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