The "last supper" everyone means when they use that term is, of course, Jesus' last supper the night before his crucifixion.
This song is about, and in the voice of, Carson McCullers, a (female) American author who did, to be fair, die younger than average-- at 50, of a stroke, and she was not healthy leading up to that.
The song is about a metaphorical supper, however, one at which all the world is welcome: "Each one belongs at this feast."
This includes both the "rich... whole... humble... grand" and the "poor... broken... twisted... proud." Both "the sinner and the sinned-against."
What will they drink to at this feast? Again, both the "pleasures... gains... bliss" on the one hand and the "pains... losses... sorrows" on the other.
She welcomes them all: "Come and be at this table." She urges them to take what is hers, and to share what is theirs in turn. When this happens, "All come together, feeding the soul."
She is saying that her work has attempted to encompass the entire human condition, because only this way can art be satisfied, can the reader be satisfied, can the writer be satisfied.
And when all elements of humanity are represented, the artist and audience will "be as one solid body together."
She is completely dedicated to this ideal. "This is my stand... one strong, true purpose... no hope of rest."
"The love of my life," she says, "is humanity." And yes, she means as far as representing all of humanity in her stories, but to the end of connecting fully with her readers. They have to be able to see themselves in her stories, and to identify with all her characters.
Even if you are not a Southern cafe owner who has been betrayed... you have been betrayed, at some point in your life, so can see yourself in the cafe owner.
The song is the last in a one-person show that Vega wrote about McCullers, and she plays the author onstage. So it's fair to say that this is what Vega hopes she has been able to do in her own work-- to represent, and thereby connect with, all of humanity.
Yes, you might say, but aren't most of Vega's songs about herself?
Maybe, but what better way to connect with humanity than to be... a human?
Next Song: [none so far]
Monday, February 20, 2017
Monday, February 13, 2017
The Ballad of Miss Amelia
This song is from Suzanne Vega's one-person show about the author Carson McCullers. It's a retelling of the plot from her story "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe."
The basic plot is about a woman, Amelia, who marries the wrong man. He almost ruins her life, but she chases him off (with violence). For a while, she is happy with a new man. But then the first one comes back to finish the job (with violence). What made it worse was that the new man helps him.
Framing this story, Vega expresses that his is a very Southern story: "On any Southern afternoon... a face appears inside a house." The face is described as being "terrible... sexless... white... and dim."
It's the face of Amelia, "waiting by the window... sitting by the shutter/ Remembering the laughing/ In he cafe down below."
It makes sense that her face would bear a "terrible" look, if she is remembering the brief good times with the second man. After all, was it all a lie, if he could turn on her with so little provocation, and to aid the man who wanted to hurt her at that?
Why exactly this story is so Southern, I am not sure. It does smack of Tennessee Williams.
Maybe the humidity makes everything sultry and torrid.
Next Song: Carson's Last Supper
The basic plot is about a woman, Amelia, who marries the wrong man. He almost ruins her life, but she chases him off (with violence). For a while, she is happy with a new man. But then the first one comes back to finish the job (with violence). What made it worse was that the new man helps him.
Framing this story, Vega expresses that his is a very Southern story: "On any Southern afternoon... a face appears inside a house." The face is described as being "terrible... sexless... white... and dim."
It's the face of Amelia, "waiting by the window... sitting by the shutter/ Remembering the laughing/ In he cafe down below."
It makes sense that her face would bear a "terrible" look, if she is remembering the brief good times with the second man. After all, was it all a lie, if he could turn on her with so little provocation, and to aid the man who wanted to hurt her at that?
Why exactly this story is so Southern, I am not sure. It does smack of Tennessee Williams.
Maybe the humidity makes everything sultry and torrid.
Next Song: Carson's Last Supper
Monday, February 6, 2017
Lover, Beloved
This sounds like a love song. And... it's about love, but is it a "love song"?
It starts by positing "lover" and "beloved" as opposites. In fact, when the lover "pursues," the beloved does not stand and wait to be caught, let alone turn and run toward the lover. No-- here, the beloved "flees." They are "from countries apart," but they stay apart, "Each one alone in the land of the heart."
They do have some things in common. Both are "forever stripped bare" of pretense. One desires, the other is desired, passively. They are both "there... in the night," we presume, in bed.
The lover, however, is also somehow a "liar," a dealer in false pretense. He is also a "hero" and a "thief"-- he saves the beloved from isolation, yet steals her solitude, for instance. Thus, his efforts and intentions cancel each other out, and ultimately, he "brings no relief." Frustrating! This is true whether she considers him a "brother" or "husband."
While a lover is a "brave cavalier," nevertheless his love "rais[es] hatred and fear" in the beloved. This is for the above reasons, but also while each "crav[es] the touch" of the other, this desire is for something lacking, and a lack is a weakness, a vulnerability.
Finally, "each bears the burden of loving too much." The lover is distraught that his love is unrequited; the beloved is being smothered by all this affection and attention.
But what about a lover who has died, who has crossed the River "Styx"? He "will send/ Flowers from beyond the end." Even though he is gone, she still relishes his memory. He is "her lover for eternity" since he is no longer in control of his leaving her thoughts, once he has left her side. It seems the only good boyfriend is a dead one.
In the play Torch Song Trilogy. Harvey Fierstein opines: "It's easy to love the dead. They make so few mistakes." Also, they ask so little of you.
This song is pretty, like a love song. But it presents love as a battle between predator and prey, with one party forever hungry for more closeness, and the other desperate for less.
Next Song: The Ballad of Miss Amelia
It starts by positing "lover" and "beloved" as opposites. In fact, when the lover "pursues," the beloved does not stand and wait to be caught, let alone turn and run toward the lover. No-- here, the beloved "flees." They are "from countries apart," but they stay apart, "Each one alone in the land of the heart."
They do have some things in common. Both are "forever stripped bare" of pretense. One desires, the other is desired, passively. They are both "there... in the night," we presume, in bed.
The lover, however, is also somehow a "liar," a dealer in false pretense. He is also a "hero" and a "thief"-- he saves the beloved from isolation, yet steals her solitude, for instance. Thus, his efforts and intentions cancel each other out, and ultimately, he "brings no relief." Frustrating! This is true whether she considers him a "brother" or "husband."
While a lover is a "brave cavalier," nevertheless his love "rais[es] hatred and fear" in the beloved. This is for the above reasons, but also while each "crav[es] the touch" of the other, this desire is for something lacking, and a lack is a weakness, a vulnerability.
Finally, "each bears the burden of loving too much." The lover is distraught that his love is unrequited; the beloved is being smothered by all this affection and attention.
But what about a lover who has died, who has crossed the River "Styx"? He "will send/ Flowers from beyond the end." Even though he is gone, she still relishes his memory. He is "her lover for eternity" since he is no longer in control of his leaving her thoughts, once he has left her side. It seems the only good boyfriend is a dead one.
In the play Torch Song Trilogy. Harvey Fierstein opines: "It's easy to love the dead. They make so few mistakes." Also, they ask so little of you.
This song is pretty, like a love song. But it presents love as a battle between predator and prey, with one party forever hungry for more closeness, and the other desperate for less.
Next Song: The Ballad of Miss Amelia
Monday, January 30, 2017
Harper Lee
In this song, Carson McCullers (a female American novelist) name-drops and compares herself-- favorably-- to her literary contemporaries. She is discussing them with her husband, Reeves.
She dismisses many outright as inferior. Virginia Woolf, she says, has "genius" but "leaves [her] cold" since she isn't as "bold" as McCullers herself. She also finds herself superior to Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and F. Scott Fitzgerald (her Ballad of the Sad Cafe she rates better than his The Great Gatsby).
She claims Truman Capote "plagiarized [her] cadences." Oh, and he knows that she knows this.
She does admire Marcel Proust, saying he "comforts" her, and that his "words" have a "timeless quality." But... his Remembrance of Things Past just goes "on and on and on and on/ For seven volumes." Its "length is very long." Indeed.
As for playwright Tennessee Williams, she can't fathom why his play A Streetcar Named Desire did better financially than her own novel-turned-play A Member of the Wedding. McCullers' only use for Graham Greene is that he "loves [her] poetic sensibility."
And she feels that Catherine Anne Porter is "the best one now." But only for now: "In about a year, I'm gonna show her how" it's done.
But she's most upset that Harper Lee, to whom she is compared, is "poaching on [McCullers'] literary preserves" and stealing her thunder. McCullers feels Lee gets more attention than she (Harper Lee is also a woman) deserves. After all, McCullers had written three novels and more, while Lee only had the one, To Kill a Mockingbird.
McCullers also mentions that she never reads her reviews because they might give her a "big head," an inflated ego. I think she is fine in that department already... she has already predicted that she will win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Do tell.
I purposely avoided mentioning the works of most of those other authors, because many of them are still household names in 2017. Their works still taught in high schools and colleges, and have been made into movies... and they themselves have been depicted in films by actors like Meryl Streep (Woolf), Tom Hiddleson (Fitzgerald) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote).
Carson McCullers, meanwhile coined the phrase "the heart is a lonely hunter." So, there's that.
Next Song: Lover, Beloved
She dismisses many outright as inferior. Virginia Woolf, she says, has "genius" but "leaves [her] cold" since she isn't as "bold" as McCullers herself. She also finds herself superior to Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and F. Scott Fitzgerald (her Ballad of the Sad Cafe she rates better than his The Great Gatsby).
She claims Truman Capote "plagiarized [her] cadences." Oh, and he knows that she knows this.
