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

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

Blood Makes Noise

This is another song in which Vega discusses a disease. In this case, tinnitus. This inner-ear malady's name shares a root with "tintinnabulation," or "the ringing of bells."

So yes, this is the disease that involves, as she says, "a ringing in my ears." To the accompaniment of clanging, thumping music, she describes the "noise" in her ears: "I'm standing in a windy tunnel."

There is a type of tinnitus that means the ear has become hypersensitive to electrical impulses in the body. But Vega here refers to the "pulsatile" version of the disorder, in which changes in either the blood flow or the ear make the heartbeat, the "pulse," more audible. Or, as she more bluntly puts it, "blood makes noise."

The song is presented as a one-way conversation between a patient and her doctor. However, it is almost impossible to discuss the disease because of the disease-- she can't hear her own words or his responses: "I'd like to give the information... I think you might want to know/ The details and the facts," she apologizes, but "I'm shouting through the roar... I can't really hear you."

In the end, the disease wins out. "Forget it Doc," the patient capitulates. "I think it's really cool that you're concerned/ But we'll have to try again after the silence has returned." Which, of course, it will not... on its own. The must be a medical intervention.

One would hope that they doctor would not be satisfied by his patient's frustration and agree to call it a day. First, there is reason to fear that the symptom indicates larger problem. If something is restricting the blood flow-- a clot, a tumor, some plaque, a kink in a blood vessel-- at least some scans are indicated.

Second, there is the patient's mental well-being. She is in denial, but has admitted to a "thickening" or increasing "of fear." The patient even blames the blood itself for causing her to forget what might have triggered the problem: "There's something in my blood/ [That] denies the memory of the acts."

Even without a doctor's training, the patient guesses there is a potentially larger issue at hand. What the patient needs is an advocate like the one in Vega's earlier song "Fifty-fifty Chance" who says: "I hate to ask, I need to know."

Let's hope the doctor has dealt with other patients whose hearing loss creates a communication barrier he or she has overcome. There are multiple solutions, the most obvious of which is a pen and paper. Taking turns typing on the doctor's laptop might even be faster and more legible to both parties, as well as allowing for easy revisions and a record of the conversation.

The patient is sitting on the "butcher paper" in the exam room and is starting to babble with worry. A good doctor will wait, listen, then calmly respond, diffusing the stress and finding a way to communicate past the "noise" and the rising panic it is causing.


Next Song: In Liverpool

Men in a War

Illnesses, especially unusual ones, are a regular topic for Vega, and this time she deals with Phantom Limb Syndrome. This condition is characterized by the feeling of, well, feeling in a limb that has been amputated. Yes, people can feel sensation, even pain, in an arm or leg they no longer actually have. Every nerve pathway has two ends, and just because one no longer exists in the limb does not mean the other, in the brain or spinal column, falls silent. Not every amputee has phantom limb syndrome, but as many as 60-80% do.

As Vega puts it: "Men... if they've lost a limb/ Still feel that limb/ As they did before." The missing words here are "in a war," although it is not clear that such conditions must have been the ones in which the limb was lost. The arm or leg could also have been taken by an accident or disease, for instance. (I do not know if those born without a given limb can acquire this condition, but it seems unlikely.) 

She imagines a case in which a soldier is in an infirmary-- "on a cot," and not, say, in a hospital bed-- and "feeling the thing he had not." The locution here is awkward, Vega does not write, "feeling the thing he didn't have," which is how one might say it in conversation, to point out the awkwardness of the emotion-- the poor soldier is "mute," unable to express the idea that his missing arm hurts, or afraid to say this for fear of being considered insane.

The verse ends on the word "not." This rhymes with "cot," but more importantly it emphasizes the "not," the idea of absence. It also sounds as if a sentence has been cut off, echoing the limb that has been so. (Now I'm doing it!)

The speaker then empathizes. "I know how it is/ When something is gone," she says. She gives some examples: "A piece of your eyesight," such as with cataracts, glaucoma, or macular degeneration, conditions of the eye that remove or obscure part of one's vision.

Another example? "When something is gone... Maybe your vision." Wait, didn't she just say "eyesight"? So now she means, what, going totally blind? Why not say "A piece of your eyesight, or maybe all of it"?

Probably she means "vision" in the other, more mental sense, as in "one's vision of oneself" or "one's vision of time." We often ask presidential candidates about their "vision" for the country and its future. 

"A corner of sense," she explains, "goes blank on the screen." She imagines the picture in one's mind like a television screen, when part of it stops working. Yes, this can mean that part of a person's vision is impaired, but she says "sense," as in "making sense," as what is "gone." You may have trouble with names, or faces, or recalling recent events, or balancing, or flashbacks-- any number of such glitches.

