Solitude Standing

There is a literary trope, used here, with a confusing name. "Apostrophe" is not just the term for that floating punctuation mark, but for the literary technique of speaking to an idea or abstract concept.

For example: "Hello, Darkness, my old friend," or "Death, be not proud," or "America, God shed His Grace on thee." As if the speaker could actually talk to Darkness, Death or America.

Here, the speaker addresses Solitude. It seems that she was in a relationship with another person, which has now ended, and now she is alone "with" Solitude, as it were.

The song starts with the speaker entering a "room." Solitude, who already expected that the speaker would be alone when she arrived, post-breakup, has "been waiting." The "slant of the late afternoon" refers to the steep angle at which the light enters the room through the "window."

But Solitude says nothing, at least at first, by way of greeting. Instead, she extends her palm, which contains a curious item: "Her palm is split with a flower, with a flame."

It helps to know that Vega is a Buddhist. Most likely, this refers to a flaming lotus or similar symbol from that wisdom tradition. Flame is a destructive quantity, and a flower symbolizes creation, life, and birth. This shows the two sides of solitude-- criminals are sent to solitary confinement as a punishment, while hermits seek it for spiritual growth.

In the second verse, Solitude has moved from the "window" to the "doorway." There is still a light behind her, as she is seen as a "silhouette." In the first verse, her "eyes" are mentioned; this time, her "long, cool stare" is. Also, she is still silent.

"I suddenly remember each time we've met" means that this sensation of alone-ness is so familiar that all such instances of feeling this way rush from her memory into awareness.

Now, Solitude speaks. She explains that she is not to be feared, but in fact brings solace and healing. "I've come to set a twisted thing straight," she says, soothingly. "I've come to lighten this dark heart."

But the speaker is still wary. "I feel her imprint of fear," she thinks. And then she addresses Solitude in response: "I've never thought of finding you here."

Where? On stage, it seems. "I turn to the crowd as they're watching... their eyes are gathered into one." It's understandable-- why would you expect to find solitude in a room full of people? Yet, she is on stage, and they are apart from her, in the audience.

Yet, they are together with each other-- and she finds herself "wanting to be in there, among them." She wants to be part of her own audience! If only to be a part... instead of apart.

Everyone is looking at her, even Solitude. It's one thing to be alone, but entirely another to be alone where everyone can see you be that way. You might as well be in a fishbowl.

Still, she is trying to see Solitude as bringing her something helpful. Sometimes, it's necessary to be alone with Solitude, to be able to prepare for the next time you meet Togetherness.

IMPACT:
This song reached #94, and remained on the US charts for 3 weeks.

Next Song: Calypso

Night Vision

This song is an unusual lullaby. Most such songs are simple phrases about sleep itself or the comfort of a nearby motherly presence.

This lullaby offers concrete advice for confronting the under-bed and closet-dwelling monsters that shadows create in small children's bedrooms: "By night beware... half the world [lies] in fear" due to nightfall.

No, you won't be able to see well once the Sun has set, the speaker admits to her young charge: "The table, the guitar, the empty glass/ All will blend together when the daylight has passed."

However, you are not without resources you can marshal to your defense, she continues. You can still tell what objects are without color to help, when "darkness" places "her hand across your face."

How? By looking at their silhouettes: "Find the line, find the shape," she teaches. "Find the outline-- Things will/ Tell you their name."

This way, you can once again feel mastery over your room, she concluded. Everything is the same-- it only looks different. So you have to adapt... and see differently.

The key is to remember not to be afraid in the first place. Keep your wits about you: "Don't give in too quickly" to fear.

The speaker at last says she can "watch" the child "falling into sleep... watch your... eyes dim/ In blind faith." Ultimately, sleep arrives, but peacefully now. The child has come to trust her surroundings as being familiar and safe. She can relax enough to sleep.

The song ends with the speaker admitting her own limitations. "I would shelter you [emphasis mine]/ And keep you in light." In an ideal world, it would always be easy to see our surroundings and to feel control over them.

However, not even Mommy can keep the Sun from going down. And, as much as she'd love to, she can't always be there for her child.

But she can teach her child to need her less, and to learn to navigate the shadows alone: "I can only teach you/ Night vision," the ability to see without very much light, and to fill in the world with your own knowledge of it when there is little light to help.

Next Song: Solitude Standing

In the Eye

This is a very short song. It only has two verses and a chorus, which repeat in their entirety. The chorus itself is only 12 words long, and there are only 42 individual words in the song altogether.

