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

Some Journey

The most important word in this song is the first: "If." The song is largely speculation, followed by a return to reality "as it is." In this, the song echoes the structure of a sonnet— one set of circumstances, followed by a “volta,” a turn toward the opposite.

The speaker feels that if the conditions had been different— the setting, the lighting, the clothing, the entire atmosphere— romance would have bloomed between her and the one she is singing to. 

She imagines the two of the having met on a train speeding "eastbound." By the description of their clothes, they would have been heading toward the Orient. He would be wearing "silken robes," and she, a mere, sheer garment made of "smoke and fire/ for [him] to see through." Oh, my.

Or, what about a "darkened room" of some mysterious sort? She describes a room in which people "pass" but "do not stay," perhaps some sort of hotel. He would have "taken [her] upstairs" to, presumably, a bedroom... where who-knows-what would have happened when he "turned the lamplight low." 

Without them knowing each other, they could have shared a consequence-free tryst (or a few). Knowing her reality would never have had to be revealed, she could have indulged his fantasies, and have played his "little girl... wife... mistress... lady fair..." or even "woman of the road."

In any case, she would have them vanished, "disappeared like the snow," or he would have "never come back home to [her]." No morning-after consequences.

There is an emphasis on clothes— things you can disguise yourself with— and motion. Even the clothes are made of "smoke and fire... lace like foam from the sea," things that are formless and ever-moving and fleeting. Even in the "room," well, no one stays there, and in the upstairs room, she would simply vanish.

There is no stasis, no solidity, in the romantic world of her imagination. Also, very little light.

The train passes through a “black, sleeping” town. Other words and phrases also evoke darkness: “smoke,” “darkened,” “shadows,” “never see the day,” and “turn the lamplight low.”

Then the dreamer awakens to find the opposite is true. She is in a land of buildings, not trains. Of homes, not hotels: "We live in the city." And? "And everything stays in place."

In her reality, there is an “open sidewalk,” very public. “Well I know your face,” she says, cringing at the over-familiarity. (it's "well I know," as in "I know it well," not "Well, I know...") 

There is also an atmosphere of openness: “We talk and talk/ We tell the truth,” and disappointingly, “there are no shadows here.”

She wonders if he has had the same thoughts: “When I look into your eyes/ I wonder what might have been here.” (Yes, Vega rhymes “here” with itself. What can you do?)

And still she wonders, if— instead of the static, bright, too-honest city— they had met on some inky, hazy, sultry journey, with identities masked and mystery swirling … if…

The song ends with a question repeated throughout: “Where would we be now?” The key word here is “we.” She imagines them, if they had been able to meet with some “shadows” around, being able to maintain a relationship. Not here, in the blare and glare of the city, but some other “where.”

The journey could never end, of course. The “where” would have to keep changing, if the basis of the relationship is the lack of stability. They would have to stay on that train.

Still, it doesn’t sound like she’d mind that.

Next Song: The Queen and the Soldier

Undertow

To explain the title: The "undertow" is the intense pull, or current, caused by a breaking wave as it recedes back into the sea. Its name comes from the fact that the force is along the sea bed, "under" the surface, and that it can "tow" an object, animal, or person back out to sea along with it, smothering it along the sea bed.

This is a surprisingly violent song. While it is about a relationship, it is not a love song, as it does not contain the word "love" or anything like it. Instead, there is only need... and the hatred of that need.

The speaker wants to "swallow" the songs' object-- "whole," the way a serpent does-- then disgorge "only bones and teeth." Later, we have sharp or pointed weapons like "the edge of a knife," "needles," and "bullets." We also have hard things, like a "stone," a "diamond," and another "bone."

Then there are signs of negative emotions: "tears," "secrets," "hunger," being "weak."

Even if all of these images are only metaphorical, what is the end of all of this hostility and angst? She wants him to be, of all things, "free."

The conflation of freedom with death is a longstanding one, the premise being that mortal life is a prison sentence, and only death can set one free. She has the idea that the body is some sort of cage, and that by removing it, the spirit will be released, at liberty.

Her current plan toward this objective is to... digest him. "We could see what was underneath/ And you would be free then."

Her previous plan was to use the salt of her tears to erode his flesh. "Once, I thought only tears could make us free/ Salt wearing down to the bone/ Like sand against the stone."

In other words, now she is using anger-- before, sadness.

Again, what is the reason for either of these plans for skeletonization? It seems that, if he is miserable enough, he won't have the wherewithal to leave her. He won't have the physical or emotional strength to resist her, and she can thereby possess him: "I am friend to the undertow," she says, using that imagery of grabbing, pulling, and drowning. "I take you in, I don't let go/ And now I have you."

She takes the idea of "possessiveness" to the extreme, as in the book and movie Misery.

She does not want this "freedom" only for him, however. She herself wants to be "sleek," to pass through life without attachments or friction. That's why she is fascinated with streamlined things-- things with edges, blades, and points. They can do damage without being damaged themselves. They can inflict pain, yet feel nothing, experience no pain themselves. She has clearly experienced pain in relationships before, and so tried to shed all connections.

In short, if she could be "sleek," she "would be free then." Which is what she wants.

But shedding all externalities has not produced the desired effect. Her emotional anorexia has failed to render her "sleek" as a python, polished pebble, or sword blade. Instead, "this hunger's/ Made [her] weak."

