This song is a lullaby to Vega's daughter, Ruby.
In it, she promises to save souvenirs of her daughter's life: her "tears," her "teeth" that fell out as a child, and her "hair" which was, we assume, regularly cut.
Now, the album's copyright date is 2007, and Ruby was born in 1994, which would make the "child" about 13 when the album came out. Since she had long since stopped losing her teeth, we have to imagine that the song was written long before.
So why include it on an album at this point? Because this is a divorce album. While many of the songs herein are about her ex and their break-up, Vega is more than just an ex-wife. She is also a mother, and she wants her child to be reassured that her love for her continues unabated.
What better way that to say, "Listen to this song I wrote you when you were just a girl! You're still my daughter now, and I still love you as much."
How does one, in practical terms, collect tears? By collecting "salty tissues." She calls these tears "diamonds," referring to the salt crystals left behind after she, it says, dries the tissues in the sun.
And teeth? In a "cardboard box." These are like another gemstone, "pearls," and they remind her of "laughter." There is a pun here-- the teeth are kept in "ticking," which is tough but decorative cotton or linen fabric. The line is that the teeth are kept "through the ticking and the tocks," as in the tick-tock of passing time.
The hair-- evidently a ponytail snipped off all at once-- will be woven into a "braid of gold/ For you to keep when you are old."
The mother then finishes the lullaby with a "kiss" on her "milky skin." Then she tucks the child, and her "soul," in a "sheet of silk."
The child will have given her mother all of these keepsakes of her growth and development. What will the mother pay her with for these gifts? Why, the kiss itself: "Put this kiss upon your brow."
Then comes the line that gives us the title: "Treasure you as you are now."
It doesn't, you will note, say "I will treasure you." No, the verbs are "put" and then "treasure." So who should be doing the putting and treasuring?
The child. She should put her mother's kiss on herself. She should treasure herself. As she is now. Whenever "now" is.
Her mother will have memories of the baby, the toddler, the girl, the teen, and the young woman, and she will collect mementos of those moments. The child however, needs to treasure each moment as it comes, and herself as she experiences it.
Alternately, one could read the verse as one long sentence: "now I kiss... put... treasure." In this, perhaps more literal, reading, the mother kisses the daughter on her forehead (and the "sheet," for some reason... and, somehow, her "soul") and treasures her as she is now.
The tenses are of note. She says she will collect the tears, teeth, and hair... but that she is "now" kissing, tucking, and treasuring her. Which implies that, at the time of the song's writing, the child had yet to lose any teeth, but still had time to grow a substantial ponytail. On average, the first "baby" teeth fall out at 6 or so, and therefore that's not really on a parent's radar until the kid approaches that age. We're going to say Ruby was 5 when the song was written... or that it was written to make it seem so.
Again, the song is now offered to the young adolescent whose parents are divorcing as a way of saying, "While a wife and husband can stop loving each other, a parent never stops loving a child. I still have your baby teeth and your childhood ponytail, and I still treasure you as well."
Next Song: "Angel's Doorway."
Showing posts with label teenager. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teenager. Show all posts
Monday, August 29, 2016
Monday, May 9, 2016
Songs in Red and Gray
The song seems to be from the point of view of a mistress. This is only slowly revealed as the song unwinds.
It starts with an encounter between the mistress and her lover's daughter. She sees a "reproach" on her face, and she wonder "how she could know" that this woman, the speaker, was her father's mistress: "Although I had met her just then/ I feel that she peeled back my guilty disguise." Of course, maybe the girl didn't know at all, and the whole idea is just that-- a thought sparked by a guilty conscience.
After all, the affair happened "so much more than a long time ago." How long? At least "19 years." More to the point-- "before (the daughter) was born."
Maybe it's something in the way she looks. Maybe, when it came to mistresses, her father had a "type." After all, the mistresses says, "I am sure I was only but one of a number" of such women and the daughter may have somehow seen others.
The mistress must have known the wife, too, at least to see her, since she recognizes the daughter by her mother's features and gaze: "Her mother, I see, lives within her still/ She looked at me with her eyes." This implies that the wife, the girl's mother, is now dead.
The encounter gives the mistress a flashback to "one night." She remembers details of his house-- "gray" vase holding a "red" rose. A white piece of coral, a "brass candlestick" and another red item, his velvet coat. She has no idea why she flashes on these images.