She does admire Marcel Proust, saying he "comforts" her, and that his "words" have a "timeless quality." But... his Remembrance of Things Past just goes "on and on and on and on/ For seven volumes." Its "length is very long." Indeed.
As for playwright Tennessee Williams, she can't fathom why his play A Streetcar Named Desire did better financially than her own novel-turned-play A Member of the Wedding. McCullers' only use for Graham Greene is that he "loves [her] poetic sensibility."
And she feels that Catherine Anne Porter is "the best one now." But only for now: "In about a year, I'm gonna show her how" it's done.
But she's most upset that Harper Lee, to whom she is compared, is "poaching on [McCullers'] literary preserves" and stealing her thunder. McCullers feels Lee gets more attention than she (Harper Lee is also a woman) deserves. After all, McCullers had written three novels and more, while Lee only had the one, To Kill a Mockingbird.
McCullers also mentions that she never reads her reviews because they might give her a "big head," an inflated ego. I think she is fine in that department already... she has already predicted that she will win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Do tell.
I purposely avoided mentioning the works of most of those other authors, because many of them are still household names in 2017. Their works still taught in high schools and colleges, and have been made into movies... and they themselves have been depicted in films by actors like Meryl Streep (Woolf), Tom Hiddleson (Fitzgerald) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote).
Carson McCullers, meanwhile coined the phrase "the heart is a lonely hunter." So, there's that.
Next Song: Lover, Beloved
Monday, January 23, 2017
12 Mortal Men
This song is a reference to a Carson McCuller's story, or rather, its epilogue. The men in the title are in a chain gang. This is a group of prisoners usually made to do road work as part of their sentences. To prevent their escape on the road, they are chained together at the ankle. Like men working on railroad or any other menial, repetitive, rhythmic task, they often sing; the Sam Cooke song "Chain Gang" referred to such a system as late as 1960, and there are chain gangs in the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke and 1969's Take the Money and Run.
We don't start with the chain gang, but with the town they work near. "Where I'm from," the speaker begins, "there's poverty/ All kinds of inequality. Nobody comes here, nobody leaves." So, not your typical tourism hot spot.
In fact, the local prison seems to be the main, um, industry. The "whipping report," which one assumes is an official record of their punishments, is on display "in the library," perhaps one of the few public buildings in town aside from city hall and the schoolhouse.
Now, we meet the chain gang. First, you "hear one voice start singing," accompanied by their instruments, "twelve picks... ringing... in the dirt." One voice, but twelve picks? Oh, they all join in: "Twelve mortal men in a song of liberty."
Why is it important to note that they are mortal? Of course they are; all men are. Perhaps this is to contrast them with an immortal being-- Jesus had 12 apostles, all mortal men. Or perhaps this is to highlight the amazement that they sing-- they are chained, imprisoned, and doomed... yet they sing!
And of "liberty," yet! And both "ecstasy and fear." Fear is understandable, and even hope for liberty, but how are men in such straits to be in ecstasy? Perhaps it is the music, the joy of being outside, the camaraderie of their fellow inmates, even the adrenaline rush that comes from physical labor.
The song closes with a vision, a dream, a wish: "In my heart, I see a crowd/ A thousand souls marching proud." It does not say what their purpose is, what they march for, but "everyone [is] gathered," and "each one is loved."
The song has only three verses. The first is about a hopeless, silent town of free people. The second is about a hopeful, singing gang of chained people. The third imagines a group that is not only free, but "chained" by a common purpose, and loved. The best of both worlds.
Next Song: Harper Lee
We don't start with the chain gang, but with the town they work near. "Where I'm from," the speaker begins, "there's poverty/ All kinds of inequality. Nobody comes here, nobody leaves." So, not your typical tourism hot spot.
In fact, the local prison seems to be the main, um, industry. The "whipping report," which one assumes is an official record of their punishments, is on display "in the library," perhaps one of the few public buildings in town aside from city hall and the schoolhouse.
Now, we meet the chain gang. First, you "hear one voice start singing," accompanied by their instruments, "twelve picks... ringing... in the dirt." One voice, but twelve picks? Oh, they all join in: "Twelve mortal men in a song of liberty."
Why is it important to note that they are mortal? Of course they are; all men are. Perhaps this is to contrast them with an immortal being-- Jesus had 12 apostles, all mortal men. Or perhaps this is to highlight the amazement that they sing-- they are chained, imprisoned, and doomed... yet they sing!
And of "liberty," yet! And both "ecstasy and fear." Fear is understandable, and even hope for liberty, but how are men in such straits to be in ecstasy? Perhaps it is the music, the joy of being outside, the camaraderie of their fellow inmates, even the adrenaline rush that comes from physical labor.
The song closes with a vision, a dream, a wish: "In my heart, I see a crowd/ A thousand souls marching proud." It does not say what their purpose is, what they march for, but "everyone [is] gathered," and "each one is loved."
The song has only three verses. The first is about a hopeless, silent town of free people. The second is about a hopeful, singing gang of chained people. The third imagines a group that is not only free, but "chained" by a common purpose, and loved. The best of both worlds.
Next Song: Harper Lee
Monday, January 16, 2017
Annemarie
This song is heart-wrenching, compelling, hyperliterate, intricate... a mini-novel. It shows that Vega is an artist still at the height of her powers.
Since the subject of the album the song is on is Carson McCullers (a female 20th Century American writer), the subject of this song is likely to be fellow author Annemarie Schwarzenbach, McCullers' lesbian crush, who typically dressed in men's clothes and with who she claimed to have shared a kiss. Of her, McCullers wrote: "She had a face I knew would haunt me the rest of my life." While they never achieved couplehood, McCullers dedicated her novel Reflections in a Golden Eye to Annemarie.
The song starts by referring to the quote about Annemarie: "I saw your face; I knew you'd haunt me for all of my life."
The next three words define how McCullers saw Annemarie-- as completely unattainable: "Rising above me." The rest of the song is a painful list of all the ways Annemarie is superior to her.
"Everyone sees you, everyone knows you," she says. Everyone also "loves... wants... needs... worships" Annemarie. So, even though McCullers would say, "If you would want me I'd be no man's wife," what's the point? After all, "Who could possibly hold one so fair?"
"How can I possibly compare?" she asks, "How can I possibly compete?" Annemarie, is "brilliant"; she "moves through the world with money and family... [and] perfect beauty."
Let's talk about that beauty for a minute. We already know her face is "haunting." But people "worship" Annemarie! At least our speaker does: "If I could see God, His face would be sacred like yours." Just... wow. "But God's face is hidden, and your face is suddenly all I can see."
This is beyond smitten-- this is obsessed.
Nevertheless, Annemarie has issues too, and it seems, a lot of them: "Who could contain you, with all of your pain?" She is "stormy," as well.
But even this the speaker finds attractive: "She glitters with trouble... How can I possibly complain?"
So the speaker, McCullers, feels that Annemarie is perfect, even in her imperfections. Are the perfections a way... in? No. Even pained, Annemarie is the impossible dream, the unreachable star: "Who could possibly make you complete?" Even if someone could, in theory, do so, it would not be the speaker: "Could I gather up all that you remain?"
The object of affection is summed up in three words: "Terror, pity, love-- Annemarie." The speaker is terrified of her... and how she feels about her, which makes her vulnerable. She pities the poor little rich girl, whose status makes her beyond the (what McCullers is sure would be) the healing power of her affection.
And "love" is what she considers all of these emotions to be, in sum.
Does she love her? She admires her, to the point of "worship." She is jealous of her status and stature, yet pities Annemarie for the isolation she has on her mountaintop. But does that amount to love?
You can love some you feel is out of your league. But the line, "How could I possibly compete?" makes me feel that the desire is more to achieve Annemarie, and to match her accomplishments, than to accompany her as a partner: "Oh, if I were Annemarie's girlfriend, life would be awesome. Everyone could see I was her equal."
But that will never be. So McCullers gets to play the martyr. No one else is good enough for her... except for the one person who is too good. So she gets to be the victim, and never has to actually have a relationship. She has trapped herself on Keats' Grecian Urn... on purpose.
Next Song: Twelve Mortal Men
Since the subject of the album the song is on is Carson McCullers (a female 20th Century American writer), the subject of this song is likely to be fellow author Annemarie Schwarzenbach, McCullers' lesbian crush, who typically dressed in men's clothes and with who she claimed to have shared a kiss. Of her, McCullers wrote: "She had a face I knew would haunt me the rest of my life." While they never achieved couplehood, McCullers dedicated her novel Reflections in a Golden Eye to Annemarie.
The song starts by referring to the quote about Annemarie: "I saw your face; I knew you'd haunt me for all of my life."
The next three words define how McCullers saw Annemarie-- as completely unattainable: "Rising above me." The rest of the song is a painful list of all the ways Annemarie is superior to her.
"Everyone sees you, everyone knows you," she says. Everyone also "loves... wants... needs... worships" Annemarie. So, even though McCullers would say, "If you would want me I'd be no man's wife," what's the point? After all, "Who could possibly hold one so fair?"
"How can I possibly compare?" she asks, "How can I possibly compete?" Annemarie, is "brilliant"; she "moves through the world with money and family... [and] perfect beauty."
Let's talk about that beauty for a minute. We already know her face is "haunting." But people "worship" Annemarie! At least our speaker does: "If I could see God, His face would be sacred like yours." Just... wow. "But God's face is hidden, and your face is suddenly all I can see."
