing that it will either be unattained or lost, and then pile that pain onto the existing one. Not worth it, he decides.

The man is a stoic for this reason, or reasoning. His childhood was painful, his marriage is unfulfilling, his work shows no progress for all his effort. Any idea that hope was a good thing has been beaten out of him, either figuratively or literally.

For a song about a person who avoids emotions, the story leaves the listener with a deep one: sadness.


Next Song: Laying on of Hands/Stoic 2

Instant of the Hour After

This is a rare track. It can be found on Volume 3 of the mostly acoustic "Close Up" series of remixes.

It seems to be about a drunk couple fighting, and she is trying to wind it down so they can sleep: "That's enough out of you tonight, my darling... I detest all this drunken brawling/ Now, let's see if you can make it into this bed." Probably, though, he can: "You're not as drunk as you seem."

Still, they are "trapped here inside of this bottle." Both of them are trapped by the alcoholism, although it's unclear if she is also an alcoholic or 'only' someone who qualifies for Al-Anon.

As for the fight itself, it must have been quite the circus, but now, "The show is over/ The monkey is dead."

She is of two minds about her significant other: "How I love you/ How I loathe you." To the degree she does love him, it comes in waves so peaked that they become spikes: "It's a sharp, quick love."

Something casts a "sweet shadow" on his "cheek." Perhaps he did make it into bed, and these are the blankets she tenderly draws up over him. And he doesn't seem to calm down and ease into sleep, but rather simply 'conk out' suddenly from a state of stress: "The pulse in your neck, how I'll know it, right to the end."

Alternately, these images could be of love-making. The "sharp, quick love" could be him entering her, the "sweet shadow" could be of her face on his, and the "end" could be his climax.

This seems less likely, however, considering his words, which sound like those of a literary critic: "Reverberating acuity... lousy simile... vacant majesty." These sound like the ramblings of a drunk intellectual as he drifts off. And one who didn't like what he'd just read or heard, at that.

Of course, they could have made love and then he passed out muttering.

Yet another possibility is that the song is about her critics, and she is only using the relationship image as a metaphor.

The next "hour" passes like an "instant." And in that moment, she realizes "Right now/ It's you and me."

This is where the image being trapped in a bottle of liquid comes in. Of course, they'd have to be small to be trapped in a bottle, so she imagines them as "flies" who are "drowning" in the liquid.

"When the frenzy's over"-- the fighting, the sex, or both-- "We're crawling specimens/ Spent and exhausted/ We press to the sides" of the "bottle."

She knows she has to do something about the situation. But the situation itself is simply too exhausting, physically and emotionally, for her to plan and enact such an escape.

A nearly drowned fly may know it has to leave the bottle in order to prevent himself from nearly drowning again, but right now he's too drained from just having nearly drowned to figure out where the bottle's opening is and how to get there.


Next Song: Daddy is White

As You Are Now

This song is a lullaby to Vega's daughter, Ruby.

In it, she promises to save souvenirs of her daughter's life: her "tears," her "teeth" that fell out as a child, and her "hair" which was, we assume, regularly cut.

Now, the album's copyright date is 2007, and Ruby was born in 1994, which would make the "child" about 13 when the album came out. Since she had long since stopped losing her teeth, we have to imagine that the song was written long before.

So why include it on an album at this point? Because this is a divorce album. While many of the songs herein are about her ex and their break-up, Vega is more than just an ex-wife. She is also a mother, and she wants her child to be reassured that her love for her continues unabated.

What better way that to say, "Listen to this song I wrote you when you were just a girl! You're still my daughter now, and I still love you as much."

How does one, in practical terms, collect tears? By collecting "salty tissues." She calls these tears "diamonds," referring to the salt crystals left behind after she, it says, dries the tissues in the sun.

And teeth? In a "cardboard box." These are like another gemstone, "pearls," and they remind her of "laughter." There is a pun here-- the teeth are kept in "ticking," which is tough but decorative cotton or linen fabric. The line is that the teeth are kept "through the ticking and the tocks," as in the tick-tock of passing time.

The hair-- evidently a ponytail snipped off all at once-- will be woven into a "braid of gold/ For you to keep when you are old."

The mother then finishes the lullaby with a "kiss" on her "milky skin." Then she tucks the child, and her "soul," in a "sheet of silk."

The child will have given her mother all of these keepsakes of her growth and development. What will the mother pay her with for these gifts? Why, the kiss itself: "Put this kiss upon your brow."

Then comes the line that gives us the title: "Treasure you as you are now."

It doesn't, you will note, say "I will treasure you." No, the verbs are "put" and then "treasure." So who should be doing the putting and treasuring?

The child. She should put her mother's kiss on herself. She should treasure herself. As she is now. Whenever "now" is.

Her mother will have memories of the baby, the toddler, the girl, the teen, and the young woman, and she will collect mementos of those moments. The child however, needs to treasure each moment as it comes, and herself as she experiences it.

Alternately, one could read the verse as one long sentence: "now I kiss... put... treasure." In this, perhaps more literal, reading, the mother kisses the daughter on her forehead (and the "sheet," for some reason... and, somehow, her "soul") and treasures her as she is now.

