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

Carson's Blues

Carson McCullers was an American novelist. Vega has been a lifelong affinity for her (Carson was a woman) work and even wrote a play about her life.

This song is the first of an album, Lover, Beloved: An Evening with Carson McCullers. It is the soundtrack to Carson McCullers Talks About Love (with the same subtitle), Vega's one-woman show about the writer, whom Vega plays.

The song is only two verses long. The first lists a number of things that the speaker says she'd been compared to or called: "A wounded sparrow," "a fallen deer,"  "a childish liar," "a devilish bitch."

At first, she denies being cruel, while owning that she has two sides: "I'm an iron butterfly." McCullers may not have known, but Vega certainly does, that there is a classic rock band called Iron Butterfly; while they formed a year before McCullers' death, they were not widely known until a year after.

Then, the speaker cops to sometimes being surprisingly harsh: "I can be sweet I can be wise... I can be innocent and charming and suddenly switch" to the opposite.

Even so, she still has an excuse: "you've got to understand that I've never belonged." Well, which is the cause and which the effect? Is it possible that someone who comes across as nice and then lashes out venomously might have have a hard time keeping friends?

Despite looking in from the outside, or perhaps due to that state, she says she has everyone pegged: "I've got every one of you mirrored in my deep sad eyes/ I know where you've been to and who you're afraid to be." She even quotes the Roman playwright Terence: "Nothing that is human is alien to me."

And how, without having "belonged," does she do this research? "I talk to strangers."

This short song is a portrait of someone who has said to humanity at large, "You can't fire me, I quit." Having been rejected for so long, she has begun pre-rejecting potential new friends and poisoning potential relationships. Why go through the trouble of getting hurt when you could be the one inflicting the pain?


Next Song: New York is My Destination

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

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

Caramel

This song has a sultry vibe to it. Musically, it is a Brazilian jazz-bossa nova kinda thing.

In it, the speaker tries to convince herself not to dwell on a potential, but impossible, romance. She only halfway succeeds.

It may be that the never-to-be love is of Latin, or other "of color" origin... or perhaps the romance simply took place in a tropical, exotic locale. In any case, "dream(ing) of caramel" and "think(ing) of cinnamon" reminds her of this guy. And such thoughts, she scolds herself, simply "won't do."

No, she repeats, it won't do "to stir a deep desire/ To fan a hidden fire/ That can never burn true." After all, what's the point in frustrating oneself? And, it's simply... improper. Tut tut.

What further indicates that the impossible lover is of a... darker complected sort than herself is the line "I know your skin." Again, this is not to say anything definitive-- most of us have skin, after all. But she says she "knows" it without having said anything else about being intimate. The only other thing she says she knows about him is his "name." So she has been fascinated with, and has studied, his skin more than his other features.

Oh, it would be so easy to just let nature take its course! "I know the way these things begin," she said. If she didn't resist, or he didn't, it would just... happen.

But the consequences are simply too dire, the inevitability of guilt too great: "I don't know how I could live with myself... if you don't go." She doesn't think she could "forgive... (her)self" if he stayed and they gave way to their mutual attraction.

We also don't know why the love is impossible, or morally unforgivable. Is he married? Is she? Most likely at least one of them is. Even if it would be a "shipboard romance" that could never last, two unattached people would still most likely, as Kate Bush put it, "exchange the experience."

In any case, she bids "goodbye." Not to him, though, but to "sweet appetite." What she really misses is less him than the wanting of him, and even this is denied her. It would be one thing if she wanted him but could not have him-- she isn't allowed to even want him.

It's just as well, she concludes, returning to her food metaphor, since "No single bite/ Could satisfy." Smokey Robinson, also using a sweet food in a similar way, had long before concluded that "a taste of honey is worse than none at all." In other words, it's better in their opinion, to not know how great it would have been, and just leave it to imagination, than to know how great this romance is... and can never be again.

This is the opposite idea from Tennyson's assertion that "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." But then, he was talking about a love that was permitted to begin with, not one that was never supposed to happen.

This song is one of Vega's most sensual and languid. Too bad the romance was never allowed to "burn true." Imagine what steamy songs we would have had, then.

IMPACT:
This song was included in the soundtrack to the romantic comedy The Truth About Cats and Dogs.

Next Song: Stockings

Fat Man & Dancing Girl

Evidently, carnivals are rife with "fat men." In the title track to "Tunnel of Love," Springsteen sings, "Fat man sitting on a little stool/ takes my money... hands me two tickets."