This is beyond smitten-- this is obsessed.
Nevertheless, Annemarie has issues too, and it seems, a lot of them: "Who could contain you, with all of your pain?" She is "stormy," as well.
But even this the speaker finds attractive: "She glitters with trouble... How can I possibly complain?"
So the speaker, McCullers, feels that Annemarie is perfect, even in her imperfections. Are the perfections a way... in? No. Even pained, Annemarie is the impossible dream, the unreachable star: "Who could possibly make you complete?" Even if someone could, in theory, do so, it would not be the speaker: "Could I gather up all that you remain?"
The object of affection is summed up in three words: "Terror, pity, love-- Annemarie." The speaker is terrified of her... and how she feels about her, which makes her vulnerable. She pities the poor little rich girl, whose status makes her beyond the (what McCullers is sure would be) the healing power of her affection.
And "love" is what she considers all of these emotions to be, in sum.
Does she love her? She admires her, to the point of "worship." She is jealous of her status and stature, yet pities Annemarie for the isolation she has on her mountaintop. But does that amount to love?
You can love some you feel is out of your league. But the line, "How could I possibly compete?" makes me feel that the desire is more to achieve Annemarie, and to match her accomplishments, than to accompany her as a partner: "Oh, if I were Annemarie's girlfriend, life would be awesome. Everyone could see I was her equal."
But that will never be. So McCullers gets to play the martyr. No one else is good enough for her... except for the one person who is too good. So she gets to be the victim, and never has to actually have a relationship. She has trapped herself on Keats' Grecian Urn... on purpose.
Next Song: Twelve Mortal Men
Monday, January 9, 2017
We of Me
The song starts with the line: "My squeezed heart divides into two wide wings," which implies that something was pressuring her to choose between two sides, but somehow she was able to choose both. Perhaps the wings take her back and forth between the two sides.
"The world is a sudden place if you don't belong to anything," she says next. What is meant by "sudden" is not clear-- does the world appear suddenly, when there was nothing before? Is it constantly startling with no one there for support or structure? Perhaps the word is "sullen," which would make more sense; a world in which one did not feel connected would be sullen, indeed.
"This must be the irony of fate/ I and the world are always separate," she continues. "All other people have a 'we' to claim/ Except for me, in my own name." If she is feeling disconnected, that is sad, and perhaps it is her fate to be alone. But in what sense is that an "irony"? She just said she belongs not to no world, but to two! That's more belonging, not less.
Now, this is from Vega's album about Carson McClullers (a woman), who was married and divorced, and then lived with another man for a short while without marrying him. I don't see anything about her having children, and the two men never met as far as I can see.
This also doesn't seem to be about Vega herself. She is divorced from her first husband, with whom she had a child she is still close to. And she is remarried now. So this "squeezed heart" idea could stem from that, but then why say there is no "we" for her to be part of in her own name-- what about her own child? Well, the kid does have her father's last name...
I'm going to say this is about Vega herself, as McCullers' story lines up even less, even if Vega-as-McCullers features heavily in the video. McCullers seems too haughty, world-weary, and jaded to have come up with such a tender idea, anyway. True, the part about being "separate" from the world does seem to apply.
The song continues: "I belong to be with the two of you/ And we make three/ As a family/ That is why you're the 'we' of me." Is she trying to get her daughter to be part of her new family with her second husband? We do not know when she wrote the song, but she re-married in 2006 and released the son in 2016. If the kid and her step-father are not close after 10 years... Or maybe they were, but then something caused a rift and she is trying to sew it back up.
The Biblical story of Noah is invoked: "Noah may have got it wrong... Noah's ark admitted only two by two/ We know this isn't always true... because there's one more that could belong."
According to the Bible, the animals that boarded the ark in pairs were the "unclean" ones, and the "clean" ones came in in herds of seven. But most likely that detail is not what she means to refer to.
Rather, she rebuts the idea that families are made of pairs by saying there can be a family of three-- a pair of parents and a child.
So, what does the expression "the we of me" mean? It probably means "my 'we,' that is, the people I mean when I use the word 'we.'" Namely: herself, her current husband and her daughter. By extension, her current husband's 'we' includes himself, her, and the child.
On a psychological level, "You are the 'we' of me" means "You two are the group I most intensely feel myself a part of."
Wings can be for flight, away from danger. But wings can also be spread over a family for warmth, closeness, and protection.
Next Song: Annemarie
"The world is a sudden place if you don't belong to anything," she says next. What is meant by "sudden" is not clear-- does the world appear suddenly, when there was nothing before? Is it constantly startling with no one there for support or structure? Perhaps the word is "sullen," which would make more sense; a world in which one did not feel connected would be sullen, indeed.
"This must be the irony of fate/ I and the world are always separate," she continues. "All other people have a 'we' to claim/ Except for me, in my own name." If she is feeling disconnected, that is sad, and perhaps it is her fate to be alone. But in what sense is that an "irony"? She just said she belongs not to no world, but to two! That's more belonging, not less.
Now, this is from Vega's album about Carson McClullers (a woman), who was married and divorced, and then lived with another man for a short while without marrying him. I don't see anything about her having children, and the two men never met as far as I can see.
This also doesn't seem to be about Vega herself. She is divorced from her first husband, with whom she had a child she is still close to. And she is remarried now. So this "squeezed heart" idea could stem from that, but then why say there is no "we" for her to be part of in her own name-- what about her own child? Well, the kid does have her father's last name...
I'm going to say this is about Vega herself, as McCullers' story lines up even less, even if Vega-as-McCullers features heavily in the video. McCullers seems too haughty, world-weary, and jaded to have come up with such a tender idea, anyway. True, the part about being "separate" from the world does seem to apply.
The song continues: "I belong to be with the two of you/ And we make three/ As a family/ That is why you're the 'we' of me." Is she trying to get her daughter to be part of her new family with her second husband? We do not know when she wrote the song, but she re-married in 2006 and released the son in 2016. If the kid and her step-father are not close after 10 years... Or maybe they were, but then something caused a rift and she is trying to sew it back up.
The Biblical story of Noah is invoked: "Noah may have got it wrong... Noah's ark admitted only two by two/ We know this isn't always true... because there's one more that could belong."
According to the Bible, the animals that boarded the ark in pairs were the "unclean" ones, and the "clean" ones came in in herds of seven. But most likely that detail is not what she means to refer to.
Rather, she rebuts the idea that families are made of pairs by saying there can be a family of three-- a pair of parents and a child.
So, what does the expression "the we of me" mean? It probably means "my 'we,' that is, the people I mean when I use the word 'we.'" Namely: herself, her current husband and her daughter. By extension, her current husband's 'we' includes himself, her, and the child.
On a psychological level, "You are the 'we' of me" means "You two are the group I most intensely feel myself a part of."
Wings can be for flight, away from danger. But wings can also be spread over a family for warmth, closeness, and protection.
Next Song: Annemarie
Monday, January 2, 2017
New York is My Destination
Vega is from New York, but Carson McCullers (the author this album is about) was born in Georgia, so let's say this is in her voice.
Why is she going to New York? And not just to visit but to stay ("New York is where I will be from")? Because "New York is made for grander things, just like me!" What grander things? "Mountains of fame and fortune."
She imagines that the "literati"-- the most highly regarded authors and their set-- "will love me." The
"paparazzi," who stalk the famous to photograph them, will do so to her. The "glitterati" (a portmanteau of "glitter" and "literati") are wealthy sophisticates in general-- actors, models, splashy business-people, Hollywood insiders-- have also "heard of" her. Well, they will, of course, once she gets there.
The rest of the song is largely about partaking on many of New York's storied locales. "The Algonquin" is a hotel notable for its attracting many famous wags and raconteurs in the early part of the 20th Century, like Harpo Max and Dorothy Parker. "The Plaza" is a posh hotel notable for being just that.
Other places mentioned largely serve young and/or single women. "The Three Arts Club" teaches painting, drama and music and gives students a chance to display and perform their work publicly. "The Parnassus" (named after Apollo's mythical mountain) is a boarding house, largely for Julliard students (more about which below). And "Columbia" in this case is a university. "Fifth Avenue" is a major Manhattan street, noted for its high-fashion shopping.
Riding "buses" on this street, she imagines participating in conversations like: "I lost all my money for Julliard (a major performing-arts college); "I hid in the phone booth at Macy's (a major department store)" and even "I slept in a brothel on my way to my destiny." As they say back in Columbus, Georgia: mercy me!
Not only can she not wait to get to New York, she concludes, New York can't wait until she gets there! "New York's waiting for me!" she enthuses.
And they didn't know it at the time, but it seems they were.
Next Song: We of Me
Why is she going to New York? And not just to visit but to stay ("New York is where I will be from")? Because "New York is made for grander things, just like me!" What grander things? "Mountains of fame and fortune."
She imagines that the "literati"-- the most highly regarded authors and their set-- "will love me." The
"paparazzi," who stalk the famous to photograph them, will do so to her. The "glitterati" (a portmanteau of "glitter" and "literati") are wealthy sophisticates in general-- actors, models, splashy business-people, Hollywood insiders-- have also "heard of" her. Well, they will, of course, once she gets there.
The rest of the song is largely about partaking on many of New York's storied locales. "The Algonquin" is a hotel notable for its attracting many famous wags and raconteurs in the early part of the 20th Century, like Harpo Max and Dorothy Parker. "The Plaza" is a posh hotel notable for being just that.
