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
Showing posts with label men. Show all posts
Showing posts with label men. Show all posts
Monday, January 23, 2017
Monday, August 8, 2016
Edith Wharton's Figurines
Edith Wharton's novels include The House of Mirth, Ethan Fromme, and the Pulitzer-winning The Age of Innocence. Her main topics, like Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters before her, were of women's status and the Catch-22 they faced: Since men controlled society, the only way to advance was to be (or at least act) dependent on men. For women who insisted on independence of thought and action, life was difficult and lonely.
(First, we should say that this is one of the prettiest melodies and arrangements Vega has ever composed. Perhaps it is meant to echo the music of Wharton's day.)
Like Vega's previous song on this album, "Pornographer's Dream," this song is about beauty and how it fades. This time, the price for the fading of beauty is examined, and what expenses, sacrifices, and costs people will endure to keep from paying that price.
The speaker examines some figurines that either once belonged to Wharton or which depict characters in her novels. They "still speak" to her with the stories they represent, and they both "play"... and "wrestle."
Another dichotomy appears in the next line: The characters had to weigh their "passions" and "prudences," in other words, being carefree or being practical. They also had to consider how much money they had, and how it could help them face (or not) their "fears."
"Her face and what it's worth to her/ In the passing of the years." So, like the woman in the nursery rhyme who admitted "my face is my fortune," she has to decide how much of her "finances" she is going to invest in her "face," since that is the asset that is worth the most (as opposed to, say, investments, real estate, etc., which women may not have been able to own).
The speaker likens a painted, made-up face to a "portrait come to life," but points out that instead of a canvas, this picture is supported by "vanity." But is that fair? Is it mere vanity that makes people slather on make-up and get facials and chemical peels?
No, the speaker admits: "In the struggle for survival/ Love is never blind." In the world of Wharton, men could not leave women; divorce was almost unheard of in the upper classes. But men could still cheat, giving time, offspring, and even their inheritance to younger, prettier mistresses. So staying pretty was vital for the social and economic "survival" of women. Did their husbands "love" them? Yes, but they also were not "blind." (Were the men themselves attractive? Well, with money, land, status, and power, "attractive" for men became a broader term.)
Anyway, that was 100 years ago! Women, as the cigarette ad assured us, have "come a long way, baby!"
Or have they? Well, let's ask Olivia. Who is she? She's the one "under anesthesia." She feels "her own beauty [is] not enough" and is looking to get it augmented with a "routine operation." Which will leave her "wit and wonder snuffed" under a chemical fog... and also under social pressure.
The next verses and choruses are exactly the same. Women still have to balance being passionate and prudent, while men get to just be passionate (prudent? Pff-- "boys will be boys"). Men still control the "finances"... and a woman still gets to face the "fear" of what losing her "face," her looks, will mean to her over time.
With Photoshopped images of physically impossible beauty to be compared to, women today are even more loudly told that "love is never blind."
The speaker concludes that we have not come that long a way, baby. Women still, she says, have their "wit and wonder snuffed." Women comedians, women scientists, women entrepreneurs, women creators of all kinds are still outnumbered and out-salaried by men.
"In our routine operations"-- simply going about the business and busy-ness of life-- "our own beauty [is] not enough." Still.
Next Song: Bound
(First, we should say that this is one of the prettiest melodies and arrangements Vega has ever composed. Perhaps it is meant to echo the music of Wharton's day.)
Like Vega's previous song on this album, "Pornographer's Dream," this song is about beauty and how it fades. This time, the price for the fading of beauty is examined, and what expenses, sacrifices, and costs people will endure to keep from paying that price.
The speaker examines some figurines that either once belonged to Wharton or which depict characters in her novels. They "still speak" to her with the stories they represent, and they both "play"... and "wrestle."
Another dichotomy appears in the next line: The characters had to weigh their "passions" and "prudences," in other words, being carefree or being practical. They also had to consider how much money they had, and how it could help them face (or not) their "fears."
