Bettie Page was a real person. She was a pin-up model, and a very sexual one at that. Some of the photos of her feature her, and others, in states of bondage or domination. What was all the more remarkable is that her career largely spanned the 1950s, often thought of as a very stodgy time.
Page comes up later in the song, so she is not necessarily the "she" spoken of in the song's opening line. All we know for certain is that the person in question is compared to Page later on.
The opening line seems to have been something someone said to Vega, about someone else. Which made Vega wonder, what does a pornographer have left to dream of? Can't he write and direct any scenario he can imagine? As she put it, "What kind of a dream would he have/ That hadn't been spent?"
No, he wouldn't dream of the "flesh" he could have access to. Rather: "Wouldn't he dream of the thing/ He never could never quite get the touch of?... He's dreaming of what might be... of mystery."
Now, we turn to Page (pun intended). If anyone was, she was a pornographer's dream-- her proportions, her openness, her bravery, her sunshine-bright smile-- at once innocent and seductive. But what was the real secret of her, well, success as a pin-up?
It's the element of surprise. "Who's to know what she'll show?" In other words, is it "what she reveals, or what she conceals" that "is the key to our pleasure?"
The pornographer dreams of the women whose sexual contours and comportment he will never capture on camera. The viewer of a Page pin-up is as excited by the "leather" she wears as he is by the bare parts of her body.
Someone tossed an unusual remark to Vega, and she caught it. She knew that the person had simply meant to say that the woman in question was very sexy. But what he hadn't realized he had implied that what was sexy about her was that she was unattainable. She would remain a "dream."
"Out of our hands, over our heads," and other expressions are employed... but even Vega is no match for Keats, who dedicated his famed "Ode on a Grecian Urn" to this very subject: "Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss/ Though winning near the goal... She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss/ For ever wilt though love, and she be fair!"
Some things are best kept "out of reach," enshrined in art, but not experienced in reality. Whether captured on a ceramic vase or a piece of film, "a thing of beauty is a joy forever" (same poet, different poem).
Next Song: Frank and Ava
Monday, July 25, 2016
Monday, July 18, 2016
New York is a Woman
So many songwriters have written odes to New York City, it would be pointless to try to list them all. But this is an interesting take-- if (especially for Vega) it's a very conventionally written song, even with its clever use of internal rhyme.
What's interesting is that it likens the city to a, as it says in the title, a woman. The woman is, of course, a New Yorker. She is, at least "from the 27th floor," glamorous in that film noir, "late-night TV" kind of way: like a femme fatale, she "spread herself before you... undressed" seductively, flashing her "bangles and spangles and stars." This refers to both the twinkling lights and sequins of the nightlife scene and "stars" in the sense of "celebrities."
The listener was so overwhelmed and excited, he had to descend in an elevator and "go cruising all the bars."
And who are "you" in the song? A "suburban boy here for your first time." This is also a double entendre; yes, for the literal first time visit, but also (New York is a woman, remember) here to lose some of your virginity and innocence. You are here on a business trip, but you decided to stay for Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, to experience the mad whirl of the city for yourself: "You were startled by her beauty and her crime." (This line also gives the entire album its title.)
Speaking of "crime," the city's seedier side is not necessarily a "turn-off." But aside from the seedy, there is the sad. New York is famous for its opulent depravity, but also its obvious deprivation: "Look down and see her ruined places." And, aside from poverty, there has been terrorism: "smoke and ash still rising to the sky" could refer to the attacks of 9/11, which too place in 2001, and while this album was released in 2007, some wounds never heal.
But that's the dichotomy that makes New York so fascinating. There is a reason so many songs have been written about New York and not Dubuque, Iowa (no offense... but I have been there a few times, so I know). As Vega puts it, it's her "her steam and steel"-- the hot, ephemeral aspects and the cold, hard ones.
This endlessly changing face is a major reason New York is so enthralling. You feel this passion "endlessly," even "desperately."
Even whirlwind weekends must wind down, though. "She's happy you're here, but when you disappear/ She won't know that you're gone to say goodbye."
Why? Well, New York is the most populous city in North America.* And to her, well, "You're just another guy." She's seen them come and go. "If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere," according to another New York song... but some don't make it there.
And even the ones who stick around don't make much of a lasting impression. She's a great weekend fling, but you're not one in a million, dude. And even if you are... well, to make it there, you've got to be one in eight million.
New York is there for everyone, but she belongs to no one. I have been there a few times, so I know.
Next Song: Pornographer's Dream
*(but not in "the Americas" altogether-- Mexico City and even Sao Paulo, Brazil have more people.)