The tenses are of note. She says she will collect the tears, teeth, and hair... but that she is "now" kissing, tucking, and treasuring her. Which implies that, at the time of the song's writing, the child had yet to lose any teeth, but still had time to grow a substantial ponytail. On average, the first "baby" teeth fall out at 6 or so, and therefore that's not really on a parent's radar until the kid approaches that age. We're going to say Ruby was 5 when the song was written... or that it was written to make it seem so.

Again, the song is now offered to the young adolescent whose parents are divorcing as a way of saying, "While a wife and husband can stop loving each other, a parent never stops loving a child. I still have your baby teeth and your childhood ponytail, and I still treasure you as well."


Next Song: "Angel's Doorway."

Frank and Ava

Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner had a brief, tempestuous marriage. It only lasted 5-6, years but was filled with passion-- both the good and bad kinds. Whole books have been written about it, since their affairs and external friendships involved many other celebrities, as well as colorful characters like big-game hunters, starlets, and matadors. It involved, indeed, everything from drunken scenes to slashed wrists.

The song, however, makes no reference to any specific couple, as their last names are not given. So this is about that famous couple... but only as a metaphor for all such high-emotional, disastrous relationships (Vega herself had recently been divorced; she mentions "you and me" toward the end.).

Vega lays the blame for the failed relationship at both their feet. Ava could be imperious and act the "queen." Frank's love could be overwhelming, but explosive; his heart was a "tinderbox," and "the fire of his desire meant/ That everything must come undone."

Conclusion? "It's not enough, to be in love." The love must be between two compatible people, ones with the emotional maturity, stability, and stamina to maintain that love, through the natural ebbs and flows of time. Expecting first-kiss fireworks all the time is unrealistic and leads to shattered expectations.

Her aloofness didn't help. While he's hot for her, "she's cool." Which "makes him cruel." So they "needle" each other until "the jewels go raining down upon the ground." Either some jewelry box was knocked over, or someone was hit or shaken hard enough to make their jewelry fall off.

Eventually, the bad was acknowledged to outweigh the good, and they divorced: "They woke up, and they broke up."

While they were busy making each other miserable and being "volatile," of course, they wasted the time they could have spent on others: "Life passed, it went so fast."

Although it was doomed, it was a tragedy. Surely the public longed for two such attractive and talented people to find happiness together amidst the glamour of Hollywood. And while they were fire and ice, they were still attracted to each other: "They never could forget their chemistry."

So, more like oil and water, as it "proved go keep them both apart for life."

It's not enough to be in love. You have to find the right person, at the right time. And "indoor fireworks," as Elvis Costello put it, "can still burn your fingers." So while passion is important and should definitely be a part of any healthy relationship, it can't be the only part.

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other," noted The Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "but in looking outward together in the same direction." It also does not consist in gazing at the other person and hoping to find a reflection of yourself, or seeking a source of the fulfillment of all your needs.

It doesn't consist of looking at yourself, either. Even if you are as good-looking as a movie star.


Next Song: Edith Wharton's Figurines

Ludlow Street

Ludlow Street runs between Houston and Divison, in Manhattan's Lower East Side. This is the second song on the album, and the second set in New York.

The song is a simple one. It's about how a place evokes the memory of the people we knew there.

In this case, the place is the above-mentioned street, and the person is named "Tim." We don't find out his name until the end of the song, but since we don't learn anything about him specifically during the course of the song, it doesn't seem to matter.

In fact, "love is the only thing that matters." Now, on the one hand, "it's still the hardest thing to feel." Yet, "love is the only thing [she] feels" when she thinks about Tim now.

Rather, the loss of that love. We don't learn where Tim is now, or even if he is alive-- the song does have an elegiac feeling to it. All we know is where he is not: "each stoop and doorway" of Ludlow Street.

What is there, now? "Another generation's parties." Perhaps she knew him though a series of parties when they were both there.

Aside from "love," and their fondness for get-togethers, can we glean anything about their relationship? "I can recall each morning after/ Painted in nicotine." Oh. Very well, then.

There is no other information here-- how long they knew each other, how long they saw each other, what happened to their relationship, or what happened to Tim.

All we know is that, for her, Ludlow Street should be named Tim Street. Because his memory is all that is there for her, now.

(The liner notes reveal the answer. Tim Vega was her brother, who lived on Ludlow Street before he passed away.)


Next Song: New York is a Woman

It Makes Me Wonder

This song is about what's known in psychiatric lingo as a "Madonna-Whore Complex." It happens when a man has difficulty sexualizing his wife... because she is also the mother of his children. She can't be both the holy Madonna and the raunchy whore! The same person, both, as the song says, "sacred and profane"? Impossible.

In this case, the woman is having some trouble of this sort of her own. While in the throes of passion, her "Virgin Mary" necklace flies up and hits her in the mouth, as if to punish her for her sinful behavior.

Which... is how one becomes a mother in the first place, right? It's very confusing.

The next verse appears to be about a baby that refuses to nurse. However, since this is the only verse about this, it may not be about that at all, but about a man who is acting like a "sulky baby" because he is turned off by her lactation. Leaving her "untouched" and unfulfilled. "Reject"-ed.

