If You Were in My Movie

This is a series of sexual fantasies involving role playing. This is the idea of using professions or other activities as play-acting, so as to provide a setting for sexual experimentation. Ironically, playing a role creates an emotional distance that can allow one's true urges to surface: "It's not really me doing this," the brain rationalizes, "I'm just pretending." To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, "the mask is the true face."

The first scenario here is that of the doctor and the patient. This is one of unequal power, in which the doctor is the authority and the patient is in his hands (literally). In this version of the story, the doctor makes a house call, and touches the woman-- "diagnostically," of course-- on her stomach and throat. First.

Then she imagines the man as a detective "examining" the woman and a priest who somehow "give(s) the girl a thrill" while "keep(ing) her body in check."

These other scenarios are also ones in which the man has the power. The woman wanting to be taken is somewhat anti-feminist, perhaps, but it is an understandable response to society's double standard when it comes to sex: a woman does want sex, but unlike a man, she is not allowed to want it.

So she imagines she has to have it because it is forced upon her by someone in power over her. Not to the degree of rape, perhaps, but still very stern persuasion. Not "have sex with me or I'll hurt you," but "have sex with or I'll leave you" or some other undesirable outcome.

This scenario gives the woman permission to want sex, because she cannot be judged if she had no choice, right? Another potent, long-popular manifestation of this idea in popular culture is the vampire, coming into the woman's bedroom window at night and just taking her without permission... that monster!

Then she imagines her lover as the opposite of the noir detective, the noir gangster. This criminal, however, is the least powerful of the bunch! One might expect someone with no regard for the law to be ultimately free and self-determining. But he is "double-crossed" by his own moll, the "blonde." He is apprehended and brought before a jury, left only to mumble the weak excuse that he "hadn't done anything yet."

It is interesting that this is the final scenario. She wins because she gains the upper hand, but at what cost? Now the man is emasculated... weak and uninteresting.

While it is a step forward, perhaps, to have the woman in control, there is still another step to be taken-- equality. The speaker cannot yet imagine being another doctor the first calls upon to consult with, She is not his fellow detective, as in so many cop-buddy shows and movies. She is not a nun equal to the priest... who so enrapture each other they toss their vows and clothes aside.

And she is not his partner in crime. She is the moll roped into the mobster's control, who sees that the game is up and so rats him out to the pigs like a pigeon. Mixed animal metaphors aside, how telling that she can only imagine herself as under her lover's power, or he in hers...

...even though she is the director. After all, she imagines that he is in her movie.

Next Song: As a Child

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



 

Blood Sings

We've all seen images of children running to greet their parents, especially ones returning from a long absence, say from an overseas combat zone. Many of us have seen or even experienced reunions among family members. There are even stories of family members who had thought each other dead finding each other again after decades. There are smiles and tears and long hugs.

Even in the Bible, Adam finds a resonance with Eve he does not find with any of the other creatures. "This, now, is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh," he enthuses about her.

"When blood meets blood of its own/ It sings to see itself again," is how Vega puts it, in this song. Recognition is so powerful that it surges the blood and sends it singing through the arteries. "It sings to here the voice it's known/ It sings to recognize the face... I know these bones as being mine/ and the curving of the lip."

But the song is about more than the joy of self-recognition in a family member's face.

The lines "one body split and passed along the line/ From the shoulder to the hip" is enigmatic. If the body is "split... from the shoulder to the hip" does that mean some surgery has been done? If so, why the phrase "passed along the line"-- was this an organ donor?

It could be a metaphorical split. One member of the family could have been separated from the rest somehow. Perhaps the mother, being too young or financially insecure, gave her first child up for adoption, but he was unfortunate enough not to find a permanent home but was instead "passed along the line" from one foster family to another.

And now this child has grown and become a teen; he would become legally independent at 18 but might need somewhere to go, since his foster family could not keep him. He contacts his biological mother, and she agrees to take him in.  Now he is meeting his older siblings, who were raised by their biological mother, who was mature and stable enough when she had them to keep them.

His younger sister's first reaction is joy-- he looks just like them! Look at his features, his bone structure, his lips... even his voice! He really is a member of the family. 

But then she really takes a look at her long-lost brother and asks, "How did this one life fall so far and fast?" Clearly, he has been through many miserable years.