Other places mentioned largely serve young and/or single women. "The Three Arts Club" teaches painting, drama and music and gives students a chance to display and perform their work publicly. "The Parnassus" (named after Apollo's mythical mountain) is a boarding house, largely for Julliard students (more about which below). And "Columbia" in this case is a university. "Fifth Avenue" is a major Manhattan street, noted for its high-fashion shopping.
Riding "buses" on this street, she imagines participating in conversations like: "I lost all my money for Julliard (a major performing-arts college); "I hid in the phone booth at Macy's (a major department store)" and even "I slept in a brothel on my way to my destiny." As they say back in Columbus, Georgia: mercy me!
Not only can she not wait to get to New York, she concludes, New York can't wait until she gets there! "New York's waiting for me!" she enthuses.
And they didn't know it at the time, but it seems they were.
Next Song: We of Me
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Carson's Blues
Carson McCullers was an American novelist. Vega has been a lifelong affinity for her (Carson was a woman) work and even wrote a play about her life.
This song is the first of an album, Lover, Beloved: An Evening with Carson McCullers. It is the soundtrack to Carson McCullers Talks About Love (with the same subtitle), Vega's one-woman show about the writer, whom Vega plays.
The song is only two verses long. The first lists a number of things that the speaker says she'd been compared to or called: "A wounded sparrow," "a fallen deer," "a childish liar," "a devilish bitch."
At first, she denies being cruel, while owning that she has two sides: "I'm an iron butterfly." McCullers may not have known, but Vega certainly does, that there is a classic rock band called Iron Butterfly; while they formed a year before McCullers' death, they were not widely known until a year after.
Then, the speaker cops to sometimes being surprisingly harsh: "I can be sweet I can be wise... I can be innocent and charming and suddenly switch" to the opposite.
Even so, she still has an excuse: "you've got to understand that I've never belonged." Well, which is the cause and which the effect? Is it possible that someone who comes across as nice and then lashes out venomously might have have a hard time keeping friends?
Despite looking in from the outside, or perhaps due to that state, she says she has everyone pegged: "I've got every one of you mirrored in my deep sad eyes/ I know where you've been to and who you're afraid to be." She even quotes the Roman playwright Terence: "Nothing that is human is alien to me."
And how, without having "belonged," does she do this research? "I talk to strangers."
This short song is a portrait of someone who has said to humanity at large, "You can't fire me, I quit." Having been rejected for so long, she has begun pre-rejecting potential new friends and poisoning potential relationships. Why go through the trouble of getting hurt when you could be the one inflicting the pain?
Next Song: New York is My Destination
This song is the first of an album, Lover, Beloved: An Evening with Carson McCullers. It is the soundtrack to Carson McCullers Talks About Love (with the same subtitle), Vega's one-woman show about the writer, whom Vega plays.
The song is only two verses long. The first lists a number of things that the speaker says she'd been compared to or called: "A wounded sparrow," "a fallen deer," "a childish liar," "a devilish bitch."
At first, she denies being cruel, while owning that she has two sides: "I'm an iron butterfly." McCullers may not have known, but Vega certainly does, that there is a classic rock band called Iron Butterfly; while they formed a year before McCullers' death, they were not widely known until a year after.
Then, the speaker cops to sometimes being surprisingly harsh: "I can be sweet I can be wise... I can be innocent and charming and suddenly switch" to the opposite.
Even so, she still has an excuse: "you've got to understand that I've never belonged." Well, which is the cause and which the effect? Is it possible that someone who comes across as nice and then lashes out venomously might have have a hard time keeping friends?
Despite looking in from the outside, or perhaps due to that state, she says she has everyone pegged: "I've got every one of you mirrored in my deep sad eyes/ I know where you've been to and who you're afraid to be." She even quotes the Roman playwright Terence: "Nothing that is human is alien to me."
And how, without having "belonged," does she do this research? "I talk to strangers."
This short song is a portrait of someone who has said to humanity at large, "You can't fire me, I quit." Having been rejected for so long, she has begun pre-rejecting potential new friends and poisoning potential relationships. Why go through the trouble of getting hurt when you could be the one inflicting the pain?
Next Song: New York is My Destination
Monday, December 19, 2016
Horizon
"God is the horizon," said Vaclav Havel, a Czech playwright who became a dissident and was imprisoned, only to become his nation's leader after his release. I only learned that Vega wrote this song about him because she said so when introducing the song in a concert.
I had thought it was about South Africa's Nelson Mandela, but it also could have been about Poland's Lech Walesa India's Gandhi, or Israel's Natan Sharansky, imprisoned by the Soviets (OK, so he hasn't been made head of state in Israel... yet), or even Joseph from the Bible. It's also the story of some women, including Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi (she was under house arrest, not jail, but still) and Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto. Even Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed and then led his country, after a fashion.
The relevant verse comes later in the song, however. It starts simply: "There is a road/ Beyond this one/ ...the path/ We don't yet take." It could be the afterlife, or simply the future.
"I can feel how it longs/ To be entered upon," she continues, "It calls to me with a cry/ And an ache." She feels pulled toward it, compelled to travel its length.
What powers its attraction? "Love pulls us on to that/ Distant horizon so true."
Now we get to the biography: "I knew a man/ He lived in jail... When he was free/ He led his country."
What allows someone to rise from a prison cot to a president's chair? "He dreamed of a line/ That we call the Divine." The line being, as we now know, the horizon itself.
How do these rulers tend to lead their countries? "He taught the way of love/ And he lived in that way, too/ Love pulled him on to that distant horizon so true."
What makes us go forward, onto the next path, and the next after that? What allows us to enter the realm beyond the horizon of this life? Love.
Love of country, of self, of principles and values, of one's fellow humans. Love, even, of love itself.
Next Song: Carson's Blues
I had thought it was about South Africa's Nelson Mandela, but it also could have been about Poland's Lech Walesa India's Gandhi, or Israel's Natan Sharansky, imprisoned by the Soviets (OK, so he hasn't been made head of state in Israel... yet), or even Joseph from the Bible. It's also the story of some women, including Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi (she was under house arrest, not jail, but still) and Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto. Even Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed and then led his country, after a fashion.
The relevant verse comes later in the song, however. It starts simply: "There is a road/ Beyond this one/ ...the path/ We don't yet take." It could be the afterlife, or simply the future.
"I can feel how it longs/ To be entered upon," she continues, "It calls to me with a cry/ And an ache." She feels pulled toward it, compelled to travel its length.
What powers its attraction? "Love pulls us on to that/ Distant horizon so true."
Now we get to the biography: "I knew a man/ He lived in jail... When he was free/ He led his country."
What allows someone to rise from a prison cot to a president's chair? "He dreamed of a line/ That we call the Divine." The line being, as we now know, the horizon itself.
How do these rulers tend to lead their countries? "He taught the way of love/ And he lived in that way, too/ Love pulled him on to that distant horizon so true."
What makes us go forward, onto the next path, and the next after that? What allows us to enter the realm beyond the horizon of this life? Love.
Love of country, of self, of principles and values, of one's fellow humans. Love, even, of love itself.
Next Song: Carson's Blues
Monday, December 12, 2016
Laying on of Hands/ Stoic 2
The "laying on of hands" is the idea that touch, all by itself, has healing properties. It is often used in religious contexts.
Mother Theresa was a Nobel Prize-winning nun who dedicated her life to treating and healing the poorest of the poor in India's slums; her name is fairly synonymous with altruism.
The speaker wonders how someone so in tune with the power of touch was never curious about more... intimate touches, from which a nun by definition abstains. Most of us cannot help but heed "Love's demands," and the body's "earthly commands."
The speaker then addresses the listener: "Touch is a language," she says, and it's true. Touch can convey everything from "brutality" to "tenderness."
Well, if that's the case, "What is it you have to say to me?/ Come and talk about it." Now, of course, if "touch is a language," and the language we will be "speaking," then the "conversation" could become very personal indeed.
In fact, "our bodies are exchanged in all eternity," which sounds like re-incarnation, in which case the same soul would necessarily touch multiple bodies through the eons.
Getting back to the idea of touch being equally capable of wounding or caressing, we must ask ourselves, "In this wilderness, do we hurt or heal within our daily plans?" It's a constant choice.
The ancient Roman named Epicetus was no Mother Theresa. He was a Stoic, like the emotionless person in the previous song. The speaker opines that he was probably sexless, "slept with his hands above the covers" (and away from his "private parts").
Since he, like Theresa, was celibate, he also had no "ex-lovers" to lose sleep over. However, she did not deny herself human contact altogether.
So we have three levels of "touchers," then: those like Epicetus who don't touch anyone else at all, those like Theresa who touches others to help them but not to receive any benefit herself...
And most of us, who like to touch others and to be touched in return, in nonverbal conversation. The speaker's conclusion? Such non-touching "virtue is overrated."
She much prefers "happiness." And happiness, as Charlie Brown, taught us, is a "warm puppy." And, well, other kinds of hugs.
While this is a short song, it says a great deal about our underappreciated sense of touch. Songs often explore the sensual aspect of touch, but ignore the simple relief that being warmly touched by another person can bring. This one manages to encompass both.
Next Song: Horizon (There Is a Road)
Mother Theresa was a Nobel Prize-winning nun who dedicated her life to treating and healing the poorest of the poor in India's slums; her name is fairly synonymous with altruism.
The speaker wonders how someone so in tune with the power of touch was never curious about more... intimate touches, from which a nun by definition abstains. Most of us cannot help but heed "Love's demands," and the body's "earthly commands."