So she starts to "wonder" if he is holding her. Holding her, that is, to "the same blue flame" that he feels he is subject to. "I feel you scolding me," she says, instead of holding her. Scolding her for wanting sex when she shouldn't. And then making him feel bad for rejecting something she shouldn't want him to have to begin with.

Like I said, confusing.

She sees what the problem is. "Your virgin mary's in the way," she says-- when you look at me, you want to see a virgin... so you "hallucinate" one, she explains. This false vision "obscures" his view of the real her. "It's me here, made of clay!" she reminds him. She is not holy, but human; even the Bible says people are made from clay. So go ahead and grab her! It's OK.

He sees a thin line. On one side, "austerity" and celibacy. On the other, "just give in" and "embrace that white oblivion." Which could mean death (he says)... but also ecstasy (she says).

Frustrated, she tells him his "expectations" are too "high": "Who could live up to this?" Who could, in fact, be so pure? She wants to be chased, not chaste!

Even when he does kiss her, it's like that of an "angel." Pure, and "cold." Full of love, maybe, but not lust.

Sadly, in many such cases, the man will be unable to bring himself to have sex with his suddenly-holy wife and even cheat on her! With someone he does not esteem, and so feels comfortable "using."

While right after childbirth is no time for hanky-panky, the woman's body does reset in four to six weeks. By then, the husband should be missing having his wife in all her... ways and want to start things back up.

When he doesn't, when by that time he has idolized and idealized her, then the trouble starts.

Of course, it might have nothing to do with childbirth. A man may simply fall in love with a woman in a deeply spiritual way and feel it is wrong to "sully" that purity with passion.

In all such cases, both the man and woman suffer, and counseling is strongly urged... so that the urge can once again become strong.


Next Song: Soap and Water

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

Birth-Day (Love Made Real)

Just to make it clear what the song is about, it's song's title is "Birth-Day." With a hyphen. It's not a "birthday," the anniversary of a birth, but the actual day of the actual birth.

In Vega's case, most likely that of her daughter, Ruby, who was born in 1994. This is the first song on Vega's Nine Objects of Desire, which was released in 1996. Her previous alum, 99.9..., came out in 1992; both albums were produced by Mitchell Froom, whom she married in 1995.

So, chronologically, it goes-- 1992, 99.9 is produced and released; 1994, Ruby is born (and this song was likely written); 1995, Vega and Froom marry; 1996, Nine Objects is released. (Sadly, Vega and Froom will separate in 1998, but that's covered in later albums, and first we have to get through their marriage, song by song).

To this song itself... it starts with the acknowledgement of the pain of childbirth, but with the self-reassurance that "this pain will go" once the process is over. But she must "step through all that's left to feel," first, and it is a gradual series of steps in most cases, not a running or rushing in any way.

Many couples feel the way the speaker does about their child, that it is their "love made real." Love itself is very abstract, but a child that is literally the product of that love, and is genetically half of each of them, becomes a living symbol of that love.

The directive, "Don't move, don't touch/ Don't talk so much" may be to herself, or to her over-helpful partner. Or both.

While many deliveries in the Western world are done with the mother on her back, there has been a movement to prefer-- or at least try-- earlier, more traditional methods. These include having the mother stand or squat, so that gravity can help pull... and having the mother on her hands and knees, imitating the way other mammals deliver. The speaker here tries these positions, telling herself to "strip" and then "find a place to kneel."

Even in the throes of the pain, the mother is keenly aware of the special-ness of the moment. Before, she calmed herself with the idea that the pain would "go," now she is sad to realize that "this day will go," and what is now an experience will soon be a mere memory.

A wave of pain hits, disrupting her philosophizing. Now she seems to "crawl the wall." Evidently, in her all-fours position, she is facing the wall and bracing against it with her hands, so looks like she is trying to scale it or crawl up it.

"She's the ticket to the future," she thinks of her soon-to-arrive baby. "Don't listen down the hall," of the maternity ward, she tells herself. Perhaps she hears the screams of other women in labor and worries that she will be in that much pain; perhaps she hears the cries of newborns and wishes that it  were her kid making that noise already. She reminds herself to focus on her own situation.

The position she is in not only resembles crawling, but prostrating oneself in prayer. "You can say your prayer to the head of this bed," she mutters, feeling that no caring God would put people through so much pain just to do the most natural thing, let alone answer a prayer to make it hurt less. And it hurts quite a bit, all over: "It begins at your knees and goes right to your head."

Now, she is re-positioned so that she is on her back, and held in place with a "strap" at each "wrist" and ankle. "I wait to meet my love made real," she repeats, hoping that a focus on her objective will help her endure the next phase.

At this point, she is so worn out that she has begun to "shake all over like an old, sick dog." If the childbirth has been "natural" to this point, now chemical medications are introduced. "There's a needle here, needle there"-- one serum to numb the area, and one to induce the cervix to widen. Her shivering has not subsided, even as the numbness and mental fatigue set in, and she starts to "tremble in the fog."

