Song of Sand

This song is reminiscent of Sting's "Fragile" in three ways: It is short, it has a sparse acoustic arrangement, and it is anti-war. At least, the second verse of this one is.

Oh, also-- both mention "rain" that has not fallen yet, and the idea that blood leaves a "stain."

The first verse is set somewhere sandy-- perhaps a desert or beach-- presumably with sine wave-shaped dunes. She calls these "sand waves." To the speaker, they look like sound waves, and so she imagines what "song" they would make, if in fact they were that.

She would want it to be a "stinging" tune, something sharp and piercing. This seems at odds with the usually smooth, rounded shape one associates with sand dunes. So why does she want something honed to a point?

So it "Could split this endless noon/ And make the sky swell with rain." The heat is so endless, relentless, and intense, that it has felt as hot as noon all day. Wouldn't it be nice if the sky were to somehow be spit open so that the rain could fall and cool everyone off?

This hope for rain makes it more likely, then, that we are in the desert. At the beach, one could just run into the actual water waves and get refreshed.

It's also interesting to note that this verse is comprised of two, if related, questions. The second verse is, grammatically, all one question.

Aside from the opening "if," the second verse seems to have nothing to do with the first. This is where the anti-war message is offered.

"If war were a game" that were winnable... the implication is that it is not. Even winning costs a great deal of human life and pain. And today's wars, especially, are not fought with other nations who can surrender or sign treaties, but with amorphous, hydra-like organizations that feed on grudges and resentment. They never lose (even if they never can win), because as long as they keep fighting, the "war" is still on, in their minds.

But, if there was such a "game"-- and games have rules, yes?-- then "What kind of rule/ Can overthrow a fool" (presumably, the enemy) bloodlessly? The idea is to win but "leave the land with no stain."

That would be a useful rule, indeed. The bloodless revolution is always preferable. Diplomacy, pressure, economic sanctions-- there are many alternatives to war that can achieve the same results, with much less loss of life.

As the war-gaming computer Joshua learns in the movie WarGames, "the only winning move is not to play." Unfortunately, war is often not a game that one can choose not to play. The speaker knows this, which is is why she begins with "if."

One interesting word is "child." She asks about a child winning a war, which is odd because even in those horrifying cases in which children are made the take up arms, they generally are not running the war and certainly did not start it. Perhaps she means that only a child-like person sees war as a game, and a winnable one at that.

The song is pretty, but not cohesive. The first verse wonders: if sand waves were made audible, could they produce a song that would call forth rain from a cloudless sky? The second asks: What if there were a rule of war-- assuming that war was a game, and a winnable one at that-- that could automatically make the opponent step down from power without a fight?

These are interesting questions, but not related. It seems as if the producer said that there were a few more minutes on the CD, and would Vega like to put something there? And she looked in her notebook and said, "Well, I have these two ideas. I'm not sure they are a song, though, together." And the producer said, "Why don't you sing them and we'll see?" And they were pretty enough, and now here they are... or it is.

As to which war is meant...? This album was released in 1992. The Gulf War took place the year before. In 1992 itself, there were wars in Rwanda, Somalia, Bosnia, Croatia, Georgia (the country), and Afghanistan, as well as unrest in Iraq. It is too hard, sadly, to say which-- if any specific-- war Vega was thinking of, or which "fool" she was hoping was to be deposed; many of these wars involved a brutal dictator, in which he was attacking a weaker neighbor or his own citizens.

The song seems a somewhat haphazard way to end the disc, even if the song did recall her earlier albums. Which she already did with "Blood Sings," a much stronger and cohesive song.

The song also calls to mind two other tiny songs. One is "Song for the Asking," the last song on Bridge Over Troubled Water, itself the last Simon and Garfunkel album. The other is "Her Majesty," a cute ditty that ends Let It Be, itself (by some lights) the last Beatles album. It's sort of a song to send you out the door, with a parting thought.


