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