We're almost there, though... "It's a tight squeeze, vice grip," as the head and then the rest of the body start to pass through the opening. "Ice and fire" might refer to the off combination of numbness and pain at this point.

And...? It's a girl. "She's a hot little treasure," coos the new mother. "And the wave goes higher"-- the elation of holding the newborn in her arms is an intense wave of pure emotion.

The song's short phrases, disjointed images, and general confusion mirror the wild sensations of childbirth. The physical, mental and emotional aspects switch and mingle and compete, with a pain interrupting an emotion which in turn is shoved aside by an instruction from the doctor or a question from a nurse... it's a tumult in many dimensions. And the thudding, swirling music and lyrics capture the sense of being tossed about as if one is in a storm at sea.

But the pain, and the day, do go. And you're left with a baby at the end, who stays.

Not a bad trade, all told.

Next Song: Headshots

Fifty-fifty Chance

The song is about a patient and the person visiting her (the speaker).

It starts with someone "lying in bed" in a hospital's cardiac ward. The doctor is explaining to the visitor that the patient has a "50-50" chance of survival.

The visitor, possibly the patient's adult child, sees "a pan on the floor/ Filled with something black." Her response is universal: "I need to know/ I'm afraid to ask" what it is.

The visitor then pledges her support to the patient, who is unresponsive. She could be sleeping or under sedation, but given the information we learn later, likely not in a coma.

"I hug you/ I hum to you... I touch you," says the visitor to the patient. "I tell you/ I love you./ Sing to you/ Bring to you/ Anything."

The visitor notes that that the patient, who should be calm since she is resting, has an accelerated heartbeat. Also, she is shivering: "Her body trembles with the effort to last."

The doctor seems satisfied, however, that the patient is over the worst of it. In fact, after one more night in the hospital, "She's going home/ Tomorrow at ten," meaning 10:00 a.m.

Then comes the chilling last lines: "The question is/ Will she try it again?"

And now we know why the patient was there: attempted suicide. The black material in the pan may have been whatever poison was pumped out of the patient's system.

In reality, a patient with only a "50-50 chance" of survival would not likely be sent home the next day, so the last verse could take place a week or two after the others.

There are two contrasts set up in this song. One is between a mind that wants to die being housed in a body that wants to live. The other is a person who wants to die when there is someone in her life who loves her so much.

If she is in the cardiac ward, this may be a clue as to why the patient attempted suicide in the first place. She may have a congenital or painful heart condition, and would rather die at her own hand than be the victim of a heart attack.

It is bad enough to take a patient home who may have a relapse of a disease or a recurrence of a cancer. It is something else entirely to know that a person might decide to try and take her own life again-- how could you possibly be vigilant enough? You have to sleep sometime...

There should be some staff person at the hospital, a social worker or psychiatrist, who can offer help and suggestions, and possibly even prescribe therapy, anti-depressants... something. Heck, the daughter might need some support, for herself.

To send a woman home with her suicidal mother, possibly the day after the attempt itself, with only a 50% chance of survival, and no psychological support? This does not sound like a doctor or hospital I would ever want to wind up with.


Next Song: Pilgrimage

Gypsy

This is one of Vega's loveliest songs altogether. It is a love song-- technically a break-up song, but not the acrimonious kind. The Japanese farewell, "sayonara," means "since it must be so," and that is the sighing, bittersweet sort of farewell this song evokes.

The song begins with a recognition that the two lovers are from different worlds. "You come from far away," it begins, and refers to the couple as a pair of "strangers."

He comes from a land of "sunrise," but they meet and form their relationship at "night." This is "where" they come to "know each other now," by dint of having recognized "the sign" of their mutual attraction.

The chorus is at once tender-- "hold me like a baby/ That will not fall asleep"-- and passionate: "Let me hear you through the heat." Not many relationships manage to encompass both sorts of affection.

The next verse refers to the foreign lover as being a "jester." The verse unfolds with more words that evoke a Medieval or Renaissance setting: "courtyard," "women/ With the dimples and the curls," "mischievous," "blowing skirts."

There is a hint of playful jealousy here-- all sorts of women "distract" the fellow, that rogue... but he remains hers.

More old-timey imagery in the next verse: an "earring," a "potter," a "tale." She describes his features and traits colorfully. His hands are like "water," his young face belies his accumulated "wisdom," he can tell a story as well as a "fool" (here a synonym for the above "jester"). Yet, while a fool causes chaos, this fellow is an "arranger of disorder."

As much as she loves this man, she knows it has to end. Yet, he has influenced her future choices. She describes to him her new beau-- not to cause him envy, but to to compliment him by saying: "See how much you affected my life! I can now only date men like you. And since I can't have you..."

And who is her new swain? He is also a storyteller, "a spinner/ Of strange and gauzy threads." He also has hands she admires, that are "sweetest" and "softest."

And he also is a traveler... but now someone she can travel with. "We'll blow away forever," she says, "and go on to different lands." Remember the first word in the song was "you," which now switches to "we," meaning her and... not him.

She now bids farewell to the first man, saying that he is not to seek her now that she has "another." Still, he should be gratified in knowing that he is with her in any case, in her heart: "with me you will stay."

