The song is replete with gambling metaphors. The idea is that a relationship is like a poker game (this was decades before Lady Gaga's "Poker Face," but not necessarily the first song to use gambling as a stand-in for relationships.)
"Ante up," the speaker beckons, meaning to say you want to play by putting some of what you have at stake. She then asks you-- whom she just asked to play!-- about some other guy, one with a "deadpan" (or expressionless) face and a "criminal grace."
He is "sitting so pretty," which means he is attractive simply by sitting there, but to "be sitting pretty" as an expression means to be at an advantage or already winning.
Next, she surveys the other potential players for her attention. One is an idiot nicknamed "Lamebrain." He "wants to spit in the sea." This is the name of a poker variant, but "spit in the ocean" also means "not very much, considering what else is around" (compare to "a drop in the bucket").
He's got a "cool hand," she says, which is to say his poker hand is better than average, and that in relationships he is skilled but not emotionally involved. But no, "it isn't for me." Also, there is the movie Cool Hand Luke, about a ne'er-do-well who seems laconic but underneath has a will of iron.
Also dismissible is "Butcher Boy," who sounds both young and violent-- is he a hitman? He thinks he'll be "splitting the pot," or sharing the winnings-- and spending at least some time with her-- but she has been down that road before: "I've seen what he's got, and it isn't a lot." This is a reference to his weak poker hand... but also the small size of his... um, anyway...
Then there is a parenthetical couplet. It is in the lyric sheet, but is not performed in the actual recording: "When deuces are wild, you can follow the queen/ I'd go too, except I know where she's been."
In cards, "deuces" are twos. So, when couples are "wild"-- perhaps a reference to swinging?-- they might "follow the queen." A queen, of course, is a face card in every deck, but in slang a "queen" is either a homosexual or possibly a "drag queen," a transvestite. So a "wild" couple might "follow" a third such partner. But in the speaker's case, she knows this queen is promiscuous to the point of possibly having an STD.
The speaker says she will "limit the straddles." In poker, a straddle is a side bet made on a hand. As these can be distracting, some dealers try to discourage them. As a sexual metaphor, "straddle" has another (I hope obvious) meaning, so she is saying that at this point in a relationship, she does not have much sex.
So! It seems, at least, she has settled on the subject of the song, after saying no to Mr. Deadpan, Lamebrain and Butcher Boy.
While she keeps physical contact to a minimum, the subject is understandably off guard-- "Wait, you're interested now?" Defensively, he "shuffles" and "deals." While these words have well-known meanings in card games-- to randomize and distribute the cards-- he is hemming, hawing, shuffling his feet, shifting in his chair... and negotiating to get closer to her.
Then she asks "When will the dealer reveal how he feels?" So... there is yet another character? Or is the subject also the dealer, since in the last line, she said he "deals"? I think that his lame attempt at trying to maintain his suavity is actually a pretty big tell, as far as tipping his emotional hand.
Alas, she does not seem to find his Hugh Grant-like schoolboy stammerings to be charming. "Is the lucky beginner just a five-card stud?" she wonders, ruefully? Five-card stud is yet another poker variant (there seems to be an infinite number of these) but her biggest peeve so far is that the other men put on a show, then can't pay off. And now it looks to her like this is yet another potential disappointment, date-wise: "Is this winning streak going to be nipped in the bud?"
That last expression is botanical, not poker-related (there are not that many rhymes for "stud") but it means the flower will not only never blossom, it will be cut from the stem before it even has the chance to find out if it would.
Maybe she is hoping the subject, if he is berated enough, will step up his game and rise to the challenge. Or maybe she is letting him down quick so he doesn't get his hopes up.
The chorus is also full of poker-related verbs. "I'll see you" or "call you" mean to bet as much as the last bettor, while "raise" is to bet more. But in relationships, to "see" means to date, to "call" simply means to telephone, and to "raise"... well, that's not generally a verb used in that context. It used to mean, in the context of telephoning, actually having reached and spoken to someone as opposed to simply having dialed the number ("I've phoned several times, but I haven't raised her yet.").
