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

Knight Moves

It seems possible that the "queen" in the first line here is the one from the previous song, "The Queen and the Soldier."

However, the point of view keeps shifting, here, between "her" and "me/you." So there are several possibilities.

One is that the queen is one person, and the speaker another, sometimes revealing her own thoughts and actions in her own voice, and sometimes narrating the queen's story. Imagine one person reading a play-- sometimes the character "speaks," sometimes the narrator does, although only one person is actually talking, and the character is not "real."

Another is that there are two people here. One is the narrator telling us about the queen, and the other is the queen herself, speaking her own words.

But if the queen and the speaker are the same person, there is yet another scenario-- that the speaker is saying "I guess I have been acting like a queen." In this case, there is a bit of sarcasm in the presentation. Let's say you have been "putting out fires," as the saying goes, all day at the office, and then yet another crisis rises. In you stride-- saying, "Don't worry folks, the fireman's back," meaning yourself.

If this is the case, the speaker is saying, "Wow, I thought I was a queen and in charge, but I guess I allowed myself to be manipulated there."  Like the queen in the last song who at first is imperious, then allows herself to be bowed to the ground by a soldier, this queen (whoever she is) has turned herself into a pawn. We note the supplanting of the human royalty with that of the chessboard, as well; the "soldier" last time is now the "knight" of the title.

This queen has had a "blurry" night. Perhaps there has been alcohol, or simply a lot of bad judgement. Now, in the "very clear dawn," the consequences become apparent. Evidently, she has fallen for someone.

She asks if he is in a relationship, or single. She asks if he plays the field or is capable of commitment. And then she asks what she really wants to know: "Do you love me?"

Now we remember that there are several meanings of the word "false." One is "untrue," as to one's own nature. But one is "unfaithful." She may be in a relationship herself, although this is not revealed.

Then there is a first allusion to time, a "secret prophecy" about what will happen in the future. There is a bit of oxymoron in the phrase, as a prophet is usually fairly public about his prediction, but there have been prophecies known only to a soothsayer and his client.

If you want to judge her, however, for her false move, first, "hold it up and see"-- examine both sides. "It's one side stone"-- cold and inert-- and "one side fire"-- very much the opposite.

But what is this "it"? Is the "move"? Or is the "it"... the queen? The queen, who is the object of everyone's "desire."

Well, they "want to know" if she is available, if she could, or even does, love them.

And now the speaker addresses "you," but this seems to be another "you," most likely the listener. At this point, the song take a turn from the abstract to the concrete. The speaker is "spitting out all the bitterness/ Along with half of my last drink." (Has she started drinking again, even in the "very clear dawn"?)

Now she tells us about "your" (the listener's) "woman," who is "crying in the hall." This is, admittedly, very confusing.

Or perhaps things are finally becoming clearer.

It seems that there are three people involved. One is a man in a relationship (the listener) who not only is cheating on his partner, but he brought his new mistress (the speaker) home. To his house. While his partner is there.

Starting again from the beginning, it seems that the partner (the "her") is the queen. She wakes up, hungover, to learn that her husband has brought a woman home. She thought she had control over him, but she clearly does not, she now sees. Now, she wants to know how many times he has cheated, and if he has only made love to them or fallen in love with them or what... but mostly if he still loves her.

If one would say that his cheating is somehow her fault (if you "hold it against" her), that she drove him to it, she seems like she is a tease-- the stone/fire image-- who strings men along, the object of "all men's desire." She had enjoyed wielding this queen-like control. But it has backfired.

And now the mistress is in the middle, or at least at the edge, of all this. The wife wakes up to hear a woman's voice alongside her man's through the door, and they now can hear her crying in the hall at his betrayal.

The mistress (whom we know know is the main "I") spits out her drink, and compares it to "drinking gasoline," less the solution than part of the problem. The mistress now asks the series of questions to the man about his capabilities of love and fidelity.

The lines "Walk on her blind side/ Was the answer to the joke" are now clear as well. The man was being strung along, like all other men, by this unattainable partner. They were living together, she was "his" woman, and yet she was not sleeping together, still sure that his desire for her would keep him faithful.

His response to her cruel "joke" was to simply cheat on her. She was "blind" to the possibility, due to her ego, and would never suspect. (This could be the meaning of the title-- in chess, a knight can move over other pieces, blindsiding them from their other sides. Also, there is the obvious "knight/night" pun, as the cheating "moves" happen then.) Eventually, the man was able to bring women home and she still didn't know. Until now.

Still, "there isn't a political bone in her body." The "queen" never did this to assert power, it seems. So... why did she?

"She would rather be a riddle," and unknowable, rather than be in a full, intimate relationship. Something about that scares her, maybe. "She keeps challenging the future with a profound lack of history," we are told. If she has no past at all, perhaps this means she is a virgin. Perhaps all she knows of sex is the excitement of the chase. Like the dog who chases cars-- what would it do with one if it caught it?

