Pornographer's Dream

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