Headshots

"Headshot" is a term from modeling and theater. It refers to the photo of a model or actor's face that accompanies their resume or c.v. Such things are not allowed in most professions, given the potential for discrimination, but they are allowed-- even required-- in those fields where your face is one of your qualifications.

Evidently, someone was advertising their business, which was taking such photos. They used one of the headshots they had taken in the ad to show the quality and style of their photography. They then plastered these posters across the city; "He's everywhere," from a wall to a lamppost. "Turn the corner, and he's still there."

Apparently, there was no other information on the posters: "The sign said 'headshots'... a picture of a boy and a number you could call... and that was all."

Since there were so many posters, the lighting conditions in each case was different, which made each photo look different (even though it was the exact same image each time). In one case, a "shadow" fell across just the eyes in the image, and the viewer noted that this "can... make the difference/ In what you see."

As in "Marlene on the Wall," the speaker imagines the image being able to see the people looking at it, "Watching all the people/ Who are passing unaware."

While Marlene Dietrich's image simply "regards" her viewers in that song, the boy in this headshot seems to pass "judgment" on those who pass him. Perhaps he holds an air of arrogance or disdain... or perhaps this is just read into his expression by the viewer.

This negative interpretation of the boy's expression could be explained by the viewer's negative mood, in turn explained by the fact that the "day" was "cold and gray." Or maybe something more than just the weather?

"The boy becomes a picture/ Of guilt and sympathy." So... now the boy is not disdainful but pitiful and pitying for some reason.

"And so I think of you/ (and) Of the days we were together." The boy's image is nothing, really, but a reminder of a lost love. "I knew that you loved me/ That was the difference/ In what we see." (We know the relationship is in the past because of the word "were," "memory," and "history.")

A shadow across the picture of a face-- which was not part of the original image but only an accident of its placement-- can change the way one sees that face nevertheless. Similarly, her love for her lover was altered by the fact that she knew her love was returned. If she knew it was unrequited, she would have felt differently, as she now does.

That reciprocated love was nothing she caused, and yet it changed the way she saw him-- just like the shadow changed the way she saw the boy's face.

The song closes with the words "that's history," to mean that the relationship is over (and that maybe she should stop obsessing about it). But it's also the way we see past events-- through the lens of the present.

One generation, for instance, sees in a historic figure like Andrew Jackson a bold general and strong president. A later generation may see the same person as violent and bigoted. Jackson himself, of course, no longer has any say in the matter. He's just a face on some currency.

There have been numerous psychological studies on this issue. One study runs thus: In one case, a person is told they have failed a test, in the other that they passed admirably. In each case, an un-involved person is standing perhaps 10 feet away. Later, the test-takers are asked what they think of that person. Those who did well saw them favorably: "He seemed like a nice guy." Those who failed disliked him: "He was just standing there, listening to the teacher tell me I failed! What a jerk!"

The bad news for the speaker is that everything seems to remind her of her rejection, since even a nondescript poster-face seems to be judging her as a loser.

The good news for us is that if someone treats us poorly, we can now know that it may have nothing to do with us-- maybe we were just there when that other person was mad at the weather or heard some bad news.

Next Song: Caramel

Marlene on the Wall

This is a song about a woman in an abusive relationship. We see that the man is physically violent, and there is undoubtedly emotional damage being done here as well.

"Even if I am in love with you... what's it to you?" she asks. OK, so she loves him, but why does he have to react this way if he doesn't love her back anyway?

There is "blood," and a bruise. This is the "tattoo"-- a mark on the skin-- of a "rose" color she speaks of, made by his grip: "on me, from you."

Then she speaks like a lawyer or police officer (a crime has been committed, after all) and says, "Observe... the fingerprints" and "Other evidence has shown," that, even though they are in a relationship, they are each fundamentally "still alone."

Further, they wisely agree not to discuss the situation in the heat of the moment, saying they will talk about it later... only they "don't talk about it later." Instead, they practice denial and avoidance, and "skirt around the danger zone."

There is a witness of a sort to this crime: a poster of Marlene Dietrich (referred to in the previous song, "Freeze Tag": "I will be Dietrich and you will be Dean"). She was a German performer, a singer and actress out of the cabaret heyday in WWII, who parlayed her sex appeal and husky voice into a series of film roles, usually as a femme fatale. Often, as in her breakout role in The Blue Angel, her character was seductive, but destructive, and sometimes so powerful a presence that she dressed in masculine clothing to emphasize her strength.

Dietrich appeared in everything from Westerns (lampooned by Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles) to war movies. She also performed for the troops in USO appearances; either those or the characters in the war movies could be the "soldiers" spoken of here.

In this song, Dietrich gazes imperiously on the proceedings from her movie poster, "her mocking smile" showing her disdain for the speaker allowing herself to be thus manhandled. In her roles, Dietrich usually handled the man, and without resorting to physical violence at that.

However, the speaker resents this judgementalism. First, while she is under attack, she is not supported by a battalion, but is alone: "The only solider now is me." Further, she is "fighting things [she] cannot see." Yes, she sees her attacker, but is also fighting her own feelings for and about him (see the first line).

On top of all this, she feels she is "changing," but for good or ill? Is she changing into a compliant, complaisant victim? Or is she changing into someone who might fight back, or at least leave? In any case, she does not feel in control of these changes, but that they are her "destiny."