Next Song: Woman on the Tier  

As Girls Go

The subject of this song is either a man dressed as a woman ("transvestite") or a man in the process of becoming a woman ("transsexual"). A "transgender" person is one who identifies as the gender opposite of which their body would suggest, so that's another possibility, but less likely.

The speaker's entire focus, in the lyrics, is determining which is the case-- is this a man dressed as a woman, or becoming one? She is forced to admit that the subject "make(s) a really good girl," in the sense that he can "pass" as one. She does withhold some praise with: "...as girls go." So maybe this man makes for a convincing woman, just not a particularly attractive one...?

"Still kind of look like a guy," she says, now that she thinks of it. "I never thought to wonder why," she adds, implying that all this time this subject has been somewhat masculine for a woman, yet the speaker thought that he was just a masculine-looking woman, not actually a man in the guise of a woman... until now.

"If I could pull this off," usually means, "If I can accomplish this task," but most often in a sneaky or over-ambitious way: "If we could pull off this bank heist, we'd be rolling in dough." In this case, the speaker means it literally, about some article of clothing the man is wearing. If she could pull off his clothes, she would "know for certain/ the real situation..."

"... behind the curtain." This is a clever reference to The Wizard of Oz, in which the Wizard says, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." Why mention this movie? It stars Judy Garland, a star with long-standing popularity in the gay community. Her character is named "Dorothy," and for decades if someone wanted to know if a person was gay without being open about it, they would ask, "Is he a friend of Dorothy?"

Well, we were wrong about the results of the womanly guise being unattractive. Now we learn that the speaker feels (or at least says) the subject is "so beautiful" and even "stunning," even if the effect is artificial and "not exactly natural." Perhaps, since vinegar did not work, she is trying honey now.

(As an aside, I would use this expression-- "Not exactly natural/ Stunning nonetheless"-- to describe the album as a whole. While many of the sounds are synthesized, the result is arresting.)

Interestingly, now that the speaker has acknowledged the subject's attractiveness, she calls him a "damsel in distress." This fairy-tale reference might mean that he himself is self-conscious about whether he is "passing" as a woman. (Personally, I think a stronger line would have been "damsel in this dress," which would have made the listener think about that idea... while also expressing that, in this dress, he is a damsel-- while in, say, a sweatsuit, not so much.)

The speaker then gets a bit invasive with her curiosity: "What happened to you/ To make you more girl that girls are?" This seems somewhat personal and even judgmental, as if it would have to be an accident that made the person was this way... not just that he was, as Lady Gaga said, born this way.

Then the speaker probes further: "Would you ever show or tell?" She really does want to "pull this off"! Maybe she is at a drag show, but she seems to be hoping it turns into a strip show. She now couches her curiosity in a compliment. She wants to know, she says, because the subject is "so good" at passing.

Then she lays it all on the line: Did the subject have gender-reassignment surgery or not? She admits that her curiosity is inappropriate, and that she is investigating the "dark," and private-- perhaps even psychologically painful-- "side" of the subject's "life." But she doesn't care! She asks anyway: "Did you ever keep the date/ With the steel side of the knife?"

Finally, it seems that the subject has called an end to this invasive line of inquiry. We know because now the speaker suddenly pretends she doesn't care: "Doesn't matter to me/ Which side of the line/ You happen to be/ At any given time."

This sudden nonchalance is almost insulting-- along with the flippant sense of, "You know what, forget it; I've decided I don't care," comes the demeaning implication that the subject jumps back and forth between being a man and woman haphazardly. It implies that this is all just a fun game the subject plays with his gender identity instead of a deeply wrenching, even existential, internal struggle.

That said, this last could be also be a come-on: "I am so attracted to you, I don't care if you are a man or a woman... or one and then the other and back again! Let's go!"

However, if I were the subject, I would find this seduction highly suspicious. All this time, the speaker has wanted to see, to know for herself, just what was between the subject's legs. She has asked and dared and even threatened to disrobe the subject right there! And now she wants to sleep with him because she's attracted to him? Oh, please. She just wants to satisfy her ridiculous, insulting, obsessive curiosity, and getting him in bed will allow her to see him naked and know.