One mystery is resolved-- why she now resorts to imagery of consumption. She's psychologically hungry and wants to feed. She's eaten away at herself so much, she has nothing left, and so she turns to another, to feed off of him.

But she can barely admit that she needs someone else. So instead of saying, "I need him here to satisfy me," she sees herself as altruistic! "He needs me here to satisfy him!" she thinks. "I will do him the favor of stripping him 'down to the bone,' too, and 'free' him as I have freed myself."

Naturally, if the man wants to be "free," what he should really be is... elsewhere. If he has enough strength, still, to make it to shore.

Next Song: Some Journey

Straight Lines

In this song, a woman takes increasingly severe measures to cope with the pain in her life. A life which she ultimately decides to end.

The song begins with "the sound... of cold metal/ Touching skin." This is an allusion to the unfortunate practice of "cutting," the act of making incisions in one's skin as an attempt to "feel something." It is often done my people whose lives have become so painful, they have decided to become stoic and unemotional. Yet, the need for emotion surfaces, and the response of cutting is quite extreme indeed.

However, in this case, the allusion is not fulfilled, and all that has been "cut" is the woman's "hair." (The hair was blonde; it is referred to as "soft golden lights.") Still, the fact that this act is so rote as to be considered something done "again"-- with the eye-rolling phrasing of "here she goes again"--  is worrisome.

There is an invitation to observe this event, too. We are urged to hear the "sound" at the beginning, and now to "see," and even "look in her window." But it is not the ogling of a voyeur, rather the detached gaze of the psychologist or even anthropologist.

We note that the hair was cut "in straight lines." Perhaps she is seeking to create a sense of order in a chaotic life.

Another troubling sign is subtle. This self-inflicted haircut happened "in the morning." Usually such time-consuming treatments happen in the evening, when there is more time. It seems she has no other obligations to rush off to-- no school or job.

Also interesting is that, if we do look through the window, our view will not be impeded by glass; the window is open, at least enough for the "wind" to sweep her fallen hairs "through the apartment." This carelessness is also upsetting. Why doesn't she care that there is hair all over her floor now? Most people would try to contain the mess. So much for straight lines.

Then comes the enigmatic line "She don't need them/ Anymore." Of course not. Snipped-off hairs are always discarded as rubbish. So why say this, let along emphasize it with repetition? Perhaps she had used her hair to put forth an attractive mien, and no longer wishes to be attractive, to attract positive attention. Withdrawal from society is another "red flag."

And why the grammatically incorrect "don't"? This is our only clue to the speaker's identity.

Next, we learn that she has "cut down" something else! The line "she's cut down" is sharply divided from the rest of the phrase, "on her lovers." The expression "to cut down on" means "to reduce consumption of." One might say "I've cut down on calories" or even "television watching." Here, she has cut her romantic relationships. Again, her emotions refuse to be controlled: "She still dreams of them at night."

"She's growing straight lines/ Where once were flowers." Life can be confusing. The woman here has tired of this complexity and is seeking simplicity. But there is no escaping complexity-- even in a totalitarian society, or a self-imposed jail-- without escaping life. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

For now, she has "streamlined" herself with her haircut... and her life, with her solitude. Perhaps she has gotten rid of other things, too. Purging oneself of possessions can be a symptom of trouble, just a hoarding can. We already know that there are no carpets or rugs on her "wooden floor," because the hairs have scattered all "through the apartment."

And now, she is not "opening" or "drawing back" the shade, but "taking (it) down" entirely! She does this "to see the straight lines." Literally, the lines framing her window panes, those formed by the fire escape, the sidewalk panels, the streets, the bricks and windows and shapes of the buildings, lampposts, fences-- all straight lines.

Figuratively, she is removing  those things that cause shades of gray. She wants straight lines, and also black-and-white vistas.

Also being cut are "the circles/ That she has lived in before." Perhaps her relationships have proven circular in motion instead of progressing forward. Perhaps this is also true of her education and employment.

"She wants to finally kill the delusions/ She won't need them/ Anymore." All of which could be changed with many methods. She could take a vacation, enter into therapy, talk with friends or clergy, speak with a career counselor, begin meditation... any number of things to help her find clarity and end the cyclical patterns she seems to perpetuate.

She does none of them. The next thing we hear is another "sound." It's "cold metal" again. But this time, "too close to the bone."

Yes, she killed herself. Most likely, by slashing her wrists. She is, now, "finally alone/ Behind straight lines." Even in her apartment, there were dreams of lovers and nosy neighbors (ourselves included),

Flowers are messy. They bring water, dirt, fertilizer, pollen, thorns, fallen petals, water-logged stems, dead leaves, and ultimately dead flowers. But they are considered by most to be among the most beautiful things in the world. The mess is the price of the beauty.

This woman no longer could see any beauty in her life. No rug was worth the vacuuming. No boyfriend worth the angst. No flowers worth the mess. She wanted as little interaction, as little friction as possible.

She could not become streamlined enough with her straight lines. Ironically, the most streamlined things there are-- from bullet trains to bottlenose dolphins-- are made of curves.

If she had only learned to bend... or if anyone in her life had noticed her obvious signs of mental illness and pre-suicide behaviors. Then again, it may have been these well-meaning attempts at intervention that drove her into isolation. We'll never know, now.


Next Song: Undertow