The speaker then addresses the listener: "Touch is a language," she says, and it's true. Touch can convey everything from "brutality" to "tenderness."
Well, if that's the case, "What is it you have to say to me?/ Come and talk about it." Now, of course, if "touch is a language," and the language we will be "speaking," then the "conversation" could become very personal indeed.
In fact, "our bodies are exchanged in all eternity," which sounds like re-incarnation, in which case the same soul would necessarily touch multiple bodies through the eons.
Getting back to the idea of touch being equally capable of wounding or caressing, we must ask ourselves, "In this wilderness, do we hurt or heal within our daily plans?" It's a constant choice.
The ancient Roman named Epicetus was no Mother Theresa. He was a Stoic, like the emotionless person in the previous song. The speaker opines that he was probably sexless, "slept with his hands above the covers" (and away from his "private parts").
Since he, like Theresa, was celibate, he also had no "ex-lovers" to lose sleep over. However, she did not deny herself human contact altogether.
So we have three levels of "touchers," then: those like Epicetus who don't touch anyone else at all, those like Theresa who touches others to help them but not to receive any benefit herself...
And most of us, who like to touch others and to be touched in return, in nonverbal conversation. The speaker's conclusion? Such non-touching "virtue is overrated."
She much prefers "happiness." And happiness, as Charlie Brown, taught us, is a "warm puppy." And, well, other kinds of hugs.
While this is a short song, it says a great deal about our underappreciated sense of touch. Songs often explore the sensual aspect of touch, but ignore the simple relief that being warmly touched by another person can bring. This one manages to encompass both.
Next Song: Horizon (There Is a Road)
Monday, December 5, 2016
Song of the Stoic
While the ancient belief of Stoicism was more complex than that, the word "stoic" today means a person who declines to show emotion.
The speaker here is a "man" whose life's major incident are few. Mostly, he's been "working all [his] days."
Now he's having a post-midlife "accounting": "More years are behind me now/ Than years that are ahead," so it's time to take stock.
First, he wants us to know that at 18, he "faced down" his father who physically abused him-- "18 years of pain." He does not blame his father, but the "demons" of his mental illness. Still, he is covered in "layers of bruises." So the emotion here is dignity, self-assertion.
He left home and "learned to love the road," an emotional response. He learned that some things can be "spoken" and some not. He does physical labor, earning his "coin" with "another/ Knot within [his] back." There are many emotions here.
He married, somehow, which would seem a major life milestone, but we learn of this only because he was tempted to stray. The other woman had a "gifted touch" but yet they "confine [themselves] to friendship/ And [they] stay out of the bed." It seems that he might have divorced his wife to marry her, had she been single. The fact that she would not leave her spouse to be with him must have been painful.
Now, he is "facing" another foe, "the specter of [his] age." He wants to die already: "My soul, it fights my body/ Like a bird will fight its cage," wanting to escape. He sees death as "peace" and "release."
Yet, he will not kill himself-- "I keep myself upon the earth"-- and simply accept his fate, even as he measures not his gains and achievements but only "what [he's] lost."
So that's his life's story-- abuse, then labor and massive disappointment. Has he ever had the chance at happiness? "Winged things, they brush against me/ Never mine to hold."
Instead, he has resigned himself to grinding labor, saying "I keep my eyes upon the ground/ And carry on."
Why? "Ecstasy and pleasure come at much too high a cost." Since all he has known has been pain, he has two choices-- accept pain and try to live with it... or try for happiness knowing that it will either be unattained or lost, and then pile that pain onto the existing one. Not worth it, he decides.
The man is a stoic for this reason, or reasoning. His childhood was painful, his marriage is unfulfilling, his work shows no progress for all his effort. Any idea that hope was a good thing has been beaten out of him, either figuratively or literally.
For a song about a person who avoids emotions, the story leaves the listener with a deep one: sadness.
Next Song: Laying on of Hands/Stoic 2
The speaker here is a "man" whose life's major incident are few. Mostly, he's been "working all [his] days."
Now he's having a post-midlife "accounting": "More years are behind me now/ Than years that are ahead," so it's time to take stock.
First, he wants us to know that at 18, he "faced down" his father who physically abused him-- "18 years of pain." He does not blame his father, but the "demons" of his mental illness. Still, he is covered in "layers of bruises." So the emotion here is dignity, self-assertion.
He left home and "learned to love the road," an emotional response. He learned that some things can be "spoken" and some not. He does physical labor, earning his "coin" with "another/ Knot within [his] back." There are many emotions here.
He married, somehow, which would seem a major life milestone, but we learn of this only because he was tempted to stray. The other woman had a "gifted touch" but yet they "confine [themselves] to friendship/ And [they] stay out of the bed." It seems that he might have divorced his wife to marry her, had she been single. The fact that she would not leave her spouse to be with him must have been painful.
Now, he is "facing" another foe, "the specter of [his] age." He wants to die already: "My soul, it fights my body/ Like a bird will fight its cage," wanting to escape. He sees death as "peace" and "release."
Yet, he will not kill himself-- "I keep myself upon the earth"-- and simply accept his fate, even as he measures not his gains and achievements but only "what [he's] lost."
So that's his life's story-- abuse, then labor and massive disappointment. Has he ever had the chance at happiness? "Winged things, they brush against me/ Never mine to hold."
Instead, he has resigned himself to grinding labor, saying "I keep my eyes upon the ground/ And carry on."
Why? "Ecstasy and pleasure come at much too high a cost." Since all he has known has been pain, he has two choices-- accept pain and try to live with it... or try for happiness knowing that it will either be unattained or lost, and then pile that pain onto the existing one. Not worth it, he decides.
The man is a stoic for this reason, or reasoning. His childhood was painful, his marriage is unfulfilling, his work shows no progress for all his effort. Any idea that hope was a good thing has been beaten out of him, either figuratively or literally.
For a song about a person who avoids emotions, the story leaves the listener with a deep one: sadness.
Next Song: Laying on of Hands/Stoic 2
Monday, November 28, 2016
Silver Bridge
The idea of dying being a "crossing over" into another land or place is a universal one. So is the idea of that other land being across a body of water that has to be rowed across... or perhaps spanned with a bridge.
This song is about watching someone standing on that bridge cross over it. In other words, it's about someone dying.
The song starts with the end of the story, that it is about a "recently departed" individual who went into "that land uncharted."
There is foreshadowing in the "old man" going up to his room by "the stairway he ascended" after a goodnight kiss. The speaker reports him "struggle" all night to live, yet also reaching out to "Saturn," the king of the mythical gods.
The speaker enters the room, not sure what to do and "frozen" with indecision and "wonder." She simply "stared upon his body" in the "silver" moonlight. This moonbeam she images as the "silver bridge" in the title, between here and the hereafter.
Yet, she does nothing, having "witnessed all there was to see." She doesn't "move to him," since he "wasn't [hers] for claiming." Instead, she "withdrew."
Then she realizes he is, in fact, dead, "so much more than sleeping." She stays with him as a "vigil" the rest of the night and morning and even into the "afternoon." (Why she does not alert the authorities-- or the party for which he was "for claiming"-- much sooner is not mentioned, but highly irregular. Most would call as soon as they realized the person had died, or even if they thought he might be dying.)
The experience has had a profound impact on the speaker. She wonders about sleepless nights, and if they represent a form of "standing on that bridge." And, if so, "which way are you facing?" Is it the Land of the Living, or the "land uncharted"?
The lines are thin between sleep, unconsciousness, coma, brain death, death itself, and even animal and plant states like stasis and hibernation. It is understandable that a person with no medical training might not be able to tell the difference, certainly not by simple observation from several feet away.
The speaker seems to understand this and does not berate herself for not getting help sooner. She sincerely thought he was asleep.
But now, it seems, she is having trouble sleeping herself. And more troubled, in that she feels troubled by her inability to sleep... and worried about what that means, and what it portends.
Next Song: Song of the Stoic
This song is about watching someone standing on that bridge cross over it. In other words, it's about someone dying.
The song starts with the end of the story, that it is about a "recently departed" individual who went into "that land uncharted."
There is foreshadowing in the "old man" going up to his room by "the stairway he ascended" after a goodnight kiss. The speaker reports him "struggle" all night to live, yet also reaching out to "Saturn," the king of the mythical gods.
The speaker enters the room, not sure what to do and "frozen" with indecision and "wonder." She simply "stared upon his body" in the "silver" moonlight. This moonbeam she images as the "silver bridge" in the title, between here and the hereafter.
Yet, she does nothing, having "witnessed all there was to see." She doesn't "move to him," since he "wasn't [hers] for claiming." Instead, she "withdrew."
Then she realizes he is, in fact, dead, "so much more than sleeping." She stays with him as a "vigil" the rest of the night and morning and even into the "afternoon." (Why she does not alert the authorities-- or the party for which he was "for claiming"-- much sooner is not mentioned, but highly irregular. Most would call as soon as they realized the person had died, or even if they thought he might be dying.)
The experience has had a profound impact on the speaker. She wonders about sleepless nights, and if they represent a form of "standing on that bridge." And, if so, "which way are you facing?" Is it the Land of the Living, or the "land uncharted"?
The lines are thin between sleep, unconsciousness, coma, brain death, death itself, and even animal and plant states like stasis and hibernation. It is understandable that a person with no medical training might not be able to tell the difference, certainly not by simple observation from several feet away.
The speaker seems to understand this and does not berate herself for not getting help sooner. She sincerely thought he was asleep.
