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
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Monday, January 23, 2017
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
Monday, June 27, 2016
St. Clare
Clare was an Italian saint, a prioress of the Franciscan Order. She dedicated her life to prayer and poverty. In fact, her following was known as the Order of the Poor Ladies, or just the Poor Clares. They were also monastic and preferred silence and hard work; they traveled little.
Ironically, she is the patron saint of goldsmiths and gilders, of embroiderers and needle-workers... and television. (Also: good weather, eye disease, and laundry. Obviously, it was eye disease first, then TV; one wonders if this wasn't a wry commentary on TV itself.)
Evidently, the song is about a woman who has left where she is to visit her home. To "keep her safe/ until she returns", a candle is lit and "that saint"-- which we only learn is Clare from the title-- is called upon for sacred protection.
We see "plaster and paint/ holding the fire." Perhaps this is a candlestick cast to resemble Clare, whose hands are positioned to hold the candle itself. She is described as "a poor woman's saint."
Yet, she "holds all man's desire." Well, she is holding a candle. Perhaps it symbolizes what people want-- light, warmth, tranquility. "Desire" doesn't have to mean sexual desire, does it?
Then why say she is a "woman's" saint, and then discuss a "man's" wants? Why not say "all our desire," meaning all of humanity's wants? Something about this woman-- this sacred, silent Clare-- is desirable, it seems.
The woman who left is now called a "bold little bird." She is told to "fly away home." This is a reference to the nursery rhyme "Ladybug, ladybug/ Fly away home." As ladybugs are also called "ladybird beetles," some have misheard the rhyme to be about an actual bird, not a bug.
In any case, she left here, and is going "away" there. But there is "home," so she is returning there, yes? And then she will "return" to here, we hope, where our candle burns for her.
The speaker wishes she could have accompanied her to smooth the way: "Could I but ride herd/ On the wind and the foam." From "foam," we know the woman is traveling over the sea (as in "oceans/ White with foam" from "God Bless America.") The speaker wishes she could have ridden herd, or been in control of, the waves on that sea, so as to make this woman's sea-path as smooth as possible.
It is this travelling woman's willingness to travel that makes her desirable. After all, the "souls/ That curl by the fire" like a bunch of homebodies will "never know/ All man's desire." But she travels away from the hearth.
Now it is "spring," which implies the earlier part of the song took place in the winter, a bad time for sea travel. This explains why they were so worried about her, and why they were curled by the fire themselves.
It is early enough for the "snow" to "melt," the "stream" to unfreeze and run, and even "green" things like the water-dwelling vegetable "watercress" to grow. But it is still "cold."
Evidently, out travelling woman made it to dry land. She is shown "barefoot" and "cold," and standing or sitting "by the side of the road" now. She is "holding" both "a lyre," or small harp, and "all man's desire."
Why she had to go "home" to do this is unclear. Is she waiting for a ride to take her to her family's house? Is she lost? Or even shipwrecked on the wrong shore? We aren't told.
The lyre is obviously a symbol of music itself, and of poetry. It is associated with poets like King David and the god Apollo.
So, before, it was a "fire," and now a "lyre" that can "hold all man's desire." Perhaps this shows evolution. Early people craved the heat and protection of the fire, and learned of its ability to help cook food and make pots and tools. Later, when these basic needs were conquered, man could turn his desire to finer things, like the arts.
The song ends as it began. The implication is that the woman has not yet returned. The speaker awaits her still, praying for the saint's intervention and keeping the candle lit for her. (The only difference is that we now know it is a "white" candle, if that is significant.)
People go home to visit all the time, then come back to the place they now dwell. They usually travel in good weather if it can be helped, so we may assume that this woman's need to go "home" was urgent. Yet, once she has arrived on her native shore, she seems in no hurry to make it all the way from the port to her destination point. Or has she been home, and is now on her way back to us?
While it is difficult to even understand the sequence of events being described, it is harder still to understand what is being said here.