"Her face and what it's worth to her/ In the passing of the years." So, like the woman in the nursery rhyme who admitted "my face is my fortune," she has to decide how much of her "finances" she is going to invest in her "face," since that is the asset that is worth the most (as opposed to, say, investments, real estate, etc., which women may not have been able to own).
The speaker likens a painted, made-up face to a "portrait come to life," but points out that instead of a canvas, this picture is supported by "vanity." But is that fair? Is it mere vanity that makes people slather on make-up and get facials and chemical peels?
No, the speaker admits: "In the struggle for survival/ Love is never blind." In the world of Wharton, men could not leave women; divorce was almost unheard of in the upper classes. But men could still cheat, giving time, offspring, and even their inheritance to younger, prettier mistresses. So staying pretty was vital for the social and economic "survival" of women. Did their husbands "love" them? Yes, but they also were not "blind." (Were the men themselves attractive? Well, with money, land, status, and power, "attractive" for men became a broader term.)
Anyway, that was 100 years ago! Women, as the cigarette ad assured us, have "come a long way, baby!"
Or have they? Well, let's ask Olivia. Who is she? She's the one "under anesthesia." She feels "her own beauty [is] not enough" and is looking to get it augmented with a "routine operation." Which will leave her "wit and wonder snuffed" under a chemical fog... and also under social pressure.
The next verses and choruses are exactly the same. Women still have to balance being passionate and prudent, while men get to just be passionate (prudent? Pff-- "boys will be boys"). Men still control the "finances"... and a woman still gets to face the "fear" of what losing her "face," her looks, will mean to her over time.
With Photoshopped images of physically impossible beauty to be compared to, women today are even more loudly told that "love is never blind."
The speaker concludes that we have not come that long a way, baby. Women still, she says, have their "wit and wonder snuffed." Women comedians, women scientists, women entrepreneurs, women creators of all kinds are still outnumbered and out-salaried by men.
"In our routine operations"-- simply going about the business and busy-ness of life-- "our own beauty [is] not enough." Still.
Next Song: Bound
Monday, January 25, 2016
No Cheap Thrill
The song is replete with gambling metaphors. The idea is that a relationship is like a poker game (this was decades before Lady Gaga's "Poker Face," but not necessarily the first song to use gambling as a stand-in for relationships.)
"Ante up," the speaker beckons, meaning to say you want to play by putting some of what you have at stake. She then asks you-- whom she just asked to play!-- about some other guy, one with a "deadpan" (or expressionless) face and a "criminal grace."
He is "sitting so pretty," which means he is attractive simply by sitting there, but to "be sitting pretty" as an expression means to be at an advantage or already winning.
Next, she surveys the other potential players for her attention. One is an idiot nicknamed "Lamebrain." He "wants to spit in the sea." This is the name of a poker variant, but "spit in the ocean" also means "not very much, considering what else is around" (compare to "a drop in the bucket").
He's got a "cool hand," she says, which is to say his poker hand is better than average, and that in relationships he is skilled but not emotionally involved. But no, "it isn't for me." Also, there is the movie Cool Hand Luke, about a ne'er-do-well who seems laconic but underneath has a will of iron.
Also dismissible is "Butcher Boy," who sounds both young and violent-- is he a hitman? He thinks he'll be "splitting the pot," or sharing the winnings-- and spending at least some time with her-- but she has been down that road before: "I've seen what he's got, and it isn't a lot." This is a reference to his weak poker hand... but also the small size of his... um, anyway...
Then there is a parenthetical couplet. It is in the lyric sheet, but is not performed in the actual recording: "When deuces are wild, you can follow the queen/ I'd go too, except I know where she's been."