At this point, the speaker is still in the relationship. The present tense of the statement "I walk to your house in the afternoon" makes this sound like a daily, and current, occurrence. The house is "by the butcher shop," which is ominous in its imagery (and also foreshadows the song "Fancy Poultry").

On her walk, she imagines Dietrich's advice would be to play hard to get: "Don't give away the goods too soon."

But something about the danger of the situation is part of the attraction. "I tried so hard to resist" his grip, she says, but she goes to his house every day to begin with! Wouldn't the first step in resisting be to... not go? She even-- as he is gripping her and literally bending her to his will-- calls his fist "handsome." (The phrases "rose tattoo" and "handsome fist" are part of the proof of Vega's sublime songcraft, even at this early stage of hers).

Whether verbally or through this action, the man "reminded [her] of the night [they] kissed." Evidently, the abuse was part of the relationship from the outset, and may have even been its catalyst altogether.

The man's words or actions also remind her "of why [she] should be leaving." This is the best news we have had so far. Maybe Dietrich's scorn, not some cloying social-work understanding, is the right therapy for this person in this situation.

After several choruses in which Dietrich records the passing by of soldiers, she now simply "records the rise and fall of every man who's been here." Perhaps this is not the speaker's first abusive relationship.

"But the only one here now is me," the speaker concludes. She cannot rely on anyone else, but must rise to her own protection and be her own savior. In this chorus, Vega has the speaker repeat the word "changing" multiple times, growing louder, to emphasize the intensity and acceleration of this changing.

We leave the speaker still in the grip of his man, and this relationship. But with Marlene Dietrich's wry, knowing grin as her goad, perhaps she will break free of him-- and of this cycle of abusive men-- someday. Even if she is "in love with" him, maybe she loves herself more.

Next Song: Small Blue Thing

Freeze Tag

This second song seems a continuation of-- or companion piece to-- the first, "Cracking." It, too, takes place in "wintertime," and while the first detailed a solitary walk to the "park," this one is about a couple going to "the playground."

First, a note to those unfamiliar with American childhood games of the mid- to late 20th Century. Freeze tag is a variation on regular tag. In this version, the tagger-- dubbed "It"-- chases the other children, but when she tags them, they "freeze," and become rooted to the spot, disallowed from running further. When all the other participants are tagged and "frozen," the last becomes the new "It," everyone "unfreezes," and the chase begins again. Children continue to be endlessly inventive with new variations, which leads them to discover the true fun of any game-- arguing about the rules!

Narratively, the song presents a paradox. This couple goes to the playground for some childlike fun, and to revel in their romance in which they are as open and innocent as children. However, once they imagine themselves as children, what do they imagine themselves doing? Pretending to be adults.

The couple goes to the playground as "the sun is fading fast," symbolizing the end of their youth, which they are there to try to recapture. I am reminded of a tradition my high-school sweetheart and I developed, which was to see every new and re-released Disney movie in the theater. We loved them as children, felt "too big" for them as grade-schoolers, and now wanted to enjoy them again as we approached adulthood and wallow in comforting nostalgia.

Such behaviors Vega depicts, using playground imagery, as "slides into the past"-- it's so easy to slip into the soothing familiarities of childhood-- and the ambivalent "swings of indecision" that make us waver between retreat there and advancement into exciting, yet frightening, maturity.

The "dimming diamonds" are likely the glints of light off the snow, now fading as the sunlight does.

The "tickling and trembling" refer to the touches freeze-tag players employ to immobilize each other, and the shivering with both cold-- real and game-imagined-- and with the anticipation of these flirtatious touches.

Now that it is dark, they "play" another game. This is a pun. They are playing at being actors, who in turn "play" roles in films. The night is as dark as in a movie hall. She first pretends to be Marlene Dietrich, and he the tragically fallen James Dean. Then they shift into a more noir mode: "You stand/ With your hand/ In your pocket/ And lean against the wall." Appropriately, they now imagine themselves as Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, major stars of such dramatically fraught, angst-ridden films.

By pretending to be others, they can be more freely themselves (Vega returns to the imagery of romantic role play in her later song "If You Were in My Movie"). And so they become more physically intimate: "We can only say 'yes' now/ To the sky, to the street, to the night." As the sunlight vanishes entirely, their movie end the way movies do: "Slow fade now to black."

But then another starts, one in which they are hero and heroine in a Camelot-based scenario: "Play me one more game of chivalry."

The songs lyrics end with another childhood game: "Do you see/ Where I've been hiding/ In his hide-and-seek?" She calls attention to the fact that she has been revealing aspects of herself through the choices of roles she has adopted. She is like Dietrich in this way, like Bacall in these other ways, like Maid Marian or Guinevere in still more. And she wants to know if he has picked up on this, and knows her better now. In a sense, a mask is a truer face.

The song's imagery revolves around childhood games, but the message is both adult and serious. The only reason a freeze-tag player holds still is that she is obeying the rules. Nothing is actually, physically holding her still.

How like life that is, Vega observes. What is holding them back from embracing adulthood, with all of its amazing freedoms and overwhelming responsibilities? What is keeping our lovers from embracing each other, physically and emotionally? Nothing that does not exist entirely in their own minds, and those others involved in their societal games.

The sun is fading fast. Now, they get to see what they look like in the dark.


Next Song: Marlene on the Wall