But now, it seems, she is having trouble sleeping herself. And more troubled, in that she feels troubled by her inability to sleep... and worried about what that means, and what it portends.
Next Song: Song of the Stoic
Monday, November 21, 2016
Jacob and the Angel
This song is based on the Bible story of Jacob wrestling with angel.
The account in the song is not as detailed as the one in Genesis, but the general storyline is kept. One detail that is changed is that in the Bible, the fight takes place by a riverbank, not in a "room." Also, at first, Jacob does not know he is being accosted by an angel.
As in the Biblical account, the angel "smote him on the thigh" and then the two "wrestled... till morning" without speaking. At dawn, the angel "turned to fly and to flee," but Jacob held on until the angel (whom he had now identified as such) blessed him. At this point, the angel did so, although in the song the angel "smote" him again first.
Jacob learns "his other name," Israel, from the angel in this version. In the Bible, the angel (on behalf of God, presumably) gives him the name Israel: "he who strives with God."
Incidentally, this idea is probably unique to the Jews. "Islam" has a connotation of "submission" to God, as do the Christian Shaker and Quaker sects. The very observant Jews who call themselves "Haredi" do so, likewise, because they "tremble" before God (the words "Jew" and "Judaism" come from the tribe "Judah").
In any case, why is the speaker talking about this Bible story at all?
Oh, it's a metaphor for a problem in a relationship: "This thing between us must be wrestled down."
It's nice to see that she feels that the issue is to blame, not one or the other of the couple.
However, she admits that the problem is a tough one. Maybe it's an "angel" it has "wings" and "feathers." But maybe it's a "demon," as it has "teeth" and "horns." But, angel or demon, it's got "sinews" that are not going to be overcome easily.
Still, it has been identified as being discreet unto itself, and not an aspect or fault of either of them. So a least part of the battle-- knowing the enemy-- has been achieved. This bodes well.
If they are going to the Bible for a metaphor for it, perhaps they would be served by going to a religious counselor of some sort, rather than a secular marriage counselor. In any case, they have met the enemy, and he is not them-- it's a "thing," and it can be overcome.
Next Song: Silver Bridge
The account in the song is not as detailed as the one in Genesis, but the general storyline is kept. One detail that is changed is that in the Bible, the fight takes place by a riverbank, not in a "room." Also, at first, Jacob does not know he is being accosted by an angel.
As in the Biblical account, the angel "smote him on the thigh" and then the two "wrestled... till morning" without speaking. At dawn, the angel "turned to fly and to flee," but Jacob held on until the angel (whom he had now identified as such) blessed him. At this point, the angel did so, although in the song the angel "smote" him again first.
Jacob learns "his other name," Israel, from the angel in this version. In the Bible, the angel (on behalf of God, presumably) gives him the name Israel: "he who strives with God."
Incidentally, this idea is probably unique to the Jews. "Islam" has a connotation of "submission" to God, as do the Christian Shaker and Quaker sects. The very observant Jews who call themselves "Haredi" do so, likewise, because they "tremble" before God (the words "Jew" and "Judaism" come from the tribe "Judah").
In any case, why is the speaker talking about this Bible story at all?
Oh, it's a metaphor for a problem in a relationship: "This thing between us must be wrestled down."
It's nice to see that she feels that the issue is to blame, not one or the other of the couple.
However, she admits that the problem is a tough one. Maybe it's an "angel" it has "wings" and "feathers." But maybe it's a "demon," as it has "teeth" and "horns." But, angel or demon, it's got "sinews" that are not going to be overcome easily.
Still, it has been identified as being discreet unto itself, and not an aspect or fault of either of them. So a least part of the battle-- knowing the enemy-- has been achieved. This bodes well.
If they are going to the Bible for a metaphor for it, perhaps they would be served by going to a religious counselor of some sort, rather than a secular marriage counselor. In any case, they have met the enemy, and he is not them-- it's a "thing," and it can be overcome.
Next Song: Silver Bridge
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Don't Uncork What You Can't Contain
This song presents three scenarios of people, each opening a mysterious container.
In the first, "a man finds a bottle" and begins to uncork it. In the second, Pandora of myth accidentally opens her box of evil.
And in the third, a genie is released from a lamp-- not by Aladdin but by Macklemore, who found it at a thrift shop (You see, there was this rapper in the early 2010s who went by "Macklemore," whose first single was a novelty tune about shopping at a "Thrift Shop." It went to #1. Yup.)
But when the man tries to open the bottle, and when Pandora did open the box, and when the genie did emerge from the lamp, each thought or said the same thing: "Don't uncork what you can't contain."
Like "don't bite off more than you can chew," this expression means to be careful or you might get in over your head. The one about food is about attempting what is beyond your capabilities, and the one about a drink is about not unleashing forces you can't control (just ask Dr. Frankenstein.)
Also, in each case the person "must" or "couldn't help," opening the container, or simply didn't consider what they did to have any consequences.
Ah, but what if you are the container? What if you have something inside that you can no longer keep bottled up? And you shouldn't, or "your head will spin/ And your mouth is all tongue-tied."
Then you have to put that into a container. The speaker suggests you channel it into art, "the page or the stage."
Words or performance (or the visual arts, one infers) can contain those "feelings."
But the container the speaker has in mind is not a bottle, box or lamp, but a "cage." Why? Because "rage" is like a "tiger." One that'll cause you "pain."
So, a tip of the (tall, striped) hat to Dr. Seuss: "The page and the stage [are] the cage for that tiger rage."
In conclusion: Don't uncork what you can't contain-- unless you can pour it into your artwork, which can contain it.
Next Song: Jacob and the Angel
In the first, "a man finds a bottle" and begins to uncork it. In the second, Pandora of myth accidentally opens her box of evil.
And in the third, a genie is released from a lamp-- not by Aladdin but by Macklemore, who found it at a thrift shop (You see, there was this rapper in the early 2010s who went by "Macklemore," whose first single was a novelty tune about shopping at a "Thrift Shop." It went to #1. Yup.)
But when the man tries to open the bottle, and when Pandora did open the box, and when the genie did emerge from the lamp, each thought or said the same thing: "Don't uncork what you can't contain."
Like "don't bite off more than you can chew," this expression means to be careful or you might get in over your head. The one about food is about attempting what is beyond your capabilities, and the one about a drink is about not unleashing forces you can't control (just ask Dr. Frankenstein.)
Also, in each case the person "must" or "couldn't help," opening the container, or simply didn't consider what they did to have any consequences.
Ah, but what if you are the container? What if you have something inside that you can no longer keep bottled up? And you shouldn't, or "your head will spin/ And your mouth is all tongue-tied."
Then you have to put that into a container. The speaker suggests you channel it into art, "the page or the stage."
Words or performance (or the visual arts, one infers) can contain those "feelings."
But the container the speaker has in mind is not a bottle, box or lamp, but a "cage." Why? Because "rage" is like a "tiger." One that'll cause you "pain."
So, a tip of the (tall, striped) hat to Dr. Seuss: "The page and the stage [are] the cage for that tiger rage."
In conclusion: Don't uncork what you can't contain-- unless you can pour it into your artwork, which can contain it.
Next Song: Jacob and the Angel
Sunday, November 6, 2016
Portrait of the Knight of Wands
The first song about tarot in this "deck" of songs is "Fool's Complaint," and you can read more about tarot in that entry. This song is, as its title indicates, about another card the knight (equivalent to a jack in a regular playing deck) from the suit called Wands (or Batons).
Since the character is in motion, his card signifies travel and change.
In the speaker's view, the knight has just witnessed the results of a battle, and now views the "last bastions" and "ruins." His reaction is anger; he has "thunder in his face... clouds gathered in the sky."
There is still hope in the scene, however-- not all the plants are dead. The "flowers" especially remain.
What edifice was attacked? A building or a whole fort or town? We know there is a church nearby, since we see its "belfry," which lies "silent."
The knight is silent as well, and will not relate what has happened. But it was something that was part of "the wider lens of history."
Then comes this enigmatic line: "His mission, the transmission of technology."
Well, yes, that is one interpretation of the "change" his card signifies-- new invention. But why is that his entire mission? After all, the "technology" he wields is, basically, a stick. Another suit is the Sword; isn't that a more technologically advanced bit of weaponry than a cudgel? Yet another suit is the Cup, which implies metal-working, tableware (and all its attendant culture), and even wine-making. Even the Pentacles, the only abstract sign, points toward mathematics, perhaps even astronomy, astrology and religion. The Wand, which relates to magic, is almost anti-science.
Further, what's the point of bringing technology to a church and a ruin? Is either going to embrace it?
In any case, he espies a "cannon" and "muttered" that it is "To keep the bishop on his place." He is unhappy about it, but it unclear that he is unhappy that the church is rebellious... or happy about that but unhappy that his power has been checked by the royals and their army, of which he may be a part.
We now turn toward the knight's state of mind, and find it "melancholy," and "severe"; "his inner burden weighed upon him heavily." Perhaps he was supposed to deliver technology to this building but arrived too late.
But, like the flowers before, a new sort of "bird" appears to show that life will go on.
What was the building that is now a ruin? "All the ancient knowledge lay in pieces on the ground." Perhaps, like many abbeys, there was a library here. The book The Name of the Rose is about just such a monastery, in which the monks safeguard, read, and copy old scrolls. Only now all is lost.
It seems the knight had some connection with this place. Was the place for or against technology? Was the knowledge bad because it was ancient and therefore superstitious? Or was the knowledge ancient and therefore rudimentary but fundamental, like that of ancient Greece, upon which so much science has been built?