She says it doesn't matter? It has until just now!

I think the speaker is trying to be funny, and thinks she is. She probably is having fun and "just playin'."

But I imagine the subject of this harassing harangue of questions wouldn't find it funny at all. He was brave enough to trot out his new identity in public and is deeply insecure on many levels: Is he passing? Is he pretty? Is this really what he wants and who he is? Is it all worth it, given his deeper uncertainty?

And then this woman sees him and starts asking all these personal questions! Ones that go right to the heart of his insecurities. "So? What is it? Are you a guy or a girl? You kinda look like a guy. Come on, tell me. Go ahead, let me see. Peekaboo! Haha! Please? You know, you're pretty. Beautiful, even. Why are you so mixed up? You can tell me. Wow, you're even more feminine than a woman usually is-- are you overcompensating? (sigh) So, already, yeah? Did you get the ol' snippity snip or what? Fine! I don't care. Be a boy, a girl, or whatever. You're no fun."

It's really somewhat disturbing how hyper-focused the speaker is on the issue of the subject's gender. Why not ask anything else about him-- whatever happened to, "So, what do you do?" or "See any good movies lately?"

I certainly hope that subject spoke with someone else-- a friend or therapist-- who could assure him that this one person's massive inappropriateness should not in any way make them assume that most people look at him as a sideshow. Just this one obnoxious twit does.


Next Song: Song of Sand

When Heroes Go Down

This song doesn't need much interpretation. It's about what happens to those we put on pedestals. The higher we set them above us, the harder and faster they seem to fall. And since all heroes are ultimately human (the "super" kind of heroes are all fictional), they all ultimately fail and fall.

Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., even Gandhi... no matter how lauded and adulated, their biographers always seem to find the embarrassing skeletons behind the iconic facades. And when these skeletons (in the above examples, involving their relationships with women) come to light, well, as Vega says: "When heroes go down/ They go down fast."

The fall so quickly, there is no "time to/ Equivocate the past." That twenty five-cent word means "to cloud or obscure." A classic equivocation is: "Mistakes were made."

Like plummeting airplanes, falling heroes "land in flame." They are always, to others, at fault for their own downfall-- but to themselves, they are the victims of circumstance or conspiracy. Snap judgments are made, by the media and public, and "don't expect any slow and careful/ Settling of blame." They fell? Their fault.

So hold something back, Vegas advises, when you admire someone: "look out for the feet of clay." An interesting expression, from the Biblical Book of Daniel, this refers to a vision this prophet had of a particular king's society. He dreamed of a statue with a gold head, silver chest, bronze stomach, iron legs (note the decreasing worth of the metals on down)... and clay feet. This heavy statue (the kingdom) was built on a soft, unstable foundation (a rebellious peasant class) that would easily falter and bring his kingdom down.

Therefore, someone having "feet of clay" is fallible and will ultimately disappoint you, like the heroes Vega speaks of.

And what happens after they fall? There will be "no chance for last respects." No time to bury the reputationally dead with a proper funeral and last rites... before the public is on to the next hero on the next pedestal. "You feel the disappointment," but no one else is there to mourn your fallen hero.

Lastly, the "fall" coming with their being "revealed," then "you can't expect any kind of mercy/ On the battlefield." If someone's protective armor is compromised, their enemies will have at them relentlessly and remorselessly.

Vega herself is a celebrity. She has some experience being recognized while walking down the street and eating in cafes. And while she never has been the subject of tabloid scandal-mongering, she has had her most popular period, and now is-- and there is no shame in this-- less so. Perhaps another such period is in her future-- a song of hers could get recycled as a TV theme, or be sampled by Beyonce or something. There is no way to tell.

And Vega herself has, as have we all, admired others... and come to see their flaws. Perhaps seeing how celebrities fall-- or are torn down-- she is happier now that she has her family, her work, and her loyal following (ahem)... and that's all.

But maybe that's enough, or even better. After all, there isn't as much room to relax on a pedestal as there is on a porch swing.