In cards, "deuces" are twos. So, when couples are "wild"-- perhaps a reference to swinging?-- they might "follow the queen." A queen, of course, is a face card in every deck, but in slang a "queen" is either a homosexual or possibly a "drag queen," a transvestite. So a "wild" couple might "follow" a third such partner. But in the speaker's case, she knows this queen is promiscuous to the point of possibly having an STD.
The speaker says she will "limit the straddles." In poker, a straddle is a side bet made on a hand. As these can be distracting, some dealers try to discourage them. As a sexual metaphor, "straddle" has another (I hope obvious) meaning, so she is saying that at this point in a relationship, she does not have much sex.
So! It seems, at least, she has settled on the subject of the song, after saying no to Mr. Deadpan, Lamebrain and Butcher Boy.
While she keeps physical contact to a minimum, the subject is understandably off guard-- "Wait, you're interested now?" Defensively, he "shuffles" and "deals." While these words have well-known meanings in card games-- to randomize and distribute the cards-- he is hemming, hawing, shuffling his feet, shifting in his chair... and negotiating to get closer to her.
Then she asks "When will the dealer reveal how he feels?" So... there is yet another character? Or is the subject also the dealer, since in the last line, she said he "deals"? I think that his lame attempt at trying to maintain his suavity is actually a pretty big tell, as far as tipping his emotional hand.
Alas, she does not seem to find his Hugh Grant-like schoolboy stammerings to be charming. "Is the lucky beginner just a five-card stud?" she wonders, ruefully? Five-card stud is yet another poker variant (there seems to be an infinite number of these) but her biggest peeve so far is that the other men put on a show, then can't pay off. And now it looks to her like this is yet another potential disappointment, date-wise: "Is this winning streak going to be nipped in the bud?"
That last expression is botanical, not poker-related (there are not that many rhymes for "stud") but it means the flower will not only never blossom, it will be cut from the stem before it even has the chance to find out if it would.
Maybe she is hoping the subject, if he is berated enough, will step up his game and rise to the challenge. Or maybe she is letting him down quick so he doesn't get his hopes up.
The chorus is also full of poker-related verbs. "I'll see you" or "call you" mean to bet as much as the last bettor, while "raise" is to bet more. But in relationships, to "see" means to date, to "call" simply means to telephone, and to "raise"... well, that's not generally a verb used in that context. It used to mean, in the context of telephoning, actually having reached and spoken to someone as opposed to simply having dialed the number ("I've phoned several times, but I haven't raised her yet.").
In the last chorus, it changes to "I'll play you," which means both "I'll play (against) you in poker" and "I'll play you for a fool."
Yes, she will do these things, "but it's no cheap thrill." She is a high-maintenance person, as they say, both in terms of having expensive tastes and being emotionally needy. "It'll cost you, cost you, cost you," she repeats, explaining that these needs of hers are not just initial but ongoing.
The speaker is savvy, worldly, sharp... hard to impress, and easy to bore. What she's trying to say is that she is way out of your league; she's already looking at other men as she's talking to you, and she's already been-there-done-that with half of the guys in the room. You're never going to satiate her, and you'll go broke trying.
Dude, you're not going to win this one. Get the heck away from her, before you're just another loser she's given a cruel nickname to.
Next Song: World Before Columbus
"Ante up," the speaker beckons, meaning to say you want to play by putting some of what you have at stake. She then asks you-- whom she just asked to play!-- about some other guy, one with a "deadpan" (or expressionless) face and a "criminal grace."
He is "sitting so pretty," which means he is attractive simply by sitting there, but to "be sitting pretty" as an expression means to be at an advantage or already winning.
Next, she surveys the other potential players for her attention. One is an idiot nicknamed "Lamebrain." He "wants to spit in the sea." This is the name of a poker variant, but "spit in the ocean" also means "not very much, considering what else is around" (compare to "a drop in the bucket").
He's got a "cool hand," she says, which is to say his poker hand is better than average, and that in relationships he is skilled but not emotionally involved. But no, "it isn't for me." Also, there is the movie Cool Hand Luke, about a ne'er-do-well who seems laconic but underneath has a will of iron.