Here, there is a lot of carnival and circus imagery: a barker or "megaphone man," a "dancing girl," a "monkey" doing a "trick," an "MC" (short for "master of ceremonies"), and a "tightrope." Also, a "fat man." (The imagery of the packaging really pays off here.)

The carnival starts with an empty field, "a wide, flat land," the repeated short 'a' making it sound very flat indeed. There are no trees or buildings, so "no shadow or shade." She then puns "shade" with the cliche "shade of a doubt." Whatever is to follow is pretty clear, then? In fact, it is about the benefits of concealment.

We meet two characters. One is a loud man, with a "megaphone" to make his voice even louder. The other is a quiet woman. She is trying to make herself quieter, "covering her most of her mouth" with her "hand."

When we "fall in love," the speaker now posits, we do so "with a bright idea," and in the context of how "a world is revealed to you." We don't fall in love with a person as much as out idea of the person (which may be wrong) and further, there is more of the world that is not "revealed to you." In fact, reality is as artificial as a vaudevillian act, such as a "fat man and dancing girl", and-- and this is the key line--

"Most of the show is concealed from view."

Next is a line about a children's game: Monkey in the Middle. Two children toss a ball over one in the middle, dubbed the "monkey." If she catches the ball, the one who threw it moves to the middle, becomes the new monkey, and the game continues with the former monkey now becoming one of the throwers.

Here, however, it seems like there is an actual monkey! He's chattering away, "singing that tune," and annoying the speaker. Perhaps he represents a third party in the relationship, a third wheel or hanger-on.

Now we meet the ringmaster, the MC. His name is "Billy Purl" (not the more obvious "Pearl," for some reason), which is only the case because we needed it to rhyme with "girl." He reminds us of the MC introducing Sergeant Pepper's band, "Billy Shears." Our Billy is The International Fun Boy, no less. What qualifies him to lead the proceedings? "He knows the worth of a beautiful girl."

He's not shallow... the audience is! He's just giving them what they want.

Next, we have another act: "the tightrope." The idea of walking a tightrope is a common metaphor for trying to choose the only path between two horrible outcomes. If she doesn't reveal the artifice, she is participating in a lie. If she does, the show is over. "Never dreamed I would fall," she says, since she does, in fact give away the secret... that there is a secret, a backstage.

Now the monkey is back, not singing this time, but doing a repetitive "trick." Again the speaker wishes for his speedy removal: "It's making me nervous."

And now the show is over. The carnival has moved to another empty field to pitch the big top anew. We see the megaphone man and the shy girl again.

What will the choice be this time? "Does she tell the truth?/ Does she hide the lie?" Or does she stay on the tightrope, speaking the truth aloud, but alone: "Does she say it so no one can know?" After all, she is only covering "most of" her mouth.

But "it's all part of the show."

Secrets are an inevitable part of life. Members of couples keep secrets from each other, and from other couples. Everyone knows this, because they are keeping secrets themselves. The movie This is Where I Leave You demonstrates why, as a widow with no boundaries shares tales of her late husband's sexual prowess at his memorial service, to the embarrassment of all (most of all, his children).

Yet, if everyone shared everything, that would make life very uncomfortable, perhaps even unlivable. "The rest of the show is concealed from view." Why? "It's all part of the show."

Knowing what's going on backstage, how the movie-makers or magicians crafted a particular illusion, seeing the actors out of costume... these things ruin a show.

If you do what the Wizard of Oz says, and "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," then you are overwhelmed by Oz. But if you do see the levers, pulleys, safety pins, and duct tape holding it all together, the magic itself will be what vanishes.

And then you are wiser, perhaps. But did you enjoy the show more, this way, or less?


Next Song: (If You Were) In My Movie



 

Cracking

It has to be intimidating, deciding which song to put first... on one's first album. This, after all, will be the first series of sounds the listener will hear and forever associate with that performer. It's a very powerful form of the "first impression" idea-- the firm handshake, sincere eye contact, and genuine smile that determine if you are going to like this person or not.

This speaker (we cannot assume it is the author, as a rule) chooses to start with an invitation: "Walk with me/ And we will see/ What we have got." Friendly enough.

But first she presents an ambiguity, an pronoun without an antecedent. "It's a one time thing," she says. Um, what is? Perhaps she means a first impression. It is a "one time thing"-- there is no second first impression. However, we are constantly meeting new people. We don't notice how special it is because it "just" occurs frequently.