She muses that some people are naturally gifted, others less so: "some with grace, and some without." He seems to be of the latter kind. But "all tell the story that repeats." Is that the story of the genetic code? Or of one that has occurred before, perhaps even in this selfsame family?

This story is "of a child who had been left alone at birth/ Left to fend [for himself]." Worse, "and taught to fight." He has had to defend himself, probably against bullies who taunted him for his foster status. 

"See his eyes and how they start with light," she notices. In this case, "start" is a synonym for "startle." He is not used to light, perhaps being from kept in a dark room, say an attic. 

He has pictures of his childhood, and as the sister rifles through them, she notices that his eyes "get colder" as he ages. It is a sad fact of the foster system that people are willing to take in babies and small children, and less so children as they age. Many, by age eight or so, end up in group homes. 

Evidently, he warms to them enough to tell them his story, or perhaps his case worker fills them in, because "we've all come to know" what it was. "Did he carry his back luck upon his back?" she wonders, as he moved from house to house, but never going to a place that was truly "home."

There was a young woman who, hearing that many foster kids pack to move to their next home in garbage bags, began a national effort to collect luggage for them. If they do have to move, she felt, at least they don't feel like their belongings are garbage when they do

The verse about the joy of recognition now repeats. It seems like this wondering and worrying have subsided, and the happiness at the reunion itself has returned. 

But we have to wonder, once she was able to have and care for her own children, why their mother did not go back and try to find the child she had to give up before. Perhaps she was too upset, or embarrassed, or frightened. Anyway, he is here now, so now the healing can begin.

Structural Note:

The rhyme scheme of the song is unusual too, in that it varies from verse to verse. In the first verse, the first and third lines rhyme: "own/known" (ABAC). In the second verse, the first and third lines rhyme: "line/mine." But so do the second and fourth "hip/lip." (so it's ABAB). In the third verse, the second and fourth lines (semi-)rhyme: "repeats/fight." In the last verse, the second and fourth lines rhyme: "go/know." These final two are ABCB. And then the first verse repeats.

This scheme hints at a shift in perspective. At first, the sister is seeing things through her own eyes, so the rhyme starts at the first line of the verse, as in first person (me). Then she starts to shift her viewpoint ("I wonder what he thinks of me?!" and can rhyme the second line (second person, you) line also; ("You must see me the same way I see you," she thinks of her brother. By the third verse, she has shifted her viewpoint entirely ("What must you have gone through?") and is only seeing his viewpoint. She stays there for the fourth verse. Then she, as she must, returns to her own.

Musical Note:

The song is mostly sung to a solo guitar with a bass line, hearkening back to Vega's earlier work. It stands apart from the other heavily produced, industrial work of the rest of album.  

Next Song: Fat Man and Dancing Girl

99.9 F

This song seems an update of Peggy Lee's (in)famous song "Fever."

The song starts with the diagnosis of the patient's temperature and "stable" status, but then adds the prognosis "...with rising possibilities." That's not usually what a doctor says... what is it that might actually be rising? Hmmm....

Also, the prescription? "Stay awake at night." A doctor faced with a real fever might suggest sleep instead.

So this seems to be a couple engaged in some sort of sexy medical role play. The line "it could be normal, but it isn't quite" seems to belie a hidden kink as well.

There is a lot of repetition in this song-- it seems to have multiple choruses. The bridge is only sung once. "Pale as a candle" is a nice line because it evokes something pallid, yes, but also aflame (it's not "pale as snow," or "wool.")

The metaphor of contagion is used to evoke the idea that one person's passion could ignite another's: "If I touch you/ I might get what you've got."

One repeated element is this verse: "Something cool against the skin/ Is what you could be needing." This is almost certainly a reference to the song "Small Blue Thing," with its line: "I am cold against your skin."

The implication of "If I touch you," is that she hasn't yet, so this reinforces the idea that she is still "cool" while he is warm with his... temperature(?) still "rising."

In a later song on this album, "If You Were in My Movie," Vega again explores the idea of romantic role play, and this doctor/patient game is one of the scenarios described.

It is probably not all that surprising that someone so focused on medical issues could sexualize the idea. If hospital visits were consuming someone's time, this might be a natural way to take ownership of that unwelcome circumstance.


Next Song: Blood Sings