If the coat is his, does that mean the red items symbolize him, and the gray ones her? If so, then he is the vibrant rose and she the inert vase that "holds" him. This could be an image of restraint, but a vase is more an image of support.
Later, that makes him the "red leaf" that looks to her, the "hard gray stone." A red leaf is one in autumn-- once alive, now dead. The stone, of course, was never alive at all.
Does it matter that we, the listener, don't fully comprehend the symbolism? No, she says "to each other, they know what they mean." Said more grammatically straightforward, this also implies "They know what they mean to each other." A stone, for all its impassivity, is also solid and dependable, while a leaf, though organic, is transitory and easily tossed away by a breeze.
She wonders if he ever told his wife about her, or "was I the name you could never pronounce?" She wonders if she even "figure at all" in any discussions or fights.
There is a mention of the "young" daughter's "pencil marks on the wall." This could mean that the child, like many mischievous others, wrote on the walls. It could also refer to the pencil marks parents make on walls or door-frames to chart their child's growth.
So she asks if her shadow, when she was over for a tryst, fell on these markings. The symbolism is powerful-- the heartwarming evidence of a blossoming child being eclipsed by the tawdriness of the mistress' very presence.
Half of her feels mortified that she could have had such a poisonous effect. But the other half? Frustrated and disappointed that all the impact she had on this man's life was as much as a shadow's, since she was probably only one of many who "darkened his door."
The husband-- make that the widower-- and mistress are not getting back together. One of them "broke the thread" and now it is too "late for repairs." But... is it? The song ends with the idea that this couple's future is "yet to come" and "unforeseen."
I can't see them getting back together. What if the daughter sees them together? Being glared at when the mistress can't even be sure she was identified was terrifying enough.
Seeing her father and this woman together-- and confirming her suspicions? The "reproachful" glare that this sight would trigger from the daughter would turn anyone to "stone."
Next Song: Last Year's Troubles
It starts with an encounter between the mistress and her lover's daughter. She sees a "reproach" on her face, and she wonder "how she could know" that this woman, the speaker, was her father's mistress: "Although I had met her just then/ I feel that she peeled back my guilty disguise." Of course, maybe the girl didn't know at all, and the whole idea is just that-- a thought sparked by a guilty conscience.
After all, the affair happened "so much more than a long time ago." How long? At least "19 years." More to the point-- "before (the daughter) was born."
Maybe it's something in the way she looks. Maybe, when it came to mistresses, her father had a "type." After all, the mistresses says, "I am sure I was only but one of a number" of such women and the daughter may have somehow seen others.
The mistress must have known the wife, too, at least to see her, since she recognizes the daughter by her mother's features and gaze: "Her mother, I see, lives within her still/ She looked at me with her eyes." This implies that the wife, the girl's mother, is now dead.
The encounter gives the mistress a flashback to "one night." She remembers details of his house-- "gray" vase holding a "red" rose. A white piece of coral, a "brass candlestick" and another red item, his velvet coat. She has no idea why she flashes on these images.
If the coat is his, does that mean the red items symbolize him, and the gray ones her? If so, then he is the vibrant rose and she the inert vase that "holds" him. This could be an image of restraint, but a vase is more an image of support.
Later, that makes him the "red leaf" that looks to her, the "hard gray stone." A red leaf is one in autumn-- once alive, now dead. The stone, of course, was never alive at all.
Does it matter that we, the listener, don't fully comprehend the symbolism? No, she says "to each other, they know what they mean." Said more grammatically straightforward, this also implies "They know what they mean to each other." A stone, for all its impassivity, is also solid and dependable, while a leaf, though organic, is transitory and easily tossed away by a breeze.
She wonders if he ever told his wife about her, or "was I the name you could never pronounce?" She wonders if she even "figure at all" in any discussions or fights.
There is a mention of the "young" daughter's "pencil marks on the wall." This could mean that the child, like many mischievous others, wrote on the walls. It could also refer to the pencil marks parents make on walls or door-frames to chart their child's growth.
So she asks if her shadow, when she was over for a tryst, fell on these markings. The symbolism is powerful-- the heartwarming evidence of a blossoming child being eclipsed by the tawdriness of the mistress' very presence.
