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