In the last chorus, it changes to "I'll play you," which means both "I'll play (against) you in poker" and "I'll play you for a fool."
Yes, she will do these things, "but it's no cheap thrill." She is a high-maintenance person, as they say, both in terms of having expensive tastes and being emotionally needy. "It'll cost you, cost you, cost you," she repeats, explaining that these needs of hers are not just initial but ongoing.
The speaker is savvy, worldly, sharp... hard to impress, and easy to bore. What she's trying to say is that she is way out of your league; she's already looking at other men as she's talking to you, and she's already been-there-done-that with half of the guys in the room. You're never going to satiate her, and you'll go broke trying.
Dude, you're not going to win this one. Get the heck away from her, before you're just another loser she's given a cruel nickname to.
Next Song: World Before Columbus
Monday, January 25, 2016
Monday, January 18, 2016
Thin Man
Who is the "Thin Man"?
In the novels and movies, he's a slick playboy who still dabbles in his former line, detective work, with his wife (their names are Nick & Nora; later those names were used for another cinematic couple). To Bob Dylan in "Ballad of the Thin Man," his name is Mr. Jones, and the imagery seems to indicate that he has stumbled into an orgy, possibly a homosexual one... which is in turn possibly a metaphor for the straight-laced average American trying to make sense of the sexual liberation of the 1960s.
Neither seem to be this Thin Man, however. My feeling is that this one is Death himself, or at least Mortality.
"He is not my friend, but he is with me," and yes, we are all mortal. In what sense, though, is he "with" our speaker? He is compared to a "shadow" connected to a "foot," as seen in Peter Pan. So, a constant companion.
She especially feels his presence in scary situations, like "step[ing] from the sidewalk" into traffic, or "walking down... darkened halls."
While death is inevitable, we cannot know the exact time of its arrival. Similarly, this Thin Man has "a date for" her, "to arrive at some point/ I don't know when it will be."
She feels her life threatened by oncoming cars or an unseen assailant lingering in corridors... that's understandable. But then, other times, "I can feel his eyes when I don't expect him." Which is more unnerving.
For instance, "In the back seat of the taxi down Vestry Street." This is a real street in Manhattan, not far from the Little West 12th mentioned in Vega's earlier song, "Language." A "vestry" is also part of a church, namely, the closet for the clergy's vestments (i.e., ritual garb). While a vestry is not where a funeral takes place, a church in general certainly is.
Now we realize something more sinister going on. The Thin Man isn't just "with" her... he wants her to be with him. "His arm is around my waist, and he pulls me to him," less seducing her than assaulting her. But also, yes, seducing her: "He whispers things into my ear that sound so sweet."
Such as? "He promises a peace I never knew." Oh, dear...
Feeling seduced by Death is pretty much contemplating suicide. Death has long been seen as "peaceful." Hamlet spoke at length of death being a relief from a life of turmoil and pain. Dylan Thomas calls it "that good night." Keats speaks of being "half in love with easeful Death."
Yet, the speaker resists: "I cannot give in. No, I must refuse him." Oh, good. She has come to her senses.
On the other hand... "Could I really be the one to resist that kiss so true?" As in, the "kiss of Death." She's still tempted, and wonders if she can hold out.
Hamlet spends many lines discoursing on how miserable life is, and that it would be so much easier to just be done with it all. Here, Vega doesn't do that... she just talks about how death would be peaceful, and how this is seductive.
As of this writing, Vega is very much alive. So even if the Thin Man is still "with" her, she's let him know that she's, well, just not that into him.
Next Song: No Cheap Thrill
In the novels and movies, he's a slick playboy who still dabbles in his former line, detective work, with his wife (their names are Nick & Nora; later those names were used for another cinematic couple). To Bob Dylan in "Ballad of the Thin Man," his name is Mr. Jones, and the imagery seems to indicate that he has stumbled into an orgy, possibly a homosexual one... which is in turn possibly a metaphor for the straight-laced average American trying to make sense of the sexual liberation of the 1960s.