Also, was the knight delivering technology to this place? Perhaps he thought if he could modernize some of their ways, he could stop the royals from seeing it as a "bastion" of "ancient," outdated practices and therefore not a threat to progress? But now he sees the library asunder and the church under the watch of the army. They went for the military option, of course.
Or was he spreading knowledge from it, out into the world? And now he returns for more, only to find that because he was gone during the battle, he is the last hope for its dissemination? Does he wish he had been there to help defend it? Is he glad that he wasn't, in that he gets to live on and carry forth its mission, a heavy burden at that? Did he ever even read any of the invaluable scrolls he delivered?
It is not possible to say. The speaker seems selfishly unmoved by any of these scenarios, however: "The cause of all his suffering was not for love of me." It seems that yes, more is on his mind than romance. (Unlike the military men in "Knight Moves" and "The Queen and the Soldier.")
Ultimately, a tarot card is only so big and can transmit only so much information. Like a scroll, or a messenger.
Next Song: Don't Uncork What You Can't Contain.
Ultimately, a tarot card is only so big and can transmit only so much information. Like a scroll, or a messenger.
Next Song: Don't Uncork What You Can't Contain.
Monday, October 31, 2016
I Never Wear White
"The Man in Black" is, of course, Johnny Cash; he sings a song by that title as well. But it's also Wesley, in The Princess Bride, as The Dread Pirate Roberts. And then there are The Men in Black, alien hunters from the movie of that title. Now, the 2016 TV show Westworld, based on a 1970s movie, has a character named "Man in Black." (Zorro is also a man in black, although not called as such.)
A quick search reveals that "Man in Black" is used for everyone from racing's Dale Earnhardt to characters from TV's Lost and filmdom's For a Few Dollar's More-- and novels from Stephen King back to... Geoffrey Chaucer!
However, "women in black" are far rarer. The novel The Woman in Black is only from 1983, and everything based on it is even more recent. There is also a movement of anti-war protesters who came to be known as The Women in Black.
Well, now we might finally have a musical Woman in Black to compare to Cash.
The song is basically two lists: one of the kinds of people who do wear white, and then another of those who wear black.
"White," it says, is for: virgins, "children in summer," and brides.
"Black," meanwhile, is for: outlaws, dancers, "the poet of the dark," the crone, the bastard, "the schoolgirl in uniform," "the servant in the hall," the gangster, and the widow.
What's wrong with white? Nothing in general, just that it's wrong for her. Again, why? Well, "white is too blinding/ Always reminding/ Of the innocent who fall."
So, black is either for those who already fell, or for those who were never innocent to begin with and started, so to speak, on the floor. "Those," as she puts it, "of my station in life" (see the above list).
Black, furthermore, "is for secrets... it's the shade and the shadow." While white is "blinding" and revealing, black hides, and allows things to be hidden. While white shows things to the eye, black is "the depth into your eye," the pupil, the part that sees. Yes, ironically, it is the blackest part of the eye that lets the light in.
Let's look again at the list of black-wearers. The outlaw and gangster are criminals; of course they need to hide. The poet doesn't need to hide, but prefers to, the better to observe without being observed. The widow wears black out of grief and somberness; she is not supposed to attract men's romantic attention with color. So these prefer black by choice.
The servant is never to be the center of attention, but is meant to serve those who are. The old crone and bastard are, by their nature, outcasts and affronts to decent society, and so shunted into the shadows. The schoolgirl is likewise deemed unimportant by society-- she is both young and female, making her doubly dismiss-able. These are made to wear black so that they fade into the background, even against their will.
Then there is the dancer. She chooses to wear black, yet is in the spotlight! Public as she is, she as a person is less important than her art, her movements. By wearing black, she disappears as an individual, and becomes a mere screen on to which the audience projects its self-image.
"Black is the truth of my situation," the speaker concludes. "All other colors lie." So she either is made to wear black but has embraced it, or has chosen it outright. It allows her to hide.
Musically, the song is one of Vega's hardest-rocking numbers, at least since 99.9oF.
Next song: Portrait of the Knight of Wands
A quick search reveals that "Man in Black" is used for everyone from racing's Dale Earnhardt to characters from TV's Lost and filmdom's For a Few Dollar's More-- and novels from Stephen King back to... Geoffrey Chaucer!
However, "women in black" are far rarer. The novel The Woman in Black is only from 1983, and everything based on it is even more recent. There is also a movement of anti-war protesters who came to be known as The Women in Black.
Well, now we might finally have a musical Woman in Black to compare to Cash.
The song is basically two lists: one of the kinds of people who do wear white, and then another of those who wear black.
"White," it says, is for: virgins, "children in summer," and brides.
"Black," meanwhile, is for: outlaws, dancers, "the poet of the dark," the crone, the bastard, "the schoolgirl in uniform," "the servant in the hall," the gangster, and the widow.
What's wrong with white? Nothing in general, just that it's wrong for her. Again, why? Well, "white is too blinding/ Always reminding/ Of the innocent who fall."
So, black is either for those who already fell, or for those who were never innocent to begin with and started, so to speak, on the floor. "Those," as she puts it, "of my station in life" (see the above list).
Black, furthermore, "is for secrets... it's the shade and the shadow." While white is "blinding" and revealing, black hides, and allows things to be hidden. While white shows things to the eye, black is "the depth into your eye," the pupil, the part that sees. Yes, ironically, it is the blackest part of the eye that lets the light in.
Let's look again at the list of black-wearers. The outlaw and gangster are criminals; of course they need to hide. The poet doesn't need to hide, but prefers to, the better to observe without being observed. The widow wears black out of grief and somberness; she is not supposed to attract men's romantic attention with color. So these prefer black by choice.
The servant is never to be the center of attention, but is meant to serve those who are. The old crone and bastard are, by their nature, outcasts and affronts to decent society, and so shunted into the shadows. The schoolgirl is likewise deemed unimportant by society-- she is both young and female, making her doubly dismiss-able. These are made to wear black so that they fade into the background, even against their will.
Then there is the dancer. She chooses to wear black, yet is in the spotlight! Public as she is, she as a person is less important than her art, her movements. By wearing black, she disappears as an individual, and becomes a mere screen on to which the audience projects its self-image.
"Black is the truth of my situation," the speaker concludes. "All other colors lie." So she either is made to wear black but has embraced it, or has chosen it outright. It allows her to hide.
Musically, the song is one of Vega's hardest-rocking numbers, at least since 99.9oF.
Next song: Portrait of the Knight of Wands
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Fool's Complaint
This is a song about tarot cards, a series of cards with pictures which, according to superstition, can tell your future and fate when dealt and "read" by a psychic. This is not the first time Vega has discussed this topic; see the song "Predictions."
There are two cards discussed. One is the Queen of Pentacles (there are some cards with no suits; others have suits of Cups, Swords, Wands, or Pentacles-- five-pointed stars). The other is The Fool, or jester, similar to the Joker in a typical deck of playing cards and likewise suit-less.
The song is short, and mostly an attack on the Queen of Pentacles. I am no expert in tarot, so I looked this card up. Evidently, it is a card related to a focus on the home and what a pregnant couple would call "nesting."
The speaker sees this card, however, as representing a domesticity that precludes wandering. It's not just the Queen prefers to stay home, she insists upon it; this is "domestic tyranny." And, since she will not leave her imperious "golden throne," all things must be brought to her-- and yes, that means all things.
The speaker likens this selfishness to being like a "drain" in a sink or bathtub, whose "vortex" sucks everything toward its bottomless abyss. She is also likened to Rome, in that "all roads lead" to her; "her needs and wants and wishes and whims/ All take precedence."
Since she never works for her gains, she doesn't value them ("never knowing any cost"), or those who bring them to her. She has even invented a game of "fetch" with her servants, as if they were dogs: she "throws around her finery/ For us to fetch when it gets lost."
The speaker decries this state, for both its static sameness and its spoiled selfishness.
Luckily, this is not the speaker's card! Her card is "the Fool." The Fool is not bitter, but "merry." The Fool is not stolid, but a "rootless... with air beneath [his] footstep." The Fool is not confined by schedules, either, but has "Providence as [his] plan."
And the speaker identifies with this attitude, claiming it as her own. She excoriates the whiny, bratty Queen of Pentacles and embraces the happy, happy-go-lucky Fool.
And... that's the whole song. I told you it was short.
Next Song: I Never Wear White
There are two cards discussed. One is the Queen of Pentacles (there are some cards with no suits; others have suits of Cups, Swords, Wands, or Pentacles-- five-pointed stars). The other is The Fool, or jester, similar to the Joker in a typical deck of playing cards and likewise suit-less.
The song is short, and mostly an attack on the Queen of Pentacles. I am no expert in tarot, so I looked this card up. Evidently, it is a card related to a focus on the home and what a pregnant couple would call "nesting."
The speaker sees this card, however, as representing a domesticity that precludes wandering. It's not just the Queen prefers to stay home, she insists upon it; this is "domestic tyranny." And, since she will not leave her imperious "golden throne," all things must be brought to her-- and yes, that means all things.
The speaker likens this selfishness to being like a "drain" in a sink or bathtub, whose "vortex" sucks everything toward its bottomless abyss. She is also likened to Rome, in that "all roads lead" to her; "her needs and wants and wishes and whims/ All take precedence."
Since she never works for her gains, she doesn't value them ("never knowing any cost"), or those who bring them to her. She has even invented a game of "fetch" with her servants, as if they were dogs: she "throws around her finery/ For us to fetch when it gets lost."