Half of her feels mortified that she could have had such a poisonous effect. But the other half? Frustrated and disappointed that all the impact she had on this man's life was as much as a shadow's, since she was probably only one of many who "darkened his door."
The husband-- make that the widower-- and mistress are not getting back together. One of them "broke the thread" and now it is too "late for repairs." But... is it? The song ends with the idea that this couple's future is "yet to come" and "unforeseen."
I can't see them getting back together. What if the daughter sees them together? Being glared at when the mistress can't even be sure she was identified was terrifying enough.
Seeing her father and this woman together-- and confirming her suspicions? The "reproachful" glare that this sight would trigger from the daughter would turn anyone to "stone."
Next Song: Last Year's Troubles
Monday, August 3, 2015
Those Whole Girls
The key to this song-- more of a poem-- is the title.
"Those," as opposed to this girl, the speaker. How are they different? They are "whole."
There is something less than whole about the speaker, however. She has some disability-- physical, mental, emotional, some combination thereof-- that denies her the abilities and skills of the "whole" girls, which she then enumerates.
First, they "hurl... words," possibly at her. The direction in which they hurl them is key-- they don't just hurl them across or over, but "down," from a position of height (perhaps they are not in a bed or wheelchair) or at least a place of assumed superiority.
They can also move very freely. They "run," "spin," and "move." Presumably, our speaker finds these seemingly simple tasks either more challenging or simply impossible.
They also do not just run, but do so "in packs." First, their mobility allows them more ability to socialize. But they use this as a weapon, a tactic of war; the term "packs" refers to a group of wolves, who hunt in such coordinated units.
They have "bloom," or vitality. The word can also refer to their blossoming adulthood-- they may be more teens than "girls," or at least put on such airs.
Overall, the whole girls "know health." This is key-- it seems the speaker does not know health. She is not just sick now, but has been for a long time. So long, she does not remember how health feels anymore, if she ever did.
The whole girls use their health to their advantage. They "skim the cream," taking only the nicest parts of everything, the parts that rise to the top. They go to the best schools, the best parties, the best vacation locales, and they likely seize the best boys.
Moreover, the "fill the brim" and "feel no lack." Their cups, in short, runneth over.
Their social access allows them to have so much gossip they overflow with that, as well; they "drip with news."
The next line may be a pun. They "spin intact," so they may do spins as part of dances or figure skating and not feel dizzy afterward. But Vega's phrasing, with a pause between "in" and "tact," may be more than a nod to the three-syllable structure of the piece. They may "spin"-- as in what "spin doctors" do-- the news they drip with. But they do so with "tact" and charm learned from all the social interaction their health has afforded them.
The whole girls, the speaker continues, "blaze and stun." This could be a reference to their beauty, as in "she's a stunning woman." But it can also be another reference to their viciousness; they may stun as in "stun gun." These are the same young women who can speak with "tact" one minute and "hurl down words" in another. It is not too much of a stretch to assume they can sling an insult at someone so underhandedly their target doesn't even know she's been attacked at first.
Overall, these girls are truly whole. They are sound in mind and body, they have access to the "cream" of what life has to offer, and in everything, they "feel no lack."
We learn four more things about them. One is that that they "breathe with ease." Perhaps this is a clue to what is less than whole about our speaker. She may have a pulmonary disease, or simply asthma. Alternately, she may have a social disorder that prevents her from "breathing easily" when around other people, as with agoraphobia or general anxiety disorder.
The whole girls, however, "need no mercy." The character of Henrick, from Sondheim's A Little Night Music, expresses well what being on the receiving end of compassion can feel like: "It's intolerable, being tolerated." If everyone is saying "poor you," you start to internalize the idea that, yes, you are pitiful.
The whole girls can get out in the sunshine. They can get up and turn on a lamp whenever they please. And so they "move in light" in a way others cannot, who must either live with the darkness or beg the "mercy" of others to flip the switch.
Lastly, the whole girls "run in grace." This could be another way of saying they are graceful, that they can be ballerinas and gymnasts while the not-whole girls can't.
But it could also mean something much sadder. It could mean that they run in Grace, as in the favor of God. And how unfair, that such ungrateful creatures could not only take their health for granted, but use it to lord over others, teasing and excluding them, as if health were a right and not a privilege.