Next Song: As Girls Go

Bad Wisdom

Another song on the album about a medical condition, if not an illness. This song is about a young woman-- "too young," according to the woman herself-- who gets pregnant.

She is exhibiting "strange" symptoms, but her mother is in some sort of denial. The doctor is aware of the woman's condition. "He knows I'm not a child," not too young to have sex. But he "doesn't dare ask the right question." Which is if she did.

After all, a mother-- and hers is there, at the appointment-- who does not consider the possibility that her "sick" child is actually simply pregnant is not emotionally ready to hear that she is.

Her friends, still young enough to "play games," have abandoned her. "I've grown serious," which is understandable, but her friends are too young to guess the reason, and so have "left" her to her own "daydreaming." Which is likely about what her life would have been like had she not gotten pregnant.

She starts to add up the "price" she has to pay for this "bad wisdom." Not that sex is bad, or that pregnancy is-- just that it's bad, now, for her. She knows "too much, too soon." She is just past playing with a doll, and should not worried about caring for a baby.

The woman now turns to society's reaction. She has learned that those who are "good"-- who follow the moral as well as the legal code-- "will be protected." However, those who have "fallen through the crack" are not, so there is "no getting back" to her former "good" status. Even a criminal can be rehabilitated and stolen items returned. But motherhood is forever, and therefore so is her "sin."

She realizes she can "never trust whoever gets elected." Because she has been immoral, she can forget any governmental assistance with her child. There is no incentive for an elected official to offer any, and plenty for balancing the city's budget on her back instead. Then the mayor gets to claim moral superiority, and for free.

Next, she loses the esteem and closeness of her mother, who by now has seen her swelling belly. Her mother's eyes have "gone suddenly cold." In a wry pun, the woman says this reaction is not what she was "expecting." Even her own mother has become emotionally distant. Perhaps she feels that she has failed as a mother, or that she has been betrayed by her wayward child. Maybe, on top of it all, she does not like the idea of being a grandmother yet, as it might make her feel old.

We hear about the "blossom of young womanhood," but that is not case here. The woman says that she feels "cut at the root like a weed." Why? "There's no one to hear my small story." Not her mother, not her friends, not the government. No one cares.

She made one mistake, and now she will pay for it, alone (well, aside from the baby), for the rest of her life. She compares her shunned status to that of a prostitute, "a woman who walks in the street." She says that like a whore, she will "pay for [her] life with [her] body."

It seems like having an abortion is not possible. It is easier for a politician to placate a puritanical public by denying abortion rights than to risk their ire; many who would use abortion services are too young to vote in any case and so have no political clout.

There is the option of having the child and then offering it for adoption. Again, this still requires a full course of labor and delivery, and the stigma of going through pregnancy in public.

The other factor is the father of this fetus-- he is not even mentioned. Knowing that the man-- who imparted this sexual "wisdom" to her-- simply used her and abandoned her tells her something else about men. Yet more "bad" information. But the fact that he is not even brought up speaks volumes-- she might have thought to rely on friends, family, or society, but it never even occurred to her to consider the involvement of the man who bares at least as much responsibility as herself. Who would even think he'd be around?

In a maddeningly ironic way, had she been raped, she would have some legal recourse. But it sounds like she sought this "wisdom" and only later regretted not having waited to learn its lessons. It also sounds like she-- and the baby-- are better off without him in any case, his responsibility to them notwithstanding.

This song is a cautionary tale. For one piece of wisdom, all this is lost: her friendships, her mother's affection, her social standing, her boyfriend, her future...

"Too young to know too much too soon." She would have still learned this wisdom, had she waited, and the tuition cost would not have been so very, very high.

Next Song: When Heroes Go Down

As a Child

Psychologists, filmmakers, and software designers have, since 1970, spoken about the "Uncanny Valley." People who are clearly real have a high acceptance by humans, as do depictions of people that are clearly false, such as paintings, photographs, cartoons, and obviously mechanical robots.