The speaker, who has asked us to walk with her, then notes that her pace is "ticking." This could refer to the sound itself, but then why not "clicking," the sound often made by women's "footsteps"? Because they are so regular. They are coming one per second, like the ticks of a clock, or "water dripping from a tree." This happens after a rain, or perhaps a thaw. The choice of the image tells us that we are outside, or at least near a window. 

"Walking a hairline" likely has nothing to do with hair, but with a "hairline fracture." We can take this from the title, "Cracking," but also from the fact that, in general, people do not walk on hairlines in the "receding hairline" sense of the word. This is a more poetic way to say not that she is "walking on a thin line"-- or as the other cliche has it, a "walking a tightrope"-- but not on a thing at all, not a line or string or wire.

No, she is walking on a crack, a faultline, between two tectonic plates. The ground is cracking apart, and she is unsure as to which side she will choose. So far, the crack is just a hairline, and she can easily straddle the rift. So far. Perhaps that is why she is walking both rapidly-- one footfall per second-- yet also "very carefully," a word she enunciates in individual, ticking syllables.

Now we learn something about her emotional state. "My heart is broken," she says, and something about the way she delivers what must be the ultimate songwriting cliche-- the broken heart-- makes us hear it anew. The way she says this, it makes us think that, for the first time, the speaker truly appreciates this image. Her heart, like a teacup, has been shattered. The pieces are jagged and painful, and a beautiful thing is irreparably destroyed. The heart is also broken in the way a watch can be broken-- perfectly unchanged to the eye, yet now useless.

But then she continues, "It is worn out at the knees," like a pair of jeans, like something soft, not something brittle. How much time has her heart spent on its metaphoric knees for this to have happened? How much praying, begging... how much crawling? How much quick walking, as if walking away from the pain of the relationship?

Her heart is not working, and she details this: "Hearing muffled/ Seeing blind." Her heart is having a hard time processing input. She is becoming emotionally inert; she says, still of her heart, "Soon, it will hit the Deep Freeze" [sic]. It will come a solid lump of ice, in reaction to the fissure she treads.

While her heart is broken and her relationship is in break-up mode, she responds by trying to become solid, stolid, and stable.

It's not going to happen. "Something is cracking." Try though she might to respond to her situation by withdrawing, something is cracking. She can't even locate its source: "I don't know where."

She has a few guesses. "Ice on the sidewalk," which indicates that the dripping trees were in fact thawing, meaning that spring is imminent. This is also indicated by the ice breaking up underfoot. In fact, one of these cracks is likely the "hairline" she walked earlier that leant itself so well as a metaphor to her emotional state. Other things that could be "cracking" are "Brittle branches/ In the air." The branches died in the winter, but were held in place by the ice that killed them. Now that the ice is melting, the branches are free to snap off and fall.

She has been walking on the sidewalk, her shoes "ticking" on the hard cement. But now that the winter is ending, the Sun returns. After so much gloom, especially, she finds the Sun "blinding." Even her "blind" heart can sense the light, it is so intense.

And now what has been inert is now "dizzy." The colors we have had so far-- of black dead branches, gray sidewalks, and white ice-- are now overwhelmed by the Sun's "golden" rays.

And we have another color, "green." This new life is in motion as well, "dancing." She has reached "the park," where the grass and flowers and bushes and budding trees are waving in the spring wind.

The effect is irresistible. The sheer amount of energy she encounters-- light, color, movement, new growth-- has shattered her emotional inertia. Notably, it is "afternoon." The apex has been reached... and then passed. 

The Sun is glad to see her, but in the way a teacher is glad to see that a tardy student has finally arrived. The Sun scolds her, wants to know "where the hell" she has been. Doesn't she know she is supposed to be in the sunlight, where the life is? Why had she been wasting time in the "hell" of an emotional winter? What does she have to say for herself?

At the outset, the speaker told us something about a "one time thing." We thought it was the meeting itself, our first impression. But now, perhaps not. Perhaps she is telling us about the relationship, that a break-up situation "happens a lot," but that each time is unique, a "one time thing."

If the relationship caused her to withdraw emotionally to that point, we certainly hope that this one in particular was a one time thing.

IMPACT: 

Vega's eponymous debut went platinum in the UK, and also sold well in the US. 

Next Song: Freeze Tag