Caramel

This song has a sultry vibe to it. Musically, it is a Brazilian jazz-bossa nova kinda thing.

In it, the speaker tries to convince herself not to dwell on a potential, but impossible, romance. She only halfway succeeds.

It may be that the never-to-be love is of Latin, or other "of color" origin... or perhaps the romance simply took place in a tropical, exotic locale. In any case, "dream(ing) of caramel" and "think(ing) of cinnamon" reminds her of this guy. And such thoughts, she scolds herself, simply "won't do."

No, she repeats, it won't do "to stir a deep desire/ To fan a hidden fire/ That can never burn true." After all, what's the point in frustrating oneself? And, it's simply... improper. Tut tut.

What further indicates that the impossible lover is of a... darker complected sort than herself is the line "I know your skin." Again, this is not to say anything definitive-- most of us have skin, after all. But she says she "knows" it without having said anything else about being intimate. The only other thing she says she knows about him is his "name." So she has been fascinated with, and has studied, his skin more than his other features.

Oh, it would be so easy to just let nature take its course! "I know the way these things begin," she said. If she didn't resist, or he didn't, it would just... happen.

But the consequences are simply too dire, the inevitability of guilt too great: "I don't know how I could live with myself... if you don't go." She doesn't think she could "forgive... (her)self" if he stayed and they gave way to their mutual attraction.

We also don't know why the love is impossible, or morally unforgivable. Is he married? Is she? Most likely at least one of them is. Even if it would be a "shipboard romance" that could never last, two unattached people would still most likely, as Kate Bush put it, "exchange the experience."

In any case, she bids "goodbye." Not to him, though, but to "sweet appetite." What she really misses is less him than the wanting of him, and even this is denied her. It would be one thing if she wanted him but could not have him-- she isn't allowed to even want him.

It's just as well, she concludes, returning to her food metaphor, since "No single bite/ Could satisfy." Smokey Robinson, also using a sweet food in a similar way, had long before concluded that "a taste of honey is worse than none at all." In other words, it's better in their opinion, to not know how great it would have been, and just leave it to imagination, than to know how great this romance is... and can never be again.

This is the opposite idea from Tennyson's assertion that "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." But then, he was talking about a love that was permitted to begin with, not one that was never supposed to happen.

This song is one of Vega's most sensual and languid. Too bad the romance was never allowed to "burn true." Imagine what steamy songs we would have had, then.

IMPACT:
This song was included in the soundtrack to the romantic comedy The Truth About Cats and Dogs.

Next Song: Stockings

Headshots

"Headshot" is a term from modeling and theater. It refers to the photo of a model or actor's face that accompanies their resume or c.v. Such things are not allowed in most professions, given the potential for discrimination, but they are allowed-- even required-- in those fields where your face is one of your qualifications.

Evidently, someone was advertising their business, which was taking such photos. They used one of the headshots they had taken in the ad to show the quality and style of their photography. They then plastered these posters across the city; "He's everywhere," from a wall to a lamppost. "Turn the corner, and he's still there."

Apparently, there was no other information on the posters: "The sign said 'headshots'... a picture of a boy and a number you could call... and that was all."

Since there were so many posters, the lighting conditions in each case was different, which made each photo look different (even though it was the exact same image each time). In one case, a "shadow" fell across just the eyes in the image, and the viewer noted that this "can... make the difference/ In what you see."

As in "Marlene on the Wall," the speaker imagines the image being able to see the people looking at it, "Watching all the people/ Who are passing unaware."

While Marlene Dietrich's image simply "regards" her viewers in that song, the boy in this headshot seems to pass "judgment" on those who pass him. Perhaps he holds an air of arrogance or disdain... or perhaps this is just read into his expression by the viewer.

This negative interpretation of the boy's expression could be explained by the viewer's negative mood, in turn explained by the fact that the "day" was "cold and gray." Or maybe something more than just the weather?

"The boy becomes a picture/ Of guilt and sympathy." So... now the boy is not disdainful but pitiful and pitying for some reason.

"And so I think of you/ (and) Of the days we were together." The boy's image is nothing, really, but a reminder of a lost love. "I knew that you loved me/ That was the difference/ In what we see." (We know the relationship is in the past because of the word "were," "memory," and "history.")

A shadow across the picture of a face-- which was not part of the original image but only an accident of its placement-- can change the way one sees that face nevertheless. Similarly, her love for her lover was altered by the fact that she knew her love was returned. If she knew it was unrequited, she would have felt differently, as she now does.