It seems odd to talk about saints, and women too poor to afford shoes, being ones who hold "all man's desire." Whether "man" means male people or all people, surely many people desire more-- or at least other-- than what it is these women offer, which is enlightenment and piety.
What about the things Clare herself is patron of? Don't people "desire" gold, and fine embroidery, and television? I'm sorry, but the statistics are pretty clear-- people want good reception as much as they want godly redemption.
Perhaps we are reading too much into the song. Perhaps the imagery is merely impressionistic. It is very pretty, sparse in its arrangements as an Order of the Poor Ladies' cloister.
Or perhaps one needs to know more about Suzanne Vega, or Saint Clare, to truly understand it.
Next Song: Zephyr and I
Ironically, she is the patron saint of goldsmiths and gilders, of embroiderers and needle-workers... and television. (Also: good weather, eye disease, and laundry. Obviously, it was eye disease first, then TV; one wonders if this wasn't a wry commentary on TV itself.)
Evidently, the song is about a woman who has left where she is to visit her home. To "keep her safe/ until she returns", a candle is lit and "that saint"-- which we only learn is Clare from the title-- is called upon for sacred protection.
We see "plaster and paint/ holding the fire." Perhaps this is a candlestick cast to resemble Clare, whose hands are positioned to hold the candle itself. She is described as "a poor woman's saint."
Yet, she "holds all man's desire." Well, she is holding a candle. Perhaps it symbolizes what people want-- light, warmth, tranquility. "Desire" doesn't have to mean sexual desire, does it?
Then why say she is a "woman's" saint, and then discuss a "man's" wants? Why not say "all our desire," meaning all of humanity's wants? Something about this woman-- this sacred, silent Clare-- is desirable, it seems.
The woman who left is now called a "bold little bird." She is told to "fly away home." This is a reference to the nursery rhyme "Ladybug, ladybug/ Fly away home." As ladybugs are also called "ladybird beetles," some have misheard the rhyme to be about an actual bird, not a bug.
In any case, she left here, and is going "away" there. But there is "home," so she is returning there, yes? And then she will "return" to here, we hope, where our candle burns for her.
The speaker wishes she could have accompanied her to smooth the way: "Could I but ride herd/ On the wind and the foam." From "foam," we know the woman is traveling over the sea (as in "oceans/ White with foam" from "God Bless America.") The speaker wishes she could have ridden herd, or been in control of, the waves on that sea, so as to make this woman's sea-path as smooth as possible.
It is this travelling woman's willingness to travel that makes her desirable. After all, the "souls/ That curl by the fire" like a bunch of homebodies will "never know/ All man's desire." But she travels away from the hearth.
Now it is "spring," which implies the earlier part of the song took place in the winter, a bad time for sea travel. This explains why they were so worried about her, and why they were curled by the fire themselves.
It is early enough for the "snow" to "melt," the "stream" to unfreeze and run, and even "green" things like the water-dwelling vegetable "watercress" to grow. But it is still "cold."
Evidently, out travelling woman made it to dry land. She is shown "barefoot" and "cold," and standing or sitting "by the side of the road" now. She is "holding" both "a lyre," or small harp, and "all man's desire."
Why she had to go "home" to do this is unclear. Is she waiting for a ride to take her to her family's house? Is she lost? Or even shipwrecked on the wrong shore? We aren't told.
The lyre is obviously a symbol of music itself, and of poetry. It is associated with poets like King David and the god Apollo.
So, before, it was a "fire," and now a "lyre" that can "hold all man's desire." Perhaps this shows evolution. Early people craved the heat and protection of the fire, and learned of its ability to help cook food and make pots and tools. Later, when these basic needs were conquered, man could turn his desire to finer things, like the arts.
The song ends as it began. The implication is that the woman has not yet returned. The speaker awaits her still, praying for the saint's intervention and keeping the candle lit for her. (The only difference is that we now know it is a "white" candle, if that is significant.)