Meanwhile, how might a disabled person feel? Made to suffer, for no reason, by an arbitrary or even malicious Deity? How must it feel to suffer, and beyond that, feel one deserved this suffering? And if they did not deserve it, and God made them, why did He make them this way? Adding religion to the equation could bring in entirely new series of questions, pains, and doubts.
Vega imagines the way a disabled teen might look at her abled peers. Vega urges the listener to take a closer look at those less than whole girls, and boys, and try to make them feel more whole, and more a part of the whole.
Next Song: Room off the Street
"Those," as opposed to this girl, the speaker. How are they different? They are "whole."
There is something less than whole about the speaker, however. She has some disability-- physical, mental, emotional, some combination thereof-- that denies her the abilities and skills of the "whole" girls, which she then enumerates.
First, they "hurl... words," possibly at her. The direction in which they hurl them is key-- they don't just hurl them across or over, but "down," from a position of height (perhaps they are not in a bed or wheelchair) or at least a place of assumed superiority.
They can also move very freely. They "run," "spin," and "move." Presumably, our speaker finds these seemingly simple tasks either more challenging or simply impossible.
They also do not just run, but do so "in packs." First, their mobility allows them more ability to socialize. But they use this as a weapon, a tactic of war; the term "packs" refers to a group of wolves, who hunt in such coordinated units.
They have "bloom," or vitality. The word can also refer to their blossoming adulthood-- they may be more teens than "girls," or at least put on such airs.
Overall, the whole girls "know health." This is key-- it seems the speaker does not know health. She is not just sick now, but has been for a long time. So long, she does not remember how health feels anymore, if she ever did.
The whole girls use their health to their advantage. They "skim the cream," taking only the nicest parts of everything, the parts that rise to the top. They go to the best schools, the best parties, the best vacation locales, and they likely seize the best boys.
Moreover, the "fill the brim" and "feel no lack." Their cups, in short, runneth over.
Their social access allows them to have so much gossip they overflow with that, as well; they "drip with news."
The next line may be a pun. They "spin intact," so they may do spins as part of dances or figure skating and not feel dizzy afterward. But Vega's phrasing, with a pause between "in" and "tact," may be more than a nod to the three-syllable structure of the piece. They may "spin"-- as in what "spin doctors" do-- the news they drip with. But they do so with "tact" and charm learned from all the social interaction their health has afforded them.
The whole girls, the speaker continues, "blaze and stun." This could be a reference to their beauty, as in "she's a stunning woman." But it can also be another reference to their viciousness; they may stun as in "stun gun." These are the same young women who can speak with "tact" one minute and "hurl down words" in another. It is not too much of a stretch to assume they can sling an insult at someone so underhandedly their target doesn't even know she's been attacked at first.
Overall, these girls are truly whole. They are sound in mind and body, they have access to the "cream" of what life has to offer, and in everything, they "feel no lack."
We learn four more things about them. One is that that they "breathe with ease." Perhaps this is a clue to what is less than whole about our speaker. She may have a pulmonary disease, or simply asthma. Alternately, she may have a social disorder that prevents her from "breathing easily" when around other people, as with agoraphobia or general anxiety disorder.
The whole girls, however, "need no mercy." The character of Henrick, from Sondheim's A Little Night Music, expresses well what being on the receiving end of compassion can feel like: "It's intolerable, being tolerated." If everyone is saying "poor you," you start to internalize the idea that, yes, you are pitiful.
The whole girls can get out in the sunshine. They can get up and turn on a lamp whenever they please. And so they "move in light" in a way others cannot, who must either live with the darkness or beg the "mercy" of others to flip the switch.
Lastly, the whole girls "run in grace." This could be another way of saying they are graceful, that they can be ballerinas and gymnasts while the not-whole girls can't.
But it could also mean something much sadder. It could mean that they run in Grace, as in the favor of God. And how unfair, that such ungrateful creatures could not only take their health for granted, but use it to lord over others, teasing and excluding them, as if health were a right and not a privilege.
Meanwhile, how might a disabled person feel? Made to suffer, for no reason, by an arbitrary or even malicious Deity? How must it feel to suffer, and beyond that, feel one deserved this suffering? And if they did not deserve it, and God made them, why did He make them this way? Adding religion to the equation could bring in entirely new series of questions, pains, and doubts.