How will he know that she still misses him and cherishes their time together? "You will hear yourself in song." Namely, this one.


Next Song: Wooden Horse

Calypso

Vega is not the only one to have been enchanted by this mythical nymph, whose name means "to hide or deceive."

Jacques Cousteau named his boat for her, and John Denver wrote a song with this same title about that scientist. There have been other US and UK military ships with the name as well. The piece of tech that is branded Calypso is, aptly, an underwater camera.

There is an entire genre of Latin dance with this name; Harry Belafonte recorded an album of its music. Calypso is also the name of a moon of Saturn, an asteroid, and what NASA called its "Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO)" orbiter.

And "Calypso" is a town in North Carolina, a cave in Malta, a soap opera in Venezuela, an airplane in Belgium, and an orchid found almost everywhere.

But the most appropriate use of the name must be Calypso Deep, the lowest point in the Mediterranean...

Because Calypso, according to Homer, lived on the Mediterranean coast. And it was she who kept Odysseus in thrall for seven of the ten years between his leaving the Trojan War and his return to his beloved Penelope. Yes, of all of the monsters he faced in The Odyssey, the most victorious over him used no other weapon than song.

Vega tells the tale from the sea nymph's viewpoint. She has Calypso introduce herself and explain that she saved Odysseus from "drowning."

The time of this song? The day he leaves after seven years. "Now today, come morning light, he sails away/ After one last night, I let him go."

She is aware that the only reason he stayed is that she made him. She had hoped that he would eventually simply love her of his own. But, while she "could taste the salt on his skin," she knew it was both "salt of the waves and of tears and while he pulled away, I kept him here for years."

While she was beautiful-- "my garden overflows... My hair blows long as I sing into the wind"-- she knew that her willowy wiles were no match for Penelope's pull on him.

She is well aware that his departure is permanent. "It's a lonely time ahead," she acknowledges, but "I do not ask him to return."

Instead, "I will stand upon the shore with a clean heart and my song in the wind."

There is no proper chorus, but five times in this short song, Calypso repeats "I let him go." It seems she is of two minds about this decision.

One is that she proud of herself. It would have been easy to continue to imprison Odysseus eternally-- she could have made him immortal. But she knew that the relationship was forced, and so false. And she finally could not allow the situation to endure. So she did the grown-up thing and let him go. "Yes, the whole mess was my fault-- but I fixed things in the end and now I want credit for that," she seems to say.

So much for her mind. Her heart is very upset with the new reality, however. "I let him go!" it weeps. "How could I have done such a thing! He's gone forever, and I'm alone again, and he could have just stayed here, and I could have been at least falsely happy instead of truly miserable. This is just awful. Yes, the situation had to end, but I'm still so, so sad that it did."

The first thing Calypso told us about herself was not that she was immortal or magical or even musical, but that she has "lived alone." Now that Odysseus is gone, she foresees "a lonely time ahead." Her solitary status is how she defines herself.

If she could only find someone to love her for her many gifts, to love her for her "sweetness," her beauty, and her talent. And not someone who was already taken, someone she had to force to stay. Surely in all the sea there is a lonely sailor with no one waiting at home, who would willingly stay and hear her sing eternally while combing and combing her long hair.

Maybe he won't be Odysseus. But Jason's a hunk, too.


Next Song: Language

Knight Moves

It seems possible that the "queen" in the first line here is the one from the previous song, "The Queen and the Soldier."

However, the point of view keeps shifting, here, between "her" and "me/you." So there are several possibilities.

One is that the queen is one person, and the speaker another, sometimes revealing her own thoughts and actions in her own voice, and sometimes narrating the queen's story. Imagine one person reading a play-- sometimes the character "speaks," sometimes the narrator does, although only one person is actually talking, and the character is not "real."

Another is that there are two people here. One is the narrator telling us about the queen, and the other is the queen herself, speaking her own words.

But if the queen and the speaker are the same person, there is yet another scenario-- that the speaker is saying "I guess I have been acting like a queen." In this case, there is a bit of sarcasm in the presentation. Let's say you have been "putting out fires," as the saying goes, all day at the office, and then yet another crisis rises. In you stride-- saying, "Don't worry folks, the fireman's back," meaning yourself.

If this is the case, the speaker is saying, "Wow, I thought I was a queen and in charge, but I guess I allowed myself to be manipulated there."  Like the queen in the last song who at first is imperious, then allows herself to be bowed to the ground by a soldier, this queen (whoever she is) has turned herself into a pawn. We note the supplanting of the human royalty with that of the chessboard, as well; the "soldier" last time is now the "knight" of the title.

This queen has had a "blurry" night. Perhaps there has been alcohol, or simply a lot of bad judgement. Now, in the "very clear dawn," the consequences become apparent. Evidently, she has fallen for someone.

She asks if he is in a relationship, or single. She asks if he plays the field or is capable of commitment. And then she asks what she really wants to know: "Do you love me?"

Now we remember that there are several meanings of the word "false." One is "untrue," as to one's own nature. But one is "unfaithful." She may be in a relationship herself, although this is not revealed.