People go home to visit all the time, then come back to the place they now dwell. They usually travel in good weather if it can be helped, so we may assume that this woman's need to go "home" was urgent. Yet, once she has arrived on her native shore, she seems in no hurry to make it all the way from the port to her destination point. Or has she been home, and is now on her way back to us?
While it is difficult to even understand the sequence of events being described, it is harder still to understand what is being said here.
It seems odd to talk about saints, and women too poor to afford shoes, being ones who hold "all man's desire." Whether "man" means male people or all people, surely many people desire more-- or at least other-- than what it is these women offer, which is enlightenment and piety.
What about the things Clare herself is patron of? Don't people "desire" gold, and fine embroidery, and television? I'm sorry, but the statistics are pretty clear-- people want good reception as much as they want godly redemption.
Perhaps we are reading too much into the song. Perhaps the imagery is merely impressionistic. It is very pretty, sparse in its arrangements as an Order of the Poor Ladies' cloister.
Or perhaps one needs to know more about Suzanne Vega, or Saint Clare, to truly understand it.
Next Song: Zephyr and I
Monday, May 23, 2016
Priscilla
Dar Williams has a lovely song called "The Babysitter's Here," about the relationship children develop with those who care for them, whether they are related or not. Williams' babysitter, for instance, was in a play that she went to see.
The speaker here remembers that a woman "20 years older," named Priscilla (the name is only given in the title), used to play with her. It is not made clear if this is a babysitter, but it seems that if it were an older cousin or aunt, that would bear mentioning. Also, it does not say that her parents were there, so it seems they were not. A non-relative tending a child by herself, I think, qualifies as a babysitter.
Mostly, they would dance. Regardless of the type of "music" they played (also not given but also, it seems, not important) it was played "loud." They'd aim a lamp at themselves like a spotlight and perform for an imaginary audience.
Their dance style was "awkward ballet." Priscilla had a proper tutu, "her skirt of layers of chiffon." The child's tutu was more makeshift-- the fabric from a broken umbrella. But they "were in costume/ and this was a game."
And what kid doesn't love an adult willing to be as dance-y as they are?
Priscilla also made the child a paper doll, decked out in ribbons and lace. What a sweet gesture.
Sometimes, communication happens with words. With this babysitter, the connection was through movement: "Something will shine through the body."
It is important for children to have many influences in their lives. Vega is not a dancer as such, yet she felt the need to write a song about a woman she danced with, not the person who taught her to sing or play guitar or write songs.
"I think of her now I'm older/ I still love to dance," she says. She might have grown out of her dance-y ways... unless she had seen, as a child, another grown-up still dance in the hallway. And give her permission to still dance, 20 years and more later.
Next Song: If I Were a Weapon
The speaker here remembers that a woman "20 years older," named Priscilla (the name is only given in the title), used to play with her. It is not made clear if this is a babysitter, but it seems that if it were an older cousin or aunt, that would bear mentioning. Also, it does not say that her parents were there, so it seems they were not. A non-relative tending a child by herself, I think, qualifies as a babysitter.
Mostly, they would dance. Regardless of the type of "music" they played (also not given but also, it seems, not important) it was played "loud." They'd aim a lamp at themselves like a spotlight and perform for an imaginary audience.
Their dance style was "awkward ballet." Priscilla had a proper tutu, "her skirt of layers of chiffon." The child's tutu was more makeshift-- the fabric from a broken umbrella. But they "were in costume/ and this was a game."
And what kid doesn't love an adult willing to be as dance-y as they are?
Priscilla also made the child a paper doll, decked out in ribbons and lace. What a sweet gesture.
Sometimes, communication happens with words. With this babysitter, the connection was through movement: "Something will shine through the body."
It is important for children to have many influences in their lives. Vega is not a dancer as such, yet she felt the need to write a song about a woman she danced with, not the person who taught her to sing or play guitar or write songs.