The speaker decries this state, for both its static sameness and its spoiled selfishness.
Luckily, this is not the speaker's card! Her card is "the Fool." The Fool is not bitter, but "merry." The Fool is not stolid, but a "rootless... with air beneath [his] footstep." The Fool is not confined by schedules, either, but has "Providence as [his] plan."
And the speaker identifies with this attitude, claiming it as her own. She excoriates the whiny, bratty Queen of Pentacles and embraces the happy, happy-go-lucky Fool.
And... that's the whole song. I told you it was short.
Next Song: I Never Wear White
Saturday, October 15, 2016
Crack in the Wall
This is the first track off of Vega's album, Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles; it was released in 2014 (shortly before I began this blog).
The song has a very interesting rhyme scheme. For the first two verses, it's a b c b c c d b (as long as we rhyme "sun" with "ravine" and "scene"). Then the last verse is longer; it starts the same but then keeps going: a b c b c c d b e e f b.
The song's lyric is structured like a traditional fantasy story. Instead of a wardrobe leading to Narnia, a rabbit hole leading to Wonderland, or a train platform leading to Hogwarts, our speaker sees the following: "A crack appeared inside a wall/ A door sprang up around it... a wildish wind blew it open wide."
While such stories are always about young people and the speaker is not that, nevertheless she has a "childish mind" and enters. After all, the door seemed to be made especially for her to find: "I could not believe I found it."
Once she entered, did she find the fantastical fauna of Pandora from Avatar, the outlandish characters in Willy Wonka's factory, or the mystifying creatures of Oz? After all, she says, "A world of wonder lay without"...
"It was all of nature's calling." She's... outside. In nature. A really spectacular example of nature, but basically just outdoors. She lists: "field, forest, cloud, sun, heights and valleys, ravines, ivy, thorny scenes."
Still, she is enraptured, saying that she was "surrounded" by her "heart's delight." What made this "lap of nature's sprawling" so amazing? Well, there were "cascades of salt water falling," and that doesn't usually happen; saltwater is already in the sea, and the rivers that form waterfalls on the way to the sea are freshwater, having been made by rain or melted snow.
But aside from that salient (pun intended) fact, she felt delighted to be there because "each thing did love its place."
The chorus is simply "And so, and so it goes." This is a commonplace expression, but it is one popularized by Kurt Vonnegut in his book Slaughterhouse Five; in it, Vonnegut's narrator is usually saying "so it goes" while reacting to something negative, often a death, with a feeling between acceptance and resignation... but sometimes rue.
Back to our song. The speaker meet "the one whose land it was" and asks for a "token," something to take back to her world as a private souvenir. She is told "no" three times. The way she phases this is that she was "thrice denied," which echoes the three times Peter denies that he knows Jesus in one night (as Jesus predicts). She asks one more time, as humbly as possible, without any "pride"...
..."and found [she'd] lost that world." Oh, no. She has somehow been cast out-- or more pointedly, cast back in, to within her wall.
She has "returned as one now broken/ To a crumb, a rag, a withered leaf." This is how she sees her world-- the one she'd always lived in before entering that "door"-- now.
She freezes in the "chilly wind of cold relief." Wait, why is she relieved? We thought she was sad to be back. Perhaps this uses the other meaning of "relief," a sculpture carved into a wall. When something is said to be "thrown into relief" it is made real, given depth.
Like Dorothy returning from Oz, she is "as from a dream awoken."
But also like Dorothy, she can go back (there are more than a dozen books in the Oz series). Alice returns through the lookingglass, and the children pass through the wardrobe into and out of Narnia as if it had a revolving door.
Here, too, the speaker ends her song: "But then a crack appeared inside a wall/ And a door sprang up around it." She gets to go back in... as long as she never takes anything out with her.
In most cases, we imagine the questing youth going "into" the new world. Here, the speaker goes "outside" through the door that the crack opens in the wall; the world of wonder lay not "within" but "without."
She lives in a world of walls. A house, a city. She has had the opportunity to explore nature-- maybe she went camping?-- and now sees her urban world pale by comparison. But she knows that to return with a shell or stone is to subtract from the very nature she loves.
Now, however, she has something more important that a thing to remind her of that wondrous place-- she has a way to get back to it. And she can't wait until she does.
There, "each thing did love its place." The same seems not to be the case in the city. At least for her; she realizes she hates it there.
(While the young adult novels referenced herein are relatively recent, in history-of-literature terms, the idea of going through a portal into another world is at least as old at the tale of Orpheus following Eurydice through a cave into Pluto's cavernous underworld.)
There, "each thing did love its place." The same seems not to be the case in the city. At least for her; she realizes she hates it there.
(While the young adult novels referenced herein are relatively recent, in history-of-literature terms, the idea of going through a portal into another world is at least as old at the tale of Orpheus following Eurydice through a cave into Pluto's cavernous underworld.)
Vega's first song on her first album in years is "Crack in the Wall," and the first song on her debut was "Cracking." Does she consider this album, seven years after her previous one, some sort of new debut?
Next Song: Fool's Complaint
Monday, October 10, 2016
The Silver Lady
This rare track is available on volume 4 of the Close Up series.
What starts off as a traditional folksong turns into a meditation on an issue of incredible emotional trauma-- what to do with an elderly parent, especially one with mental-health issues.
The song begins as if describing a child's visit with an imaginary fairy-friend: "When I was a little girl... I once spoke to the Silver Lady/ But I never saw her again." It continues that this mystical lady "flew out of the sky" and could go "riding on the water" and on a "golden pony." So, typical fairy-tale imagery.
Then there is a note of sadness: "Only once did I hear her laugh/ And it echoed far and lonely." So, despite her otherworldly trappings, she is not some sort of angel. She was "the crazy man's only daughter," which might have something to do with her state of mind.
We now hear the conversation alluded to in the opening verse, about the one time our speaker actually "spoke with the Silver Lady." The conversation took place on a riverbank.
The child approached the Lady, who was crying, to comfort her: "If I had wings like you, I would be flying... and singing."
She says she had no wings-- perhaps she only looked like she was flying when she was galloping on horseback?-- or "I would surely be gone."
She continues that she is her father's only daughter, but that he had older sons... who all left her to take care of their "crazy" father, who is also aging.
And now, she is torn. She wants desperately to leave, and is feeling strangled by her being tethered to him: "I feel the ocean pulling me... I want to go with [the breezes]... This life is killing me." But how can she leave him, helpless and alone? Plus, her abandonment would "break his heart."
What starts off as a traditional folksong turns into a meditation on an issue of incredible emotional trauma-- what to do with an elderly parent, especially one with mental-health issues.
The song begins as if describing a child's visit with an imaginary fairy-friend: "When I was a little girl... I once spoke to the Silver Lady/ But I never saw her again." It continues that this mystical lady "flew out of the sky" and could go "riding on the water" and on a "golden pony." So, typical fairy-tale imagery.
Then there is a note of sadness: "Only once did I hear her laugh/ And it echoed far and lonely." So, despite her otherworldly trappings, she is not some sort of angel. She was "the crazy man's only daughter," which might have something to do with her state of mind.
We now hear the conversation alluded to in the opening verse, about the one time our speaker actually "spoke with the Silver Lady." The conversation took place on a riverbank.
The child approached the Lady, who was crying, to comfort her: "If I had wings like you, I would be flying... and singing."
She says she had no wings-- perhaps she only looked like she was flying when she was galloping on horseback?-- or "I would surely be gone."
She continues that she is her father's only daughter, but that he had older sons... who all left her to take care of their "crazy" father, who is also aging.
And now, she is torn. She wants desperately to leave, and is feeling strangled by her being tethered to him: "I feel the ocean pulling me... I want to go with [the breezes]... This life is killing me." But how can she leave him, helpless and alone? Plus, her abandonment would "break his heart."
She turns away, and the child follows the river back home.
"The next day I heard she had taken her horse/ And gone off to parts unknown." This is the first point we know for certain that the Lady is not just a figment of the child's vivid imagination.
So the Lady does leave. And her father? He stayed at home, stopped coming into town, and started "roaming down by the riverside." And if rumors are to be believed, he committed suicide, drowning himself in the river.
The speaker never saw the Silver Lady again. But now, she says, "when I felt a silver breeze/ I knew she had sent it from wherever she was/ To tell us that now she was free."
For a song that begins in fantasy, the scenario is all too real. The "burnout" felt by caregivers, especially those who care for those with Alzheimer's and other conditions, can be devastating, as can the guilt of leaving them. And far too often, it is their daughters left with this obligation, while the sons are free to leave and start their own families.
Today, at least for those of us in cities, there are several options. Caregivers can be given respite workers to take care of their loved ones, so that they can continue to have somewhat-normal lives. And in some cases, the best option is round-the-clock professional care in a dedicated facility, provided by people working in shifts to avoid exactly this sort of burnout.
Mental illness never takes a break, let alone a vacation. But human beings, even machines, cannot be expected to work ceaselessly. The Silver Lady should have insisted that her brothers help. She could have reached out to her neighbors, to the local clergy or other charitable organizations. But it sounds like this all took place in a rural setting, with few such resources.
What begins as a child's fairytale of a beautiful Silver Lady turns out to be a lesson in how poorly society has dealt with mental illness throughout most of its history. At least now things are beginning to change, so that women don't have to go gray-- sorry, "silver"-- so young.
Next Song: Crack in the Wall
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)