Then there is a first allusion to time, a "secret prophecy" about what will happen in the future. There is a bit of oxymoron in the phrase, as a prophet is usually fairly public about his prediction, but there have been prophecies known only to a soothsayer and his client.

If you want to judge her, however, for her false move, first, "hold it up and see"-- examine both sides. "It's one side stone"-- cold and inert-- and "one side fire"-- very much the opposite.

But what is this "it"? Is the "move"? Or is the "it"... the queen? The queen, who is the object of everyone's "desire."

Well, they "want to know" if she is available, if she could, or even does, love them.

And now the speaker addresses "you," but this seems to be another "you," most likely the listener. At this point, the song take a turn from the abstract to the concrete. The speaker is "spitting out all the bitterness/ Along with half of my last drink." (Has she started drinking again, even in the "very clear dawn"?)

Now she tells us about "your" (the listener's) "woman," who is "crying in the hall." This is, admittedly, very confusing.

Or perhaps things are finally becoming clearer.

It seems that there are three people involved. One is a man in a relationship (the listener) who not only is cheating on his partner, but he brought his new mistress (the speaker) home. To his house. While his partner is there.

Starting again from the beginning, it seems that the partner (the "her") is the queen. She wakes up, hungover, to learn that her husband has brought a woman home. She thought she had control over him, but she clearly does not, she now sees. Now, she wants to know how many times he has cheated, and if he has only made love to them or fallen in love with them or what... but mostly if he still loves her.

If one would say that his cheating is somehow her fault (if you "hold it against" her), that she drove him to it, she seems like she is a tease-- the stone/fire image-- who strings men along, the object of "all men's desire." She had enjoyed wielding this queen-like control. But it has backfired.

And now the mistress is in the middle, or at least at the edge, of all this. The wife wakes up to hear a woman's voice alongside her man's through the door, and they now can hear her crying in the hall at his betrayal.

The mistress (whom we know know is the main "I") spits out her drink, and compares it to "drinking gasoline," less the solution than part of the problem. The mistress now asks the series of questions to the man about his capabilities of love and fidelity.

The lines "Walk on her blind side/ Was the answer to the joke" are now clear as well. The man was being strung along, like all other men, by this unattainable partner. They were living together, she was "his" woman, and yet she was not sleeping together, still sure that his desire for her would keep him faithful.

His response to her cruel "joke" was to simply cheat on her. She was "blind" to the possibility, due to her ego, and would never suspect. (This could be the meaning of the title-- in chess, a knight can move over other pieces, blindsiding them from their other sides. Also, there is the obvious "knight/night" pun, as the cheating "moves" happen then.) Eventually, the man was able to bring women home and she still didn't know. Until now.

Still, "there isn't a political bone in her body." The "queen" never did this to assert power, it seems. So... why did she?

"She would rather be a riddle," and unknowable, rather than be in a full, intimate relationship. Something about that scares her, maybe. "She keeps challenging the future with a profound lack of history," we are told. If she has no past at all, perhaps this means she is a virgin. Perhaps all she knows of sex is the excitement of the chase. Like the dog who chases cars-- what would it do with one if it caught it?

And so she plays the only game she knows, the tease that allows her to be in control. Turns out, it wasn't a game... and the man did not like being played.

And now it is her turn to answer the questions from him-- can she love? Many, none... one? Him?

All everyone wants to know is if they are loved. And the hardest part is that each wants the other to go first.


Next Song: Neighborhood Girls

The Queen and the Soldier

It should be noted at the outset that this song is in "waltz time," or 3/4, and interesting departure for a folk song, but appropriate to the European court setting of the narrative.

The story is about a soldier who confronts his queen. He wants two questions answered: "Who's the woman for whom we all kill?"... and "why" do they kill for her at all?

He starts off, perhaps, on the wrong foot. Rather than ask these questions, he starts first by saying he refuses to fight for her anymore. Well, what if she did have a good reason? After all, he is a soldier, so he may not think that all killing is wrong.

In any case, he begins by saying this, and then he says many more things. Rather than use silence to draw her out, he (very soldier-like) keeps trying until he gets a response. By the end of the song, the queen has barely spoken at all. But let's start at the top.

First, the soldier approaches the queen's "door." Why she has a front door (and not, say, a drawbridge) and why she answers it (and not some guard) we don't know. The queen "knew she'd seen his face someplace before," but we don't know if she tells him that. In any case, she never asks.

Even after his open insubordination, she lets him "inside." As we shall see, this is not just a physical invitation, but an emotional one.

The soldier repeats his declaration of disobedience: "I am leaving tomorrow and you can do what you will." At this point, it's a wonder that she suffers him to live, let alone desert, but perhaps she is intrigued by his brashness.

Shockingly, she invites him into her bedroom. Perhaps she has needed this excuse, all along, to unburden herself of something, of her reasons for continuing the war.  But "she never once took the crown from her head," letting him know who is still in charge.

And then... he talks again! Clearly, she means to tell him something, but his impatience wins out. Perhaps, more than an answer, he wants a chance to unburden himself. He wanted to know for whom he kills, and now that he has met her, he observes, "You are so very young." He also says that they are losing the war: "I have seen more battles lost than I have battles won."