"I think of her now I'm older/ I still love to dance," she says. She might have grown out of her dance-y ways... unless she had seen, as a child, another grown-up still dance in the hallway. And give her permission to still dance, 20 years and more later.
Next Song: If I Were a Weapon
Sunday, September 27, 2015
In Liverpool
Liverpool, of course, is now best known as the home of The Beatles. However, it is also a city where other things happen, and I don't see another reference to them in the song.
The other reference that is in the song is to a "hunchback," since the best-known church-bell ringer is Quasimodo, the fictioanl Hunchback of Notre Dame (and if someone can explain to me why a college with the French name of "Notre Dame" ["Our Lady," i.e. the Virgin Mary] is home to the Fightin' Irish and not the Fightin' French, I'd be much obliged, as I've always wondered.) Not that it is relevant to the song... in which a church-bell ringer appears prominently.
The song, because of that bell-ringer, is one of Vega's most enigmatic. So we will leave the bell-ringer aside for a moment and focus on the verses, which seem a straightforward break-up song.
It starts with the setting for the remembrance of loves past. We are in Liverpool, England, and it is a Sunday, when people are in church and the church-bell ringers are at work there. As everyone is worshipping, there is "No traffic/ On the avenue... No sound, down in this part of town."
We also learn a bits about the now-gone lover, piecemeal. So far, we learn that he is "pale and thin," the last trait of which reminds us of the lover from the song "Gypsy," who had "a long and slender body." In the next verse, we learn that he is from a different time-zone, since he is "Homesick/ For a clock that told the same time" as the one he is used to.
We learn that the she was somehow affected by him: "If you lie on the ground in somebody's arms/ You'll probably swallow some of their history." This could be an illusion to many things, but I think it might be a disease he had contracted earlier in his "history" that he has now passed to her. It could also simply be a character trait, like melancholy. On a personal note, an ex-girlfriend of mind told me that my love of my faith and faith-community awoke a similar yen in her she had not know was there. So it could be something of this nature as well.
Now that they are apart, the speaker says, "I'll be the girl who sings for her supper," which implies the speaker is in fact Vega herself, who as a professional musician does exactly that; the allusion is to a Mother Goose rhyme: "Little Tommy Tucker/ Sings for his supper/ What shall he eat?/ White bread and butter." In the rhyme, Tommy can't even afford a "knfe" to butter his bread with, so he ends up "without any wife." Alone, just like our singer, here.
We learn two more things about the lover: He is "monk"-like, and he has a high forehead. Perhaps the disease he shared was not of the intimate kind? Perhaps he was like a monk in that there was no intimacy at all... and that was the bit of his history that colored their relationship-- the inability to get close, for having been hurt before.
"He'll be the man who's already working," the song continues. Wait, "He" who? Hmm. Perhaps the non-lover was unable to be close to her because he was unable to get close to women, since he was more interested in men. And now this mysterius "he" is already employed, to boot, at something more stable that "singing for his supper."
What does his job, "spreading a memory all through the sky" involve, however? Could this be mean he makes eulogies, or writes obituaries? Does he scatter cremated ashes as part of his job? A "memory" does not have to be a "memorial," though. It could be that he is a radio reporter who focuses on nostalgic stories.
In any case, that is this other individual. Our speaker is still in Liverpool, and it is still Sunday. "No reason to even remember you now," she muses... "except"...
The "boy in the belfry," the church-bell ringer. What has he been up to that has triggered this flood of memory? "He's been ringing the bells in the church for the last half an hour." That is certainly a long time to continually ring church bells! Usually, they toll the hour or signal an event like a wedding, funeral, or emergency. You would think that after the first five or ten minutes someone would have gone up to the belfry to see why the boy was ringing them for so long.
But no one does, and we'll never know what his reason was. "He's throwing himself down from the top of the tower." He has committed suicide, again for an unknown reason.