What's interesting is that it likens the city to a, as it says in the title, a woman. The woman is, of course, a New Yorker. She is, at least "from the 27th floor," glamorous in that film noir, "late-night TV" kind of way: like a femme fatale, she "spread herself before you... undressed" seductively, flashing her "bangles and spangles and stars." This refers to both the twinkling lights and sequins of the nightlife scene and "stars" in the sense of "celebrities."
The listener was so overwhelmed and excited, he had to descend in an elevator and "go cruising all the bars."
And who are "you" in the song? A "suburban boy here for your first time." This is also a double entendre; yes, for the literal first time visit, but also (New York is a woman, remember) here to lose some of your virginity and innocence. You are here on a business trip, but you decided to stay for Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, to experience the mad whirl of the city for yourself: "You were startled by her beauty and her crime." (This line also gives the entire album its title.)
Speaking of "crime," the city's seedier side is not necessarily a "turn-off." But aside from the seedy, there is the sad. New York is famous for its opulent depravity, but also its obvious deprivation: "Look down and see her ruined places." And, aside from poverty, there has been terrorism: "smoke and ash still rising to the sky" could refer to the attacks of 9/11, which too place in 2001, and while this album was released in 2007, some wounds never heal.
But that's the dichotomy that makes New York so fascinating. There is a reason so many songs have been written about New York and not Dubuque, Iowa (no offense... but I have been there a few times, so I know). As Vega puts it, it's her "her steam and steel"-- the hot, ephemeral aspects and the cold, hard ones.
This endlessly changing face is a major reason New York is so enthralling. You feel this passion "endlessly," even "desperately."
Even whirlwind weekends must wind down, though. "She's happy you're here, but when you disappear/ She won't know that you're gone to say goodbye."
Why? Well, New York is the most populous city in North America.* And to her, well, "You're just another guy." She's seen them come and go. "If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere," according to another New York song... but some don't make it there.
And even the ones who stick around don't make much of a lasting impression. She's a great weekend fling, but you're not one in a million, dude. And even if you are... well, to make it there, you've got to be one in eight million.
New York is there for everyone, but she belongs to no one. I have been there a few times, so I know.
Next Song: Pornographer's Dream
*(but not in "the Americas" altogether-- Mexico City and even Sao Paulo, Brazil have more people.)
Monday, July 11, 2016
Ludlow Street
Ludlow Street runs between Houston and Divison, in Manhattan's Lower East Side. This is the second song on the album, and the second set in New York.
The song is a simple one. It's about how a place evokes the memory of the people we knew there.
In this case, the place is the above-mentioned street, and the person is named "Tim." We don't find out his name until the end of the song, but since we don't learn anything about him specifically during the course of the song, it doesn't seem to matter.
In fact, "love is the only thing that matters." Now, on the one hand, "it's still the hardest thing to feel." Yet, "love is the only thing [she] feels" when she thinks about Tim now.
Rather, the loss of that love. We don't learn where Tim is now, or even if he is alive-- the song does have an elegiac feeling to it. All we know is where he is not: "each stoop and doorway" of Ludlow Street.
What is there, now? "Another generation's parties." Perhaps she knew him though a series of parties when they were both there.
Aside from "love," and their fondness for get-togethers, can we glean anything about their relationship? "I can recall each morning after/ Painted in nicotine." Oh. Very well, then.
There is no other information here-- how long they knew each other, how long they saw each other, what happened to their relationship, or what happened to Tim.
All we know is that, for her, Ludlow Street should be named Tim Street. Because his memory is all that is there for her, now.
(The liner notes reveal the answer. Tim Vega was her brother, who lived on Ludlow Street before he passed away.)
Next Song: New York is a Woman
The song is a simple one. It's about how a place evokes the memory of the people we knew there.
In this case, the place is the above-mentioned street, and the person is named "Tim." We don't find out his name until the end of the song, but since we don't learn anything about him specifically during the course of the song, it doesn't seem to matter.
In fact, "love is the only thing that matters." Now, on the one hand, "it's still the hardest thing to feel." Yet, "love is the only thing [she] feels" when she thinks about Tim now.
Rather, the loss of that love. We don't learn where Tim is now, or even if he is alive-- the song does have an elegiac feeling to it. All we know is where he is not: "each stoop and doorway" of Ludlow Street.
What is there, now? "Another generation's parties." Perhaps she knew him though a series of parties when they were both there.