Finally, she speaks: "You won't understand, and you may as well not try." But he's not buying it. She didn't bring him into her private chambers to tell him... that she wasn't going to tell him anything. Now, she seems vulnerable, though: "Her face was a child's, and he thought she would cry." It seems that he might pity her. That she might be suffering somehow. Maybe if he fixed it, she would feel better, and then perhaps she'd even call off the war.

Then she says her longest statement: "I've swallowed a secret burning thread/ It cuts me inside, and often I've bled." This enigmatic statement, however, is really only a recapitulation of her previous one: "I'm not telling you because I can't." But yes, she is suffering, and yes, the battle is her way-- however horrifying-- of coping. If she can't be happy...

It may be, given her age, that she has begun menstruating: "often I've bled," she says, from "inside." She says she feels she is being "cut... inside" by a "thread"-- a fair description of menstrual cramping. And she may even have swallowed a string at some point in childhood, and now mistakenly attributes both symptoms to this. It may also be that, as she is a young queen, her mother is not there to guide her through this experience (having died and left her daughter queen), and so she developed this other theory herself.

The soldier then does something odd. He doesn't probe further, asking, "What do you mean by a 'thread'?" He doesn't offer her unconditional acceptance. He doesn't say, "If you tell me, and I think it's a good cause, I will fight again,"

Instead, he places his hand on her head and bows her to the ground. It may be at this point that her crown falls off.

Now that she has semi-revealed her secret, he asserts (again, like a soldier) his victory. He begins to say condescending things, accusing her of being "hungry" and "weak." He may think he is being understanding, but he forgets that, crown or no, she is still queen. And even now that she has semi-answered his question, he repeats that he will not fight for her.

Since this is likely the first man she has had any openness with, it is not odd that she quickly develops an infatuation: "She wanted more than she ever could say," knowing that a queen does not marry a commoner. She is "frightened" by her feelings, and "ashamed." After all, to love is to be vulnerable, and a queen leading a battle can be nothing of the sort.

Surprisingly, he confesses that he is falling for her! A woman who daily puts him in mortal peril, and does not even have the decency to give him a reason. Yet, she is young and troubled-- and in a song, this is often enough.

All of this is too much for her. Predictably, the soldier is killed at her order. The outward reason, of course, is his blatant insubordination. But the deeper reason is that he potentially wields power over the queen, and that is not acceptable.

The queen doesn't need a man-- she is not ready for one in any case. She needs a mother. Someone who can teach her what being a woman, and a queen means. Someone who can show her that vulnerability is strength. Instead, the queen continues "strangling in solitude," and the battle rages on.

For the soldier, the moral of the story is: if you going to desert, desert. Sneak away silently, even if you never knew why you were fighting. Don't lose your head over it.

IMPACT: Vega became the first celebrity to perform a concert in Second Life, a virtual-reality world in cyberspace, with this song.

Next Song: Knight Moves

Small Blue Thing

Even after 100 or more songs in her portfolio, this remains one of Vega's most enigmatic works. It is open to multiple interpretations, given its abstract vagueness.

The tone overall is one of passivity, of "being done to." The speaker imagines herself as an object, a "thing," as small as a "marble or an eye." These things are spherical, but the speaker clarifies that she is "perfectly round," too, and not only marble-sized.

She achieves this state by assuming what is known as the "fetal position": "With my knees against my mouth," like one in utero.

However, this imagery should not be taken to mean she feels infantile. Rather-- both ultimately vulnerable, yet ultimately protected. Later, she says she feels fragile, "made of china, made of glass." Accordingly, she is also "smooth."

We learn two more things. One is her temperature. She is "cold," then merely "cool" (which could also mean "aloof"). This was somewhat foreshadowed by the mention that she is "blue," usually a color associated with cold (a blue flame notwithstanding!).

We also learn another way she is "like... an eye"-- she is attentive. "I am watching you," she says, and later, also somewhat ominously (and even omnisciently?) "I never blink." She also says she is "curious," which also could mean "deserving of curiosity," but here probably means it in its usual sense, given that the next words are about being unblinking.

These are the elements that define her, then-- the adjectives, if you will. In the chorus, we see the verbs with which she is acted upon.

She begins by explaining that she is in contact with the other. Just so we don't have two sets of female pronouns to keep track of, let's say this is a man. She is in contact with his "skin," so she is touching him.

But then this contact is lost, and she is merely "reflecting" him. So we know now that the object's surface is closer to a mirror than to opaque "china," a translucent toy "marble," or transparent "glass."

This is interesting, given that she repeatedly evokes the idea that she is observing him. Evidently, they can see each other, but she can see him better.

Next, she begins a series of movements; we will trace their trajectory. She begins in his "pocket," where she is "lost." He is in complete possession of her, to the degree that she does not know her own orientation in space. No, she has not broken contact, ask she is being touched by his "fingers," which is even more disorienting. However, at no time does she feel that this is troubling, but, it seems, pleasurable.