Neither seem to be this Thin Man, however. My feeling is that this one is Death himself, or at least Mortality.
"He is not my friend, but he is with me," and yes, we are all mortal. In what sense, though, is he "with" our speaker? He is compared to a "shadow" connected to a "foot," as seen in Peter Pan. So, a constant companion.
She especially feels his presence in scary situations, like "step[ing] from the sidewalk" into traffic, or "walking down... darkened halls."
While death is inevitable, we cannot know the exact time of its arrival. Similarly, this Thin Man has "a date for" her, "to arrive at some point/ I don't know when it will be."
She feels her life threatened by oncoming cars or an unseen assailant lingering in corridors... that's understandable. But then, other times, "I can feel his eyes when I don't expect him." Which is more unnerving.
For instance, "In the back seat of the taxi down Vestry Street." This is a real street in Manhattan, not far from the Little West 12th mentioned in Vega's earlier song, "Language." A "vestry" is also part of a church, namely, the closet for the clergy's vestments (i.e., ritual garb). While a vestry is not where a funeral takes place, a church in general certainly is.
Now we realize something more sinister going on. The Thin Man isn't just "with" her... he wants her to be with him. "His arm is around my waist, and he pulls me to him," less seducing her than assaulting her. But also, yes, seducing her: "He whispers things into my ear that sound so sweet."
Such as? "He promises a peace I never knew." Oh, dear...
Feeling seduced by Death is pretty much contemplating suicide. Death has long been seen as "peaceful." Hamlet spoke at length of death being a relief from a life of turmoil and pain. Dylan Thomas calls it "that good night." Keats speaks of being "half in love with easeful Death."
Yet, the speaker resists: "I cannot give in. No, I must refuse him." Oh, good. She has come to her senses.
On the other hand... "Could I really be the one to resist that kiss so true?" As in, the "kiss of Death." She's still tempted, and wonders if she can hold out.
Hamlet spends many lines discoursing on how miserable life is, and that it would be so much easier to just be done with it all. Here, Vega doesn't do that... she just talks about how death would be peaceful, and how this is seductive.
As of this writing, Vega is very much alive. So even if the Thin Man is still "with" her, she's let him know that she's, well, just not that into him.
Next Song: No Cheap Thrill
Monday, January 11, 2016
Casual Match
The title is a pun-- a "casual match" seems to imply a relationship that was not formal or serious, perhaps more along the lines of what today is called "friends with benefits."
But the song turns the phrase into a metaphor by taking it more literally-- a casually tossed match, of the kind used to light candles and cigarettes, that has caused a fire in some poor farmer's field.
Taking the metaphor back to the relationship, then, the man involved seems to have done something offhanded that-- oops-- torched the entire relationship.
It could be that the relationship between the speaker and her subject was a formal one, but the "casual match" was a fling that the man had with another woman. While it was just a one-night-stand to him-- a "hook-up," as they say today-- it was enough to cause the woman a wildfire of misery and anger. We start to see more evidence of this soon...
But that's the chorus. The song starts with the woman trying to see "what had had set this inner field alight." So the "field" is not a real one but a metaphor for her emotional state. And it's on fire... but why?
The fire's own light indicates the one who set it: "The outline of a man against the night." Perhaps she was wakened by his nighttime return home. He opened the door to the house at night, and she saw his silhouette against the streetlight.
Strangely, he tries to comfort her rather than, say, deny the obvious-- "It's not what you think!"-- or apologize. It's "I'm sorry you got hurt," not "I'm sorry I hurt you." If only she weren't so sensitive...
She is having none of that: "Take back your sympathy." She immediately ends the relationship, too: "I'd rather break the thread/ That bound us close." His making his cheating about her is the last straw.
Then she decides that they should agree "we called a bluff." But who was the one bluffing? Were they both? Did she already suspect him? Did he suspect that she suspected?
Well, it sounds like his infidelity fits what she already knows... they two of them haven't been intimate in a long time-- the hot match landed "in a very dry field." So it's not that big of a shock to her that he had been getting his... needs met elsewhere.