All she can do is speculate. "He's crazy," she muses. But what drove him to that state? Well, to her, the bells "sound like he's missing something/ Or someone that he knows he can't have now."
Why, of all things, would she assume that was his reason for all that bell-ringing? Simply because misses someone: "If he isn't, I certainly am." We often impute reasons to others that are based solely on our own experiences and states of mind.
The speaker hears bells, and her memory of a lost love is awakened. She thinks over the whole relationship, and tries to makes sense of it. Perhaps the church bells reminded her of the man's monkish behavior. Then she realizes, "Those bells have been going on a while now... what's that about?" She looks over to the bell tower and sees the bell-ringer leaping to his death. "Only one thing could have caused all of that," she thinks. "Heartbreak."
More likely, this is not something she witnessed, but perhaps read about, and imagined herself there. Either that, or the feeling of loss called to her mind the idea of wanting everyone to know about he death of this relationship, and the only way to express such an immense loss was with church bells.
Next Song: 99.9F
The other reference that is in the song is to a "hunchback," since the best-known church-bell ringer is Quasimodo, the fictioanl Hunchback of Notre Dame (and if someone can explain to me why a college with the French name of "Notre Dame" ["Our Lady," i.e. the Virgin Mary] is home to the Fightin' Irish and not the Fightin' French, I'd be much obliged, as I've always wondered.) Not that it is relevant to the song... in which a church-bell ringer appears prominently.
The song, because of that bell-ringer, is one of Vega's most enigmatic. So we will leave the bell-ringer aside for a moment and focus on the verses, which seem a straightforward break-up song.
It starts with the setting for the remembrance of loves past. We are in Liverpool, England, and it is a Sunday, when people are in church and the church-bell ringers are at work there. As everyone is worshipping, there is "No traffic/ On the avenue... No sound, down in this part of town."
We also learn a bits about the now-gone lover, piecemeal. So far, we learn that he is "pale and thin," the last trait of which reminds us of the lover from the song "Gypsy," who had "a long and slender body." In the next verse, we learn that he is from a different time-zone, since he is "Homesick/ For a clock that told the same time" as the one he is used to.
We learn that the she was somehow affected by him: "If you lie on the ground in somebody's arms/ You'll probably swallow some of their history." This could be an illusion to many things, but I think it might be a disease he had contracted earlier in his "history" that he has now passed to her. It could also simply be a character trait, like melancholy. On a personal note, an ex-girlfriend of mind told me that my love of my faith and faith-community awoke a similar yen in her she had not know was there. So it could be something of this nature as well.
Now that they are apart, the speaker says, "I'll be the girl who sings for her supper," which implies the speaker is in fact Vega herself, who as a professional musician does exactly that; the allusion is to a Mother Goose rhyme: "Little Tommy Tucker/ Sings for his supper/ What shall he eat?/ White bread and butter." In the rhyme, Tommy can't even afford a "knfe" to butter his bread with, so he ends up "without any wife." Alone, just like our singer, here.
We learn two more things about the lover: He is "monk"-like, and he has a high forehead. Perhaps the disease he shared was not of the intimate kind? Perhaps he was like a monk in that there was no intimacy at all... and that was the bit of his history that colored their relationship-- the inability to get close, for having been hurt before.
"He'll be the man who's already working," the song continues. Wait, "He" who? Hmm. Perhaps the non-lover was unable to be close to her because he was unable to get close to women, since he was more interested in men. And now this mysterius "he" is already employed, to boot, at something more stable that "singing for his supper."
What does his job, "spreading a memory all through the sky" involve, however? Could this be mean he makes eulogies, or writes obituaries? Does he scatter cremated ashes as part of his job? A "memory" does not have to be a "memorial," though. It could be that he is a radio reporter who focuses on nostalgic stories.
In any case, that is this other individual. Our speaker is still in Liverpool, and it is still Sunday. "No reason to even remember you now," she muses... "except"...