That reciprocated love was nothing she caused, and yet it changed the way she saw him-- just like the shadow changed the way she saw the boy's face.

The song closes with the words "that's history," to mean that the relationship is over (and that maybe she should stop obsessing about it). But it's also the way we see past events-- through the lens of the present.

One generation, for instance, sees in a historic figure like Andrew Jackson a bold general and strong president. A later generation may see the same person as violent and bigoted. Jackson himself, of course, no longer has any say in the matter. He's just a face on some currency.

There have been numerous psychological studies on this issue. One study runs thus: In one case, a person is told they have failed a test, in the other that they passed admirably. In each case, an un-involved person is standing perhaps 10 feet away. Later, the test-takers are asked what they think of that person. Those who did well saw them favorably: "He seemed like a nice guy." Those who failed disliked him: "He was just standing there, listening to the teacher tell me I failed! What a jerk!"

The bad news for the speaker is that everything seems to remind her of her rejection, since even a nondescript poster-face seems to be judging her as a loser.

The good news for us is that if someone treats us poorly, we can now know that it may have nothing to do with us-- maybe we were just there when that other person was mad at the weather or heard some bad news.

Next Song: Caramel

Birth-Day (Love Made Real)

Just to make it clear what the song is about, it's song's title is "Birth-Day." With a hyphen. It's not a "birthday," the anniversary of a birth, but the actual day of the actual birth.

In Vega's case, most likely that of her daughter, Ruby, who was born in 1994. This is the first song on Vega's Nine Objects of Desire, which was released in 1996. Her previous alum, 99.9..., came out in 1992; both albums were produced by Mitchell Froom, whom she married in 1995.

So, chronologically, it goes-- 1992, 99.9 is produced and released; 1994, Ruby is born (and this song was likely written); 1995, Vega and Froom marry; 1996, Nine Objects is released. (Sadly, Vega and Froom will separate in 1998, but that's covered in later albums, and first we have to get through their marriage, song by song).

To this song itself... it starts with the acknowledgement of the pain of childbirth, but with the self-reassurance that "this pain will go" once the process is over. But she must "step through all that's left to feel," first, and it is a gradual series of steps in most cases, not a running or rushing in any way.

Many couples feel the way the speaker does about their child, that it is their "love made real." Love itself is very abstract, but a child that is literally the product of that love, and is genetically half of each of them, becomes a living symbol of that love.

The directive, "Don't move, don't touch/ Don't talk so much" may be to herself, or to her over-helpful partner. Or both.

While many deliveries in the Western world are done with the mother on her back, there has been a movement to prefer-- or at least try-- earlier, more traditional methods. These include having the mother stand or squat, so that gravity can help pull... and having the mother on her hands and knees, imitating the way other mammals deliver. The speaker here tries these positions, telling herself to "strip" and then "find a place to kneel."

Even in the throes of the pain, the mother is keenly aware of the special-ness of the moment. Before, she calmed herself with the idea that the pain would "go," now she is sad to realize that "this day will go," and what is now an experience will soon be a mere memory.

A wave of pain hits, disrupting her philosophizing. Now she seems to "crawl the wall." Evidently, in her all-fours position, she is facing the wall and bracing against it with her hands, so looks like she is trying to scale it or crawl up it.

"She's the ticket to the future," she thinks of her soon-to-arrive baby. "Don't listen down the hall," of the maternity ward, she tells herself. Perhaps she hears the screams of other women in labor and worries that she will be in that much pain; perhaps she hears the cries of newborns and wishes that it  were her kid making that noise already. She reminds herself to focus on her own situation.

The position she is in not only resembles crawling, but prostrating oneself in prayer. "You can say your prayer to the head of this bed," she mutters, feeling that no caring God would put people through so much pain just to do the most natural thing, let alone answer a prayer to make it hurt less. And it hurts quite a bit, all over: "It begins at your knees and goes right to your head."

Now, she is re-positioned so that she is on her back, and held in place with a "strap" at each "wrist" and ankle. "I wait to meet my love made real," she repeats, hoping that a focus on her objective will help her endure the next phase.

At this point, she is so worn out that she has begun to "shake all over like an old, sick dog." If the childbirth has been "natural" to this point, now chemical medications are introduced. "There's a needle here, needle there"-- one serum to numb the area, and one to induce the cervix to widen. Her shivering has not subsided, even as the numbness and mental fatigue set in, and she starts to "tremble in the fog."