Now that we're back on the agricultural metaphor, she asks, rhetorically, "Gee, you threw a lit match in dry straw-- wonder what's going to happen?" The way he phrases this is within the farming metaphor: "What will be the season's yield?" (The amount of crops harvested is said to be a "yield," as in, "We had a great yield of wheat this year.")
Her eyes are black now, with her pupils dilated in rage. But she uses the fire metaphor this time: "My eyes have gone to coal." Coal is not necessarily on fire, but it is fuel and will catch fire easily.
In such a "moment" she says, "the heat of love becomes the chill of doubt." She was in love with him, but an instant, that "heat" has evaporated, like someone throwing cold water on a flame.
She asks the question again, about what his actions will result in, "what will be the season's yield." This time, she answers: "Fire and ash." It's all over, with no chance to rebuild it.
She does admit that she does not have definitive proof of his cheating-- "Look for the sign, but it is not revealed." There is no lipstick on his collar, so to speak.
But it is too late. Her suspicions are too intense; she simply can't trust him.
This relationship has gone down in flames. And the guy? He's toast.
Next Song: Thin Man
But the song turns the phrase into a metaphor by taking it more literally-- a casually tossed match, of the kind used to light candles and cigarettes, that has caused a fire in some poor farmer's field.
Taking the metaphor back to the relationship, then, the man involved seems to have done something offhanded that-- oops-- torched the entire relationship.
It could be that the relationship between the speaker and her subject was a formal one, but the "casual match" was a fling that the man had with another woman. While it was just a one-night-stand to him-- a "hook-up," as they say today-- it was enough to cause the woman a wildfire of misery and anger. We start to see more evidence of this soon...
But that's the chorus. The song starts with the woman trying to see "what had had set this inner field alight." So the "field" is not a real one but a metaphor for her emotional state. And it's on fire... but why?
The fire's own light indicates the one who set it: "The outline of a man against the night." Perhaps she was wakened by his nighttime return home. He opened the door to the house at night, and she saw his silhouette against the streetlight.
Strangely, he tries to comfort her rather than, say, deny the obvious-- "It's not what you think!"-- or apologize. It's "I'm sorry you got hurt," not "I'm sorry I hurt you." If only she weren't so sensitive...
She is having none of that: "Take back your sympathy." She immediately ends the relationship, too: "I'd rather break the thread/ That bound us close." His making his cheating about her is the last straw.
Then she decides that they should agree "we called a bluff." But who was the one bluffing? Were they both? Did she already suspect him? Did he suspect that she suspected?
Well, it sounds like his infidelity fits what she already knows... they two of them haven't been intimate in a long time-- the hot match landed "in a very dry field." So it's not that big of a shock to her that he had been getting his... needs met elsewhere.
Now that we're back on the agricultural metaphor, she asks, rhetorically, "Gee, you threw a lit match in dry straw-- wonder what's going to happen?" The way he phrases this is within the farming metaphor: "What will be the season's yield?" (The amount of crops harvested is said to be a "yield," as in, "We had a great yield of wheat this year.")
Her eyes are black now, with her pupils dilated in rage. But she uses the fire metaphor this time: "My eyes have gone to coal." Coal is not necessarily on fire, but it is fuel and will catch fire easily.
In such a "moment" she says, "the heat of love becomes the chill of doubt." She was in love with him, but an instant, that "heat" has evaporated, like someone throwing cold water on a flame.
She asks the question again, about what his actions will result in, "what will be the season's yield." This time, she answers: "Fire and ash." It's all over, with no chance to rebuild it.
She does admit that she does not have definitive proof of his cheating-- "Look for the sign, but it is not revealed." There is no lipstick on his collar, so to speak.
But it is too late. Her suspicions are too intense; she simply can't trust him.
This relationship has gone down in flames. And the guy? He's toast.
Next Song: Thin Man
Monday, January 4, 2016
Stockings
The main character in this song is a woman who can be described as a "tease." She delights in flirting, even as she has no intention of fulfilling the desire she provokes.