The "boy in the belfry," the church-bell ringer. What has he been up to that has triggered this flood of memory? "He's been ringing the bells in the church for the last half an hour." That is certainly a long time to continually ring church bells! Usually, they toll the hour or signal an event like a wedding, funeral, or emergency. You would think that after the first five or ten minutes someone would have gone up to the belfry to see why the boy was ringing them for so long.
But no one does, and we'll never know what his reason was. "He's throwing himself down from the top of the tower." He has committed suicide, again for an unknown reason.
All she can do is speculate. "He's crazy," she muses. But what drove him to that state? Well, to her, the bells "sound like he's missing something/ Or someone that he knows he can't have now."
Why, of all things, would she assume that was his reason for all that bell-ringing? Simply because misses someone: "If he isn't, I certainly am." We often impute reasons to others that are based solely on our own experiences and states of mind.
The speaker hears bells, and her memory of a lost love is awakened. She thinks over the whole relationship, and tries to makes sense of it. Perhaps the church bells reminded her of the man's monkish behavior. Then she realizes, "Those bells have been going on a while now... what's that about?" She looks over to the bell tower and sees the bell-ringer leaping to his death. "Only one thing could have caused all of that," she thinks. "Heartbreak."
More likely, this is not something she witnessed, but perhaps read about, and imagined herself there. Either that, or the feeling of loss called to her mind the idea of wanting everyone to know about he death of this relationship, and the only way to express such an immense loss was with church bells.
Next Song: 99.9F
Monday, June 1, 2015
Calypso
Vega is not the only one to have been enchanted by this mythical nymph, whose name means "to hide or deceive."
Jacques Cousteau named his boat for her, and John Denver wrote a song with this same title about that scientist. There have been other US and UK military ships with the name as well. The piece of tech that is branded Calypso is, aptly, an underwater camera.
There is an entire genre of Latin dance with this name; Harry Belafonte recorded an album of its music. Calypso is also the name of a moon of Saturn, an asteroid, and what NASA called its "Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO)" orbiter.
And "Calypso" is a town in North Carolina, a cave in Malta, a soap opera in Venezuela, an airplane in Belgium, and an orchid found almost everywhere.
But the most appropriate use of the name must be Calypso Deep, the lowest point in the Mediterranean...
Because Calypso, according to Homer, lived on the Mediterranean coast. And it was she who kept Odysseus in thrall for seven of the ten years between his leaving the Trojan War and his return to his beloved Penelope. Yes, of all of the monsters he faced in The Odyssey, the most victorious over him used no other weapon than song.
Vega tells the tale from the sea nymph's viewpoint. She has Calypso introduce herself and explain that she saved Odysseus from "drowning."
The time of this song? The day he leaves after seven years. "Now today, come morning light, he sails away/ After one last night, I let him go."
She is aware that the only reason he stayed is that she made him. She had hoped that he would eventually simply love her of his own. But, while she "could taste the salt on his skin," she knew it was both "salt of the waves and of tears and while he pulled away, I kept him here for years."
While she was beautiful-- "my garden overflows... My hair blows long as I sing into the wind"-- she knew that her willowy wiles were no match for Penelope's pull on him.
She is well aware that his departure is permanent. "It's a lonely time ahead," she acknowledges, but "I do not ask him to return."
Instead, "I will stand upon the shore with a clean heart and my song in the wind."
There is no proper chorus, but five times in this short song, Calypso repeats "I let him go." It seems she is of two minds about this decision.
One is that she proud of herself. It would have been easy to continue to imprison Odysseus eternally-- she could have made him immortal. But she knew that the relationship was forced, and so false. And she finally could not allow the situation to endure. So she did the grown-up thing and let him go. "Yes, the whole mess was my fault-- but I fixed things in the end and now I want credit for that," she seems to say.
