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

Marlene on the Wall

This is a song about a woman in an abusive relationship. We see that the man is physically violent, and there is undoubtedly emotional damage being done here as well.

"Even if I am in love with you... what's it to you?" she asks. OK, so she loves him, but why does he have to react this way if he doesn't love her back anyway?

There is "blood," and a bruise. This is the "tattoo"-- a mark on the skin-- of a "rose" color she speaks of, made by his grip: "on me, from you."

Then she speaks like a lawyer or police officer (a crime has been committed, after all) and says, "Observe... the fingerprints" and "Other evidence has shown," that, even though they are in a relationship, they are each fundamentally "still alone."

Further, they wisely agree not to discuss the situation in the heat of the moment, saying they will talk about it later... only they "don't talk about it later." Instead, they practice denial and avoidance, and "skirt around the danger zone."

There is a witness of a sort to this crime: a poster of Marlene Dietrich (referred to in the previous song, "Freeze Tag": "I will be Dietrich and you will be Dean"). She was a German performer, a singer and actress out of the cabaret heyday in WWII, who parlayed her sex appeal and husky voice into a series of film roles, usually as a femme fatale. Often, as in her breakout role in The Blue Angel, her character was seductive, but destructive, and sometimes so powerful a presence that she dressed in masculine clothing to emphasize her strength.

Dietrich appeared in everything from Westerns (lampooned by Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles) to war movies. She also performed for the troops in USO appearances; either those or the characters in the war movies could be the "soldiers" spoken of here.

In this song, Dietrich gazes imperiously on the proceedings from her movie poster, "her mocking smile" showing her disdain for the speaker allowing herself to be thus manhandled. In her roles, Dietrich usually handled the man, and without resorting to physical violence at that.

However, the speaker resents this judgementalism. First, while she is under attack, she is not supported by a battalion, but is alone: "The only solider now is me." Further, she is "fighting things [she] cannot see." Yes, she sees her attacker, but is also fighting her own feelings for and about him (see the first line).

On top of all this, she feels she is "changing," but for good or ill? Is she changing into a compliant, complaisant victim? Or is she changing into someone who might fight back, or at least leave? In any case, she does not feel in control of these changes, but that they are her "destiny."

At this point, the speaker is still in the relationship. The present tense of the statement "I walk to your house in the afternoon" makes this sound like a daily, and current, occurrence. The house is "by the butcher shop," which is ominous in its imagery (and also foreshadows the song "Fancy Poultry").

On her walk, she imagines Dietrich's advice would be to play hard to get: "Don't give away the goods too soon."

But something about the danger of the situation is part of the attraction. "I tried so hard to resist" his grip, she says, but she goes to his house every day to begin with! Wouldn't the first step in resisting be to... not go? She even-- as he is gripping her and literally bending her to his will-- calls his fist "handsome." (The phrases "rose tattoo" and "handsome fist" are part of the proof of Vega's sublime songcraft, even at this early stage of hers).

Whether verbally or through this action, the man "reminded [her] of the night [they] kissed." Evidently, the abuse was part of the relationship from the outset, and may have even been its catalyst altogether.

The man's words or actions also remind her "of why [she] should be leaving." This is the best news we have had so far. Maybe Dietrich's scorn, not some cloying social-work understanding, is the right therapy for this person in this situation.

After several choruses in which Dietrich records the passing by of soldiers, she now simply "records the rise and fall of every man who's been here." Perhaps this is not the speaker's first abusive relationship.

"But the only one here now is me," the speaker concludes. She cannot rely on anyone else, but must rise to her own protection and be her own savior. In this chorus, Vega has the speaker repeat the word "changing" multiple times, growing louder, to emphasize the intensity and acceleration of this changing.

We leave the speaker still in the grip of his man, and this relationship. But with Marlene Dietrich's wry, knowing grin as her goad, perhaps she will break free of him-- and of this cycle of abusive men-- someday. Even if she is "in love with" him, maybe she loves herself more.

Next Song: Small Blue Thing

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

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