The speaker in this song is a person-- perhaps a man, perhaps a woman-- who is caught in this web of enticement. Unfortunately, they seem to be trapped in what is commonly (at least today) known as The Friend Zone, the emotional space in which one will be a person's friend, but never anything more.
The first line is from the woman, whose technique for starting a conversation is to call attention to her legs: "'I don't care for tights,' she says... she hikes her skirt... revealing one brown thigh." (As in "Caramel," it seems the target of desire is a person of color. Or at least some who has spent some time in the sun.)
The speaker, who notices this flash of flesh, instead focuses on her "slender little fingers." Then, in a (very) off rhyme, the speaker muses that they "pull upon/ The threads of recent slumbers." Does this mean "dreams"? Has s/he been fantasizing about her at night?
Then the speaker defines a border of The Friend Zone, "where friendship ends/ And passion does begin." And it lies "between... her stockings and her skin." A friend can see the stocking, but nothing more, not the skin itself. The border is as sheer and transparent as nylon stockings.
One small complaint: While it is admirable to try to rhyme "skin" with "begin," it becomes clunky to add the "does." We have already had "fingers/slumbers," so rhyming "skin" with "where passion begins" would have been preferable to the stilted "does begin." This isn't even speech being transmitted, it's thought... so the rules of grammar are even less expected.
The Friend-Zone denizen still harbors some hope. Maybe since it is late, "she'll ask me to go dance?" (Again, "out to dance" would be better. It's "go dancing.") "But something in the way she laughed/ Told me I had no chance."
So... there never was an invitation to dance, just a hope of one. And then the speaker reads intention into something her laughs, even. It's unnerving when you know you have no chance, but think maybe you're wrong and that perhaps you do...?
Then we shift to what else we know about this temptress. Her reputation in her family, which the speaker feels is undeserved, is that she was "never nice." The speaker says that it is more subtle than that-- she is "very" nice, but that niceness comes at a "price" that is not initially evident.
The speaker, armed with this realization, again tries to find the border of The Friend Zone and finds it may also be in alcohol and its ability to lower inhibitions. "When the gin and tonic/ Makes the room begin to spin." Yes, the speaker asks "where" and answers him/herself "when." This may be one gin and tonic too many.
If we have been working our way through the stages of grief, here, we have already passed through Denial, Bargaining, and Depression (we don't seem to have experienced Anger) and have arrived at Acceptance: "There may be attraction here/ But it will never flower."
So... what now? "I'm assigned to read her mind/ In this witching hour." Wow, it's already midnight? That is late. But more to the point, why "assigned"? I heard "resigned," which I think makes more immediate sense. But "assigned" implies that someone did the assigning. Did the speaker assign him/herself? Why?
The woman certainly didn't. Unless the speaker assumed that she implied that she did at some point, which is totally in character for our befuddled speaker.
The speaker now admits that dealing with being teased is "no game for those... easily bruised." Very true.
Then s/he says something revealing: "But how can I complain/ When she's so easily amused?" At least, if s/he can't be with her in the intimate sense, s/he can be in her tantalizing company-- she's willing to keep our speaker around as entertainment, at least.
But is that all that's keeping him/her there? Having the one who toys with him/her as an audience? Once more, we find the problem with being in The Friend Zone. No, there is no way out of it into her Sanctum Sanctorum...
But there is also no way out of it and back into autonomy. Like a comet that has become a planet, s/he is trapped in her orbit-- unable to land on the surface but equally unable to break free and resume careening across the solar system.
So, there is no way out of the The Friend Zone that ends up being closer to the woman. But there is also no way out that ends up being apart from her, either, with the Zone lying unoccupied in between the two parties. As the speaker puts it: "She does not show you the way out, on the way in."
The Friend Zone lies "between the binding of her stockings and her skin." And so we see there are two meanings to the word "binding." Our speaker is bound up in this elastic edge of the stocking.
Never to be fully joined, but never to be fully free. In limbo.