Also dismissible is "Butcher Boy," who sounds both young and violent-- is he a hitman? He thinks he'll be "splitting the pot," or sharing the winnings-- and spending at least some time with her-- but she has been down that road before: "I've seen what he's got, and it isn't a lot." This is a reference to his weak poker hand... but also the small size of his... um, anyway...
Then there is a parenthetical couplet. It is in the lyric sheet, but is not performed in the actual recording: "When deuces are wild, you can follow the queen/ I'd go too, except I know where she's been."
In cards, "deuces" are twos. So, when couples are "wild"-- perhaps a reference to swinging?-- they might "follow the queen." A queen, of course, is a face card in every deck, but in slang a "queen" is either a homosexual or possibly a "drag queen," a transvestite. So a "wild" couple might "follow" a third such partner. But in the speaker's case, she knows this queen is promiscuous to the point of possibly having an STD.
The speaker says she will "limit the straddles." In poker, a straddle is a side bet made on a hand. As these can be distracting, some dealers try to discourage them. As a sexual metaphor, "straddle" has another (I hope obvious) meaning, so she is saying that at this point in a relationship, she does not have much sex.
So! It seems, at least, she has settled on the subject of the song, after saying no to Mr. Deadpan, Lamebrain and Butcher Boy.
While she keeps physical contact to a minimum, the subject is understandably off guard-- "Wait, you're interested now?" Defensively, he "shuffles" and "deals." While these words have well-known meanings in card games-- to randomize and distribute the cards-- he is hemming, hawing, shuffling his feet, shifting in his chair... and negotiating to get closer to her.
Then she asks "When will the dealer reveal how he feels?" So... there is yet another character? Or is the subject also the dealer, since in the last line, she said he "deals"? I think that his lame attempt at trying to maintain his suavity is actually a pretty big tell, as far as tipping his emotional hand.
Alas, she does not seem to find his Hugh Grant-like schoolboy stammerings to be charming. "Is the lucky beginner just a five-card stud?" she wonders, ruefully? Five-card stud is yet another poker variant (there seems to be an infinite number of these) but her biggest peeve so far is that the other men put on a show, then can't pay off. And now it looks to her like this is yet another potential disappointment, date-wise: "Is this winning streak going to be nipped in the bud?"
That last expression is botanical, not poker-related (there are not that many rhymes for "stud") but it means the flower will not only never blossom, it will be cut from the stem before it even has the chance to find out if it would.
Maybe she is hoping the subject, if he is berated enough, will step up his game and rise to the challenge. Or maybe she is letting him down quick so he doesn't get his hopes up.
The chorus is also full of poker-related verbs. "I'll see you" or "call you" mean to bet as much as the last bettor, while "raise" is to bet more. But in relationships, to "see" means to date, to "call" simply means to telephone, and to "raise"... well, that's not generally a verb used in that context. It used to mean, in the context of telephoning, actually having reached and spoken to someone as opposed to simply having dialed the number ("I've phoned several times, but I haven't raised her yet.").
In the last chorus, it changes to "I'll play you," which means both "I'll play (against) you in poker" and "I'll play you for a fool."
Yes, she will do these things, "but it's no cheap thrill." She is a high-maintenance person, as they say, both in terms of having expensive tastes and being emotionally needy. "It'll cost you, cost you, cost you," she repeats, explaining that these needs of hers are not just initial but ongoing.
The speaker is savvy, worldly, sharp... hard to impress, and easy to bore. What she's trying to say is that she is way out of your league; she's already looking at other men as she's talking to you, and she's already been-there-done-that with half of the guys in the room. You're never going to satiate her, and you'll go broke trying.
Dude, you're not going to win this one. Get the heck away from her, before you're just another loser she's given a cruel nickname to.
Next Song: World Before Columbus
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