All of the words are simple and direct and known to elementary school children. In fact, only a few of those words are more than one syllable long: “alive,” “everything,” “inside,” “into,” “memory,” and “myself.”

Yet, as a statement, it is quite powerful in its defiance and strength.

The song doesn't seem to need much interpretation. It doesn't use the word "haunt," but that is the threat it describes. "If you were to kill me... I would burn myself into your memory... I would make you wear me like a scar."

“If you were to kill me,” the speaker implies, “I would haunt you for the rest of your life. The fact that I was able to meet my death while still meeting your gaze would let you know that although you have destroyed my body, you never conquered my spirit, and I continue to defy you even after my physical death.”

An idea that repeats is that of “in.” There are the lines “In the eye,” “into your memory,” “live inside of you,” and even “run through.” The idea is that the speaker would be indelibly embedded into her killer in some sense.

So now killing her is a bad idea for another. Aside from being a crime and a sin, it would not even really result in her death! She would be physically dead, sure, but her memory and spirit would be alive inside her killer! So what’s the point?

Next Song: Night Vision

Ironbound/ Fancy Poultry

This song uses what is called a "motif," an image that recurs several times. The motif is the idea of things, people, and places being "ironbound."

There is an overhead structure, probably the trestle from an elevated commuter train: "Beams and bridges... the rails run 'round." Its beams-- along with the random wires overhead in any city-- don't so much block the sunlight as bisect into "little triangles."

The trestle is supported by iron beams, regularly spaced. This colonnade makes the "section" beneath it feel "ironbound." Other areas shown to be bounded by iron fencing are the "schoolyard" and the "market." The iron is old, with much visible "rust." This has been going on a long, long time.

And, ultimately, the "border" between the residents and any other possible life is, likewise, "ironbound." This area's many fenced in subsections are revealed as the characters move through them.

The only action is of a woman dropping her child off at school, then going to the market. By watching her, we learn something about her life and circumstances.

She lives near a marketplace where live chickens are displayed and butchered onsite for sale. We see "the blood and feathers near her feet," and later hear the cries of the chicken sellers.

The woman is of indistinct ethnicity-- we are told that her skin is of a "light and sweet coffee color"-- but perhaps she is Portuguese like others in her neighborhood.

We "watch" her walk her son up to the gate of the school. Both are "bound up in iron and wire and fate." The iron beams and metal wires that surround them serve as a metaphor for a prison of a sort, a place and situation that cannot be escaped.

She has some hope for the children, however. Aside from the chickens and the people, the only living thing there is some scraggly, hardy vegetation. She knows the children "will grow like weeds on a fence... they come up through the cracks." She tells us that they "try to make sense" of their situation.
But she stops short of saying they will be able to do anything about it.

"She touches him goodbye," but does not embrace or kiss her son. Perhaps he is too old to be comfortable with such displays in front of his classmates. Or perhaps the very coldness and restrictiveness of their environment has chilled such usual parental warmth.

Leaving the schoolyard, "she stops at the stall," presumably the one selling chickens. She "fingers the ring," probably a wedding ring. Where is her husband, the boy's father? Did he leave for work earlier? Is he home, unemployed? Did he divorce her, simply fly, or even die?

She "feels a longing," but, it seems, not for him. She longs to be, simply, "away from the ironbound border." What seems to trigger the longing, after all, is not the ring. It's the opening of her purse. Why would the routine act of finding money for groceries in her wallet call forth this emotional reaction? Does she miss the man less than the financial stability he provided?

Does she struggle with the idea of selling or pawning the ring, as if doing so would be an admission of the finality of the man's departure? That he left or died and is never coming back? If it's all she has left of him, we can well imagine her dilemma.

The song closes with the cry of the chicken vendor. But it is clear that this sub-song (it has its own title) is also meant to symbolize the treatment of women. It even calls to mind the specter of female trafficking and prostitution.

What is being sold? "Breasts and thighs," the visible parts of a woman most often sexualized. Also, "hearts" are for sale-- emotional commitment can be had for a price. "Backs," the part associate with work (as in "back-breaking labor") are cheap; for not much, you can have a woman cook and clean for you. She could be a maid, a wife, does it matter?

And "wings"? They are "nearly fee." Chicken wings do not have much meat, and so would be sold cheaply. But metaphorically, a woman's "wings"-- her senses of independence and freedom-- are only "nearly" free. Not free... enough. Still, ultimately, ironbound.


Next Song: In the Eye