Vega imagines the way a disabled teen might look at her abled peers. Vega urges the listener to take a closer look at those less than whole girls, and boys, and try to make them feel more whole, and more a part of the whole.
Next Song: Room off the Street
Monday, April 13, 2015
Left of Center
This speaker of this song is a teenager, most likely a teenage
girl.
The song is from the soundtrack of the 1986 movie Pretty in Pink, considered one of the "Brat Pack" movies of writer-director John Hughes, along with The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Some Kind of Wonderful. His other hits include Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Mr. Mom, Weird Science, Home Alone, Planes Trains & Automobiles, and the National Lampoon Vacation series.
Back to the song-- the film is about a disadvantaged young woman who must choose between her equally poor, longtime sweetheart and a new, wealthy-but-sensitive suitor.
The song is about that common adolescent (or, more fairly, human) plaint: not fitting in. It is unclear whether the teen was unusual, and therefore rejected... or the reverse-- she was simply marginalized by her peers for some arbitrary reason, alike them as she was. In any case, she seem to have embraced her marginalized, maverick status.
She declares this standpoint to be "left of center... in the outskirts, in the fringes" of the social circle. She dwells there, and make no attempt to make inroads into the popular group. However, she is not in accessible, in her remote outpost. In fact, the song opens with an invitation, if a begrudging one, to visit: "If you want me/ You can find me" there.
While marginalized, she also keeps tabs on the in-group, a surveillance which they sometimes notice: "They know that/ I'm looking at them." When they do, they challenge her: "What are you looking at?" Naturally, she becomes defensive, and attacks in retaliation: "Nothing much."
She concludes that they presume her to be "out of touch." In fact, she is very aware of the machinations of the in-group. She simply chooses not to participate in them.
She is interested, however, in an individual. The "you" is no longer "you, or any given person listening" but "you, a specific person I mean." As she puts it: “If you want me/ You can find me/ Left of center/ Wondering about you.”
Why does this person pique her interest? She sees that (presumably, but not necessarily) he is a kindred spirit: “We must be similar/ If not the same.”
Even an outsider sometimes feels the need to share the outside with someone. “So I continue/ To be wanting you/ Left of center/ Against the grain.”
The song is from the soundtrack of the 1986 movie Pretty in Pink, considered one of the "Brat Pack" movies of writer-director John Hughes, along with The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Some Kind of Wonderful. His other hits include Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Mr. Mom, Weird Science, Home Alone, Planes Trains & Automobiles, and the National Lampoon Vacation series.
Back to the song-- the film is about a disadvantaged young woman who must choose between her equally poor, longtime sweetheart and a new, wealthy-but-sensitive suitor.
The song is about that common adolescent (or, more fairly, human) plaint: not fitting in. It is unclear whether the teen was unusual, and therefore rejected... or the reverse-- she was simply marginalized by her peers for some arbitrary reason, alike them as she was. In any case, she seem to have embraced her marginalized, maverick status.
She declares this standpoint to be "left of center... in the outskirts, in the fringes" of the social circle. She dwells there, and make no attempt to make inroads into the popular group. However, she is not in accessible, in her remote outpost. In fact, the song opens with an invitation, if a begrudging one, to visit: "If you want me/ You can find me" there.
While marginalized, she also keeps tabs on the in-group, a surveillance which they sometimes notice: "They know that/ I'm looking at them." When they do, they challenge her: "What are you looking at?" Naturally, she becomes defensive, and attacks in retaliation: "Nothing much."
She concludes that they presume her to be "out of touch." In fact, she is very aware of the machinations of the in-group. She simply chooses not to participate in them.
She is interested, however, in an individual. The "you" is no longer "you, or any given person listening" but "you, a specific person I mean." As she puts it: “If you want me/ You can find me/ Left of center/ Wondering about you.”
Why does this person pique her interest? She sees that (presumably, but not necessarily) he is a kindred spirit: “We must be similar/ If not the same.”
Even an outsider sometimes feels the need to share the outside with someone. “So I continue/ To be wanting you/ Left of center/ Against the grain.”
It does get lonely, out there in the outskirts. So it's nice to find someone you have something in common with, even if that something is simply being... uncommon.
IMPACT: The song reached #32 on the UK Singles chart, but did not chart in the US.
Next Song: Tom's Diner
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