So much for her mind. Her heart is very upset with the new reality, however. "I let him go!" it weeps. "How could I have done such a thing! He's gone forever, and I'm alone again, and he could have just stayed here, and I could have been at least falsely happy instead of truly miserable. This is just awful. Yes, the situation had to end, but I'm still so, so sad that it did."
The first thing Calypso told us about herself was not that she was immortal or magical or even musical, but that she has "lived alone." Now that Odysseus is gone, she foresees "a lonely time ahead." Her solitary status is how she defines herself.
If she could only find someone to love her for her many gifts, to love her for her "sweetness," her beauty, and her talent. And not someone who was already taken, someone she had to force to stay. Surely in all the sea there is a lonely sailor with no one waiting at home, who would willingly stay and hear her sing eternally while combing and combing her long hair.
Maybe he won't be Odysseus. But Jason's a hunk, too.
Next Song: Language
Jacques Cousteau named his boat for her, and John Denver wrote a song with this same title about that scientist. There have been other US and UK military ships with the name as well. The piece of tech that is branded Calypso is, aptly, an underwater camera.
There is an entire genre of Latin dance with this name; Harry Belafonte recorded an album of its music. Calypso is also the name of a moon of Saturn, an asteroid, and what NASA called its "Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO)" orbiter.
And "Calypso" is a town in North Carolina, a cave in Malta, a soap opera in Venezuela, an airplane in Belgium, and an orchid found almost everywhere.
But the most appropriate use of the name must be Calypso Deep, the lowest point in the Mediterranean...
Because Calypso, according to Homer, lived on the Mediterranean coast. And it was she who kept Odysseus in thrall for seven of the ten years between his leaving the Trojan War and his return to his beloved Penelope. Yes, of all of the monsters he faced in The Odyssey, the most victorious over him used no other weapon than song.
Vega tells the tale from the sea nymph's viewpoint. She has Calypso introduce herself and explain that she saved Odysseus from "drowning."
The time of this song? The day he leaves after seven years. "Now today, come morning light, he sails away/ After one last night, I let him go."
She is aware that the only reason he stayed is that she made him. She had hoped that he would eventually simply love her of his own. But, while she "could taste the salt on his skin," she knew it was both "salt of the waves and of tears and while he pulled away, I kept him here for years."
While she was beautiful-- "my garden overflows... My hair blows long as I sing into the wind"-- she knew that her willowy wiles were no match for Penelope's pull on him.
She is well aware that his departure is permanent. "It's a lonely time ahead," she acknowledges, but "I do not ask him to return."
Instead, "I will stand upon the shore with a clean heart and my song in the wind."
There is no proper chorus, but five times in this short song, Calypso repeats "I let him go." It seems she is of two minds about this decision.
One is that she proud of herself. It would have been easy to continue to imprison Odysseus eternally-- she could have made him immortal. But she knew that the relationship was forced, and so false. And she finally could not allow the situation to endure. So she did the grown-up thing and let him go. "Yes, the whole mess was my fault-- but I fixed things in the end and now I want credit for that," she seems to say.
So much for her mind. Her heart is very upset with the new reality, however. "I let him go!" it weeps. "How could I have done such a thing! He's gone forever, and I'm alone again, and he could have just stayed here, and I could have been at least falsely happy instead of truly miserable. This is just awful. Yes, the situation had to end, but I'm still so, so sad that it did."
The first thing Calypso told us about herself was not that she was immortal or magical or even musical, but that she has "lived alone." Now that Odysseus is gone, she foresees "a lonely time ahead." Her solitary status is how she defines herself.
If she could only find someone to love her for her many gifts, to love her for her "sweetness," her beauty, and her talent. And not someone who was already taken, someone she had to force to stay. Surely in all the sea there is a lonely sailor with no one waiting at home, who would willingly stay and hear her sing eternally while combing and combing her long hair.
Maybe he won't be Odysseus. But Jason's a hunk, too.
Next Song: Language
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