We're almost there, though... "It's a tight squeeze, vice grip," as the head and then the rest of the body start to pass through the opening. "Ice and fire" might refer to the off combination of numbness and pain at this point.

And...? It's a girl. "She's a hot little treasure," coos the new mother. "And the wave goes higher"-- the elation of holding the newborn in her arms is an intense wave of pure emotion.

The song's short phrases, disjointed images, and general confusion mirror the wild sensations of childbirth. The physical, mental and emotional aspects switch and mingle and compete, with a pain interrupting an emotion which in turn is shoved aside by an instruction from the doctor or a question from a nurse... it's a tumult in many dimensions. And the thudding, swirling music and lyrics capture the sense of being tossed about as if one is in a storm at sea.

But the pain, and the day, do go. And you're left with a baby at the end, who stays.

Not a bad trade, all told.

Next Song: Headshots

Woman on the Tier (I'll See You Through)

This song is from the soundtrack to the 1995 movie Dead Man Walking. It is not in the film, however; the soundtrack's subtitle is "Music from and inspired by the motion picture." The director, Tim Robbins, submitted songs from many top songwriters, and while he could not use them all in the film, he felt obliged to release them somehow (also, much of the music in the actual soundtrack is gospel songs and Armenian folksongs... and while they are beautiful, it can be fairly said they had limited commercial appeal versus the work of Vega, Springsteen, Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Eddie Vedder, and country's Johnny Cash, Lyle Lovett, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Steve Earle).

The film's story is a true one about a Death Row inmate and the nun who tried to save him, or at least his soul, and visited him regularly in prison. (As always, Hollywood put its own spin on the story.)

It is not surprising that Vega was chosen to contribute to the soundtrack, given the industrial sound of her 99.9 Fahrenheit Degrees album and her history of writing songs about mental illness.

The song's title implies that the song is about a woman, and it is-- but most of the imagery is about the prison she visits. It begins by setting the scene of a building that resembles a "tin can," since it is full of metal bars and doors, and frustratingly ventilation-free: "Too hot. No air," even with a "loud fan" stirring up the stifling atmosphere. She is waiting on the "tier," as the title explains, this being one level or story of the prison's architecture.

The song continues with the procedure she follows: "Wait here... They've gone to get your man," the prisoner she is there to see. Then "Through Gate 3 with a picture ID." She hears "the click" of a lock, then "see(s) his face through bar and guard."

She introduces herself to the prisoner by acknowledging the strangeness of their meeting: "You're new to me; I'm new to you." Then, she makes a promise. Although she sees "his fate" as inevitable, she still says "I'll see you through."

Although... she actually says: "I'll see you/ You through," as if stuttering. But "I'll see you" is also a promise for repeated visits, and the emphasis on "you" could imply "I see through you," as in: "Yeah, I see 'these men are hard,' but I know there is a soul in there somewhere."

While the room and building are "too hot," she finds her reception by the prisoner chilly: "Ice within." Is there any clemency forthcoming? No, the powers that be are as firm as the walls of the prison: "it's all cement in the government."

Now the prisoner is being moved to the pre-execution chamber, the "plywood booth where the prisoner's sent." The prisoner sees the "red... letters" on the door of the actual execution chamber. His reaction is to "feel unreal," even as reality is very much all around, even to his "rattling chains."

Lastly, the focus moves back to the woman. She "hear(s) the clock," and knows time has run out, and that the electric switch or poison needle or other form of execution method is about to be used.

It is not uncommon in moments like this for the brain to seek distraction, but all she finds is a blank "green" wall. (As to why it is green, please see the earlier blogpost on Vega's song "Institution Green.") She also noticed that, instead of "bars," there is a "screen" to view the execution through.

She closes with the same words with which she began: "You're new to me; I'm new to you./ I see your fate. I'll see you/ You through." She has kept her promise, and stayed with him until his end.

Lyrically, the song is notable for its use of internal rhyme, which gives the sensation of small rooms and narrow hallways. Starting with no context reflects the disorientation of the nun entering the prison. Also, the imagery does the job, mostly, without Vega telling the listener in so many words how to feel, while trying to have the nun maintain some humanity in all the brutality and bureaucracy of the prison world.


Next Song: Birth-Day (Love Made Real)