Now, we truly begin to see some motion. The first move is a jostling descent: "I am falling down the stairs," and not, say, rolling down a hill. Then there is a lateral movement, but also with some fluctuations and oscillations: "I am skipping on the sidewalk."

Then, a sudden, propulsive ascent! "I am thrown against the sky."

Rather than shattering on impact, she shatters while aloft, to begin "raining down in pieces," perhaps like a firework. Lastly, she becomes diffuse: "I am scattering like light."

I submit that this entire passage, taken together, describes sexual climax. First, we have "fingers" in a "pocket" (which is denoted as his, but that could be part of the sexual submissiveness and passivity). Then, a deepening sensation, a series of tremors, an up-swinging release... and pervasive sense of never having quite landed, but simply dispersed. Graphed on an x-y axis, it would match a chart generated by Masters and Johnson.

Until now, she has been passive and aloof. She has been observant and acted-upon.

Now, she responds with a positive action. As a sphere, she cannot do much but rotate. And that, she does. "I am turning in your hand."

This could refer to erotic writhing. But, perhaps, also something more emotional. In his hand, she feels herself "turning." She is changing her position, in the metaphoric sense, on the idea of a relationship with him.

She had been "cool" to the idea of a romance with him. On the sofa, or perhaps the bed, she was curled up in self-protection. But his insistent "fingers" uncurled her until she "lost" her reserve. And then she felt like she was "falling... skipping... thrown... and scattered."

She felt so fragile. But once she trusted him and found her trust not only not betrayed but rewarded, she began turning.

Has she fully "warmed" to him? Not yet, as we don't see any word of that nature. But... she is turning.


Next Song: Straight Lines

Freeze Tag

This second song seems a continuation of-- or companion piece to-- the first, "Cracking." It, too, takes place in "wintertime," and while the first detailed a solitary walk to the "park," this one is about a couple going to "the playground."

First, a note to those unfamiliar with American childhood games of the mid- to late 20th Century. Freeze tag is a variation on regular tag. In this version, the tagger-- dubbed "It"-- chases the other children, but when she tags them, they "freeze," and become rooted to the spot, disallowed from running further. When all the other participants are tagged and "frozen," the last becomes the new "It," everyone "unfreezes," and the chase begins again. Children continue to be endlessly inventive with new variations, which leads them to discover the true fun of any game-- arguing about the rules!

Narratively, the song presents a paradox. This couple goes to the playground for some childlike fun, and to revel in their romance in which they are as open and innocent as children. However, once they imagine themselves as children, what do they imagine themselves doing? Pretending to be adults.

The couple goes to the playground as "the sun is fading fast," symbolizing the end of their youth, which they are there to try to recapture. I am reminded of a tradition my high-school sweetheart and I developed, which was to see every new and re-released Disney movie in the theater. We loved them as children, felt "too big" for them as grade-schoolers, and now wanted to enjoy them again as we approached adulthood and wallow in comforting nostalgia.

Such behaviors Vega depicts, using playground imagery, as "slides into the past"-- it's so easy to slip into the soothing familiarities of childhood-- and the ambivalent "swings of indecision" that make us waver between retreat there and advancement into exciting, yet frightening, maturity.

The "dimming diamonds" are likely the glints of light off the snow, now fading as the sunlight does.

The "tickling and trembling" refer to the touches freeze-tag players employ to immobilize each other, and the shivering with both cold-- real and game-imagined-- and with the anticipation of these flirtatious touches.

Now that it is dark, they "play" another game. This is a pun. They are playing at being actors, who in turn "play" roles in films. The night is as dark as in a movie hall. She first pretends to be Marlene Dietrich, and he the tragically fallen James Dean. Then they shift into a more noir mode: "You stand/ With your hand/ In your pocket/ And lean against the wall." Appropriately, they now imagine themselves as Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, major stars of such dramatically fraught, angst-ridden films.

By pretending to be others, they can be more freely themselves (Vega returns to the imagery of romantic role play in her later song "If You Were in My Movie"). And so they become more physically intimate: "We can only say 'yes' now/ To the sky, to the street, to the night." As the sunlight vanishes entirely, their movie end the way movies do: "Slow fade now to black."

But then another starts, one in which they are hero and heroine in a Camelot-based scenario: "Play me one more game of chivalry."

The songs lyrics end with another childhood game: "Do you see/ Where I've been hiding/ In his hide-and-seek?" She calls attention to the fact that she has been revealing aspects of herself through the choices of roles she has adopted. She is like Dietrich in this way, like Bacall in these other ways, like Maid Marian or Guinevere in still more. And she wants to know if he has picked up on this, and knows her better now. In a sense, a mask is a truer face.

The song's imagery revolves around childhood games, but the message is both adult and serious. The only reason a freeze-tag player holds still is that she is obeying the rules. Nothing is actually, physically holding her still.

How like life that is, Vega observes. What is holding them back from embracing adulthood, with all of its amazing freedoms and overwhelming responsibilities? What is keeping our lovers from embracing each other, physically and emotionally? Nothing that does not exist entirely in their own minds, and those others involved in their societal games.

The sun is fading fast. Now, they get to see what they look like in the dark.


Next Song: Marlene on the Wall