"A piece of the scan"-- the work of an X-ray machine or desk-top scanner here stands in for the scanning our senses do of the our environment. If we lose our sense of hearing, of brain may "fill in" by memory, the sound of someone's voice when they greet, us the same way you could fill in the rest of a ruined photo with paint.

The speaker says these phenomena are similar to the phantom limb cases. In both situations, the brain uses memory to "fill in the blanks" left by reality. "You know what it was/ And now it is not," she explains. "So you just make do with/ Whatever you've got."

The speaker then reverses the situation. Sometimes, "if your nerve is cut," then, as you might expect, you can no longer feel that part of yourself and make it move. It as if that part of you has lost its volition, its drive. In fact, when someone loses courage, we say they have "lost their nerve." 

"If your nerve is cut," she elaborates, "You don't feel your will/ You can't find your gut." This can be taken two ways. One, literally-- if you have no sensation in your hand or torso, you literally cannot find your gut. Figuratively, you can't find your guts, as in "You can't work in human resources because you can't find the guts to fire people."

The second line of this verse also has two meanings, but is more of a pun. "If you're kept on a stretch," may mean a "stretcher"-- that portable cot used to transport the wounded. But it can also mean under constant psychological stress, "if you are continually stretched thin emotionally." We explain that someone was "stretched to the breaking point" before they "snapped."

She illustrates with an example of a woman who has been under some sort of attack: "She lay on her back/ She made sure she was hid," meaning someone was after her and she was trying to hide. Like the wounded soldier, "she was mute and staring." She was silent-- as one is when one is hiding-- and hyper-aware, making sure her follower was not approaching. 

The woman "did" some "thing"-- perhaps the act that provoked her pursuer. But she is "not feeling" what it was. She is divorced from it, emotionally. This does not mean she is psychotic, necessarily. It just means she is not just now, being in immediate danger and all, able to spare the time to contemplate and psychologically register the relevant emotions. Perhaps later, with a therapist, once she reaches safety.

Vega starts with the idea of a phantom limb and expands upon it to explore the some of the ways in which our brain "helps" us create our realities by supplementing missing information with guesses, memories, and even imaginary physical sensations. Sometimes, however, the brain helps a little too much, and worsens problems rather than solving them. 

Next Song: Rusted Pipe

Solitude Standing

There is a literary trope, used here, with a confusing name. "Apostrophe" is not just the term for that floating punctuation mark, but for the literary technique of speaking to an idea or abstract concept.

For example: "Hello, Darkness, my old friend," or "Death, be not proud," or "America, God shed His Grace on thee." As if the speaker could actually talk to Darkness, Death or America.

Here, the speaker addresses Solitude. It seems that she was in a relationship with another person, which has now ended, and now she is alone "with" Solitude, as it were.

The song starts with the speaker entering a "room." Solitude, who already expected that the speaker would be alone when she arrived, post-breakup, has "been waiting." The "slant of the late afternoon" refers to the steep angle at which the light enters the room through the "window."

But Solitude says nothing, at least at first, by way of greeting. Instead, she extends her palm, which contains a curious item: "Her palm is split with a flower, with a flame."

It helps to know that Vega is a Buddhist. Most likely, this refers to a flaming lotus or similar symbol from that wisdom tradition. Flame is a destructive quantity, and a flower symbolizes creation, life, and birth. This shows the two sides of solitude-- criminals are sent to solitary confinement as a punishment, while hermits seek it for spiritual growth.

In the second verse, Solitude has moved from the "window" to the "doorway." There is still a light behind her, as she is seen as a "silhouette." In the first verse, her "eyes" are mentioned; this time, her "long, cool stare" is. Also, she is still silent.

"I suddenly remember each time we've met" means that this sensation of alone-ness is so familiar that all such instances of feeling this way rush from her memory into awareness.

Now, Solitude speaks. She explains that she is not to be feared, but in fact brings solace and healing. "I've come to set a twisted thing straight," she says, soothingly. "I've come to lighten this dark heart."

But the speaker is still wary. "I feel her imprint of fear," she thinks. And then she addresses Solitude in response: "I've never thought of finding you here."

Where? On stage, it seems. "I turn to the crowd as they're watching... their eyes are gathered into one." It's understandable-- why would you expect to find solitude in a room full of people? Yet, she is on stage, and they are apart from her, in the audience.

Yet, they are together with each other-- and she finds herself "wanting to be in there, among them." She wants to be part of her own audience! If only to be a part... instead of apart.

Everyone is looking at her, even Solitude. It's one thing to be alone, but entirely another to be alone where everyone can see you be that way. You might as well be in a fishbowl.

Still, she is trying to see Solitude as bringing her something helpful. Sometimes, it's necessary to be alone with Solitude, to be able to prepare for the next time you meet Togetherness.

IMPACT:
This song reached #94, and remained on the US charts for 3 weeks.

Next Song: Calypso