And so she plays the only game she knows, the tease that allows her to be in control. Turns out, it wasn't a game... and the man did not like being played.

And now it is her turn to answer the questions from him-- can she love? Many, none... one? Him?

All everyone wants to know is if they are loved. And the hardest part is that each wants the other to go first.


Next Song: Neighborhood Girls

The Queen and the Soldier

It should be noted at the outset that this song is in "waltz time," or 3/4, and interesting departure for a folk song, but appropriate to the European court setting of the narrative.

The story is about a soldier who confronts his queen. He wants two questions answered: "Who's the woman for whom we all kill?"... and "why" do they kill for her at all?

He starts off, perhaps, on the wrong foot. Rather than ask these questions, he starts first by saying he refuses to fight for her anymore. Well, what if she did have a good reason? After all, he is a soldier, so he may not think that all killing is wrong.

In any case, he begins by saying this, and then he says many more things. Rather than use silence to draw her out, he (very soldier-like) keeps trying until he gets a response. By the end of the song, the queen has barely spoken at all. But let's start at the top.

First, the soldier approaches the queen's "door." Why she has a front door (and not, say, a drawbridge) and why she answers it (and not some guard) we don't know. The queen "knew she'd seen his face someplace before," but we don't know if she tells him that. In any case, she never asks.

Even after his open insubordination, she lets him "inside." As we shall see, this is not just a physical invitation, but an emotional one.

The soldier repeats his declaration of disobedience: "I am leaving tomorrow and you can do what you will." At this point, it's a wonder that she suffers him to live, let alone desert, but perhaps she is intrigued by his brashness.

Shockingly, she invites him into her bedroom. Perhaps she has needed this excuse, all along, to unburden herself of something, of her reasons for continuing the war.  But "she never once took the crown from her head," letting him know who is still in charge.

And then... he talks again! Clearly, she means to tell him something, but his impatience wins out. Perhaps, more than an answer, he wants a chance to unburden himself. He wanted to know for whom he kills, and now that he has met her, he observes, "You are so very young." He also says that they are losing the war: "I have seen more battles lost than I have battles won."

Finally, she speaks: "You won't understand, and you may as well not try." But he's not buying it. She didn't bring him into her private chambers to tell him... that she wasn't going to tell him anything. Now, she seems vulnerable, though: "Her face was a child's, and he thought she would cry." It seems that he might pity her. That she might be suffering somehow. Maybe if he fixed it, she would feel better, and then perhaps she'd even call off the war.

Then she says her longest statement: "I've swallowed a secret burning thread/ It cuts me inside, and often I've bled." This enigmatic statement, however, is really only a recapitulation of her previous one: "I'm not telling you because I can't." But yes, she is suffering, and yes, the battle is her way-- however horrifying-- of coping. If she can't be happy...

It may be, given her age, that she has begun menstruating: "often I've bled," she says, from "inside." She says she feels she is being "cut... inside" by a "thread"-- a fair description of menstrual cramping. And she may even have swallowed a string at some point in childhood, and now mistakenly attributes both symptoms to this. It may also be that, as she is a young queen, her mother is not there to guide her through this experience (having died and left her daughter queen), and so she developed this other theory herself.

The soldier then does something odd. He doesn't probe further, asking, "What do you mean by a 'thread'?" He doesn't offer her unconditional acceptance. He doesn't say, "If you tell me, and I think it's a good cause, I will fight again,"

Instead, he places his hand on her head and bows her to the ground. It may be at this point that her crown falls off.

Now that she has semi-revealed her secret, he asserts (again, like a soldier) his victory. He begins to say condescending things, accusing her of being "hungry" and "weak." He may think he is being understanding, but he forgets that, crown or no, she is still queen. And even now that she has semi-answered his question, he repeats that he will not fight for her.

Since this is likely the first man she has had any openness with, it is not odd that she quickly develops an infatuation: "She wanted more than she ever could say," knowing that a queen does not marry a commoner. She is "frightened" by her feelings, and "ashamed." After all, to love is to be vulnerable, and a queen leading a battle can be nothing of the sort.

Surprisingly, he confesses that he is falling for her! A woman who daily puts him in mortal peril, and does not even have the decency to give him a reason. Yet, she is young and troubled-- and in a song, this is often enough.

All of this is too much for her. Predictably, the soldier is killed at her order. The outward reason, of course, is his blatant insubordination. But the deeper reason is that he potentially wields power over the queen, and that is not acceptable.

The queen doesn't need a man-- she is not ready for one in any case. She needs a mother. Someone who can teach her what being a woman, and a queen means. Someone who can show her that vulnerability is strength. Instead, the queen continues "strangling in solitude," and the battle rages on.

For the soldier, the moral of the story is: if you going to desert, desert. Sneak away silently, even if you never knew why you were fighting. Don't lose your head over it.

IMPACT: Vega became the first celebrity to perform a concert in Second Life, a virtual-reality world in cyberspace, with this song.

Next Song: Knight Moves