Aside from "love," and their fondness for get-togethers, can we glean anything about their relationship? "I can recall each morning after/ Painted in nicotine." Oh. Very well, then.
There is no other information here-- how long they knew each other, how long they saw each other, what happened to their relationship, or what happened to Tim.
All we know is that, for her, Ludlow Street should be named Tim Street. Because his memory is all that is there for her, now.
(The liner notes reveal the answer. Tim Vega was her brother, who lived on Ludlow Street before he passed away.)
Next Song: New York is a Woman
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Zephyr and I
A "zephyr" is a light breeze. "Zephyr," the Greek god whose namesake this gust is, is the god of the West wind, and therefore of Spring. He was so jealous that he killed a young man rather than have a rival have him.
The song kicks off with a riff that calls to mind the song "Wild Thing" (the Troggs one, not the Tone Loc one).
The speaker introduces us to a man named Zephyr. They are hanging out on West End Avenue, on the western shore of Manhattan, an area visited many times in Vega's songs. They are reminiscing, "talking about the things that all of us used to do" and "the 1970s."
While they are, "the wind kicks up, with the smell of rain." This is foreshadowing, along with a nod to Zephyr's name.
The name Zephyr, as we have seen, is an old one. And the song is what what leaves and what stays. The Greeks no longer worship their old gods, but we still know their names. Likewise, "The kids are gone but the souls remain." The souls of those kids live on in the adults they became.
The Mall of America is a real place, a gigantic indoor mall (how big is it? It contains a roller coaster) in Minnesota. Here, the speaker says, "there was a youth mall of America on this street." Instead of hanging out at the mall, she means, they used this street as a meeting place. They were as frequently seen there as "cops on a beat." Specifically, there was a monument to firefighters who died in the line of duty that "fatherless teenagers" congregated around. They were as diverse as America itself.
More imagery of what is lost and what stays-- "The graffiti" and "flowers" leave but the "walls" and "earth" remain. Later, she opines that the walls don't just remain, but "complain" that their decorative paint jobs have been worn or sandblasted away or painted over.
"In the spring" (Zephyr's time), "the tide in Riverside will wash away the cold and frozen." Riverside is a park on the Upper West Side. The "river" it is on the "side" of is the Hudson.
And the rain? "Rain will clean the stain and wash away downstream."
Years pass, but the cycle of seasons remains. The old gets washed away by the new, as always. But the memories remain. The souls that were shaped in those formative teenage years live on.
It is possible that there is no Zephyr who is a childhood friend talking to her. Or even a god she is communing with. It may, in fact, just be a zephyr--a passing breeze that stirs up some leaves... and memories.
Next Song: Ludlow Street
The song kicks off with a riff that calls to mind the song "Wild Thing" (the Troggs one, not the Tone Loc one).
The speaker introduces us to a man named Zephyr. They are hanging out on West End Avenue, on the western shore of Manhattan, an area visited many times in Vega's songs. They are reminiscing, "talking about the things that all of us used to do" and "the 1970s."
While they are, "the wind kicks up, with the smell of rain." This is foreshadowing, along with a nod to Zephyr's name.
The name Zephyr, as we have seen, is an old one. And the song is what what leaves and what stays. The Greeks no longer worship their old gods, but we still know their names. Likewise, "The kids are gone but the souls remain." The souls of those kids live on in the adults they became.
The Mall of America is a real place, a gigantic indoor mall (how big is it? It contains a roller coaster) in Minnesota. Here, the speaker says, "there was a youth mall of America on this street." Instead of hanging out at the mall, she means, they used this street as a meeting place. They were as frequently seen there as "cops on a beat." Specifically, there was a monument to firefighters who died in the line of duty that "fatherless teenagers" congregated around. They were as diverse as America itself.
More imagery of what is lost and what stays-- "The graffiti" and "flowers" leave but the "walls" and "earth" remain. Later, she opines that the walls don't just remain, but "complain" that their decorative paint jobs have been worn or sandblasted away or painted over.
"In the spring" (Zephyr's time), "the tide in Riverside will wash away the cold and frozen." Riverside is a park on the Upper West Side. The "river" it is on the "side" of is the Hudson.
And the rain? "Rain will clean the stain and wash away downstream."
Years pass, but the cycle of seasons remains. The old gets washed away by the new, as always. But the memories remain. The souls that were shaped in those formative teenage years live on.
It is possible that there is no Zephyr who is a childhood friend talking to her. Or even a god she is communing with. It may, in fact, just be a zephyr--a passing breeze that stirs up some leaves... and memories.
Next Song: Ludlow Street
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