In between these "peaks" of acceptance is a "valley" inhabited almost-but-not-quite human things that tend to set people on edge. Dolls, puppets, ventriloquism dummies, zombies, androids, vampires, taxidermied animals, and even clowns all seem to inhabit this so-called "uncanny valley" that leaves viewers with unease and sometimes even fear. Therefore, they are often employed in horror movies and Twilight Zone episodes.

Vega's song seems to be exploring this terrain. In the first two verses, we imagine ourselves "as a child" who has a "doll." So lifelike is this synthetic creation, "it seems to/ Have a life."

A child might also create a miniature world on the beach, in a sandbox, in a dollhouse, in a couch-cushion fort, with blocks, with a train set... or even just by drawing in the "dirt in the street." This space, in a child's imagination, "becomes a town."

This is an enormous amount of control and power, as much destructive as it was creative: "All the people" in Dirttown "depend on you/ Not to hurt them/ Or bang the stick down." Like the doll, the Dirttowners "seem to have a life."

This image seems to recall that of the Mark Twain short story "The Mysterious Stranger." At one point in an encounter between an angel named Satan (after his uncle, the original Satan) and some children, he shows them a town he had made of clay:

"...and while he talked he made a crowd of little men and women the size of your finger, and they went diligently to work and cleared and leveled off a space a couple of yards square in the grass and began to build a cunning little castle in it... five hundred of these toy people swarming briskly about and working diligently and wiping the sweat off their faces as natural as life... Two of the little workmen were quarreling, and in buzzing little bumblebee voices they were cursing and swearing at each other; now came blows and blood; then they locked themselves together in a life-and-death struggle. Satan reached out his hand and crushed the life out of them with his fingers, threw them away, wiped the red from his fingers on his handkerchief, and went on talking where he had left off."

This Satan doesn't make the people of dirt or hit them with a stick, but I believe the imagery and sentiment are largely the same. 

Now we arrive at the point of Vega's discourse: "As a child/ You see yourself." Aha! A child is, in some sense, also an almost-person (again, this explains their prevalence in horror movies). 

Developmental psychologists explain that first, babies see themselves as parts or extensions of their mothers; this is only fair, as they have been quite that for some time. Then they mature to the state of not-mother. They can only define themselves as individuals in opposition to their parents, and do so with "No!" and tantrums. Hopefully, they develop even further and begin to see themselves as whole and independent, not in relation to-- neither same-as nor different-from-- the other party.

"You wonder why/ You can't seem to move." Children are often uncoordinated. Their brains have to learn how to make their bodies do everything from walk to put food in their mouths. Then they have to master even more complex tasks, like using a crayon or scissors. As a result, they can sometimes "Feel like a thing." 

The Yiddish word "klutz" captures this nicely. While it has come to mean "a clumsy person," it originally meant "a block of wood"; a klutzy person is just as graceful.

The next lines point to the beginning of exploration of the wider world: "Hand on the doorknob... one foot on the sidewalk." First, we leave the room for the rest of the house. Then we leave the house for the rest of the world.

At first, the task seems overwhelming: "Too much to prove" for this wood-block of a child.

But, over time, and with repetition, "you learn to/ you learn to/ you learn to/ have a life."

And that, ultimately, is what differentiates the fully human from the denizens of the uncanny valley. The doll and the Dirttowners only "seem" to have a life. They do not, because they cannot learn. Even a talking doll can only say those phrases on its internal recording. The uncanny ones can repeat, but they cannot gain experience from this repetition.

A doll says its five phrases perfectly and seems to have a life. You say a million things. Some are repeated, but many are original, and very many are flawed. But from mistakes come growth. A doll cannot grow; it can only break.

Alexander Pope, the poet, took the Latin expression "to err is human" and contrasted it with "to forgive, divine." But maybe Pope's quote could take something from Descarte's, "I think, therefore I am."

Fused, they form one thought that neatly expresses our song's message: "I err, therefore I am human."

And so, maybe not divine. But not uncanny, either.

Next Song: Bad Wisdom