Next Song: Casual Match
The speaker in this song is a person-- perhaps a man, perhaps a woman-- who is caught in this web of enticement. Unfortunately, they seem to be trapped in what is commonly (at least today) known as The Friend Zone, the emotional space in which one will be a person's friend, but never anything more.
The first line is from the woman, whose technique for starting a conversation is to call attention to her legs: "'I don't care for tights,' she says... she hikes her skirt... revealing one brown thigh." (As in "Caramel," it seems the target of desire is a person of color. Or at least some who has spent some time in the sun.)
The speaker, who notices this flash of flesh, instead focuses on her "slender little fingers." Then, in a (very) off rhyme, the speaker muses that they "pull upon/ The threads of recent slumbers." Does this mean "dreams"? Has s/he been fantasizing about her at night?
Then the speaker defines a border of The Friend Zone, "where friendship ends/ And passion does begin." And it lies "between... her stockings and her skin." A friend can see the stocking, but nothing more, not the skin itself. The border is as sheer and transparent as nylon stockings.
One small complaint: While it is admirable to try to rhyme "skin" with "begin," it becomes clunky to add the "does." We have already had "fingers/slumbers," so rhyming "skin" with "where passion begins" would have been preferable to the stilted "does begin." This isn't even speech being transmitted, it's thought... so the rules of grammar are even less expected.
The Friend-Zone denizen still harbors some hope. Maybe since it is late, "she'll ask me to go dance?" (Again, "out to dance" would be better. It's "go dancing.") "But something in the way she laughed/ Told me I had no chance."
So... there never was an invitation to dance, just a hope of one. And then the speaker reads intention into something her laughs, even. It's unnerving when you know you have no chance, but think maybe you're wrong and that perhaps you do...?
Then we shift to what else we know about this temptress. Her reputation in her family, which the speaker feels is undeserved, is that she was "never nice." The speaker says that it is more subtle than that-- she is "very" nice, but that niceness comes at a "price" that is not initially evident.
The speaker, armed with this realization, again tries to find the border of The Friend Zone and finds it may also be in alcohol and its ability to lower inhibitions. "When the gin and tonic/ Makes the room begin to spin." Yes, the speaker asks "where" and answers him/herself "when." This may be one gin and tonic too many.
If we have been working our way through the stages of grief, here, we have already passed through Denial, Bargaining, and Depression (we don't seem to have experienced Anger) and have arrived at Acceptance: "There may be attraction here/ But it will never flower."
So... what now? "I'm assigned to read her mind/ In this witching hour." Wow, it's already midnight? That is late. But more to the point, why "assigned"? I heard "resigned," which I think makes more immediate sense. But "assigned" implies that someone did the assigning. Did the speaker assign him/herself? Why?
The woman certainly didn't. Unless the speaker assumed that she implied that she did at some point, which is totally in character for our befuddled speaker.
The speaker now admits that dealing with being teased is "no game for those... easily bruised." Very true.
Then s/he says something revealing: "But how can I complain/ When she's so easily amused?" At least, if s/he can't be with her in the intimate sense, s/he can be in her tantalizing company-- she's willing to keep our speaker around as entertainment, at least.
But is that all that's keeping him/her there? Having the one who toys with him/her as an audience? Once more, we find the problem with being in The Friend Zone. No, there is no way out of it into her Sanctum Sanctorum...
But there is also no way out of it and back into autonomy. Like a comet that has become a planet, s/he is trapped in her orbit-- unable to land on the surface but equally unable to break free and resume careening across the solar system.
So, there is no way out of the The Friend Zone that ends up being closer to the woman. But there is also no way out that ends up being apart from her, either, with the Zone lying unoccupied in between the two parties. As the speaker puts it: "She does not show you the way out, on the way in."
The Friend Zone lies "between the binding of her stockings and her skin." And so we see there are two meanings to the word "binding." Our speaker is bound up in this elastic edge of the stocking.
Never to be fully joined, but never to be fully free. In limbo.
Next Song: Casual Match
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