Essay question.
Please secure your copy of Suzanne Vega’s debut album, Suzanne Vega, and cue up the eighth track. Play the song through once, paying particular attention to the lyrics. (Those who have lent their copy to a friend and never got it back, or who realized too late it was in the glove compartment of the beater donated to save someone’s kidney, or who’ve left it at the office, or—God forbid—never owned a copy, are hereby directed to this handy crib sheet of the lyrics in question.)
Now. Take up your blue books and your No. 2 pencils—or open up the comments box and fire up your keyboard—and answer the following:
Who is the more sympathetic, the queen? Or the soldier? And why?
Remember: neatness counts, but panache counts more. And while there are no wrong answers, there is most certainly a right one. Or why else ask the bloody question?
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I always considered that the lamest song on the album. Can't help you here, since I'd have to regard the two "players" as characters, and I don't.
Now if you asked me whom I sympathise most with in Childe's "House Carpenter": the wayward wife or her seducer-ex, I'd have an easy answer: Neither. They were both TOTAL ASSHATS !! I feel sympathy for the damned House Carpenter. He supplied the song title but didn't get ONE DAMNED WORD IN EDGEWISE !!! Is that FAIR ?!?
You've really got to learn to leave fewer straight lines lying around unattended during heat-wave season, Old Friend. ;)
You mean there are people who find the queen sympathetic? People who like Suzanne Vega, I mean? I guess 'cause she's a woman and, like, has feelings, huh?
Although I agree with Amy about the lameness of the song relative to the rest on the album, and indeed perhaps her entire body, with Luka a close runner, the answer is:
The queen! The queen!
I mean, the soldier only exists to throw her world into crisis. He only falls in love with her to escalate the crisis she's facing. The resolution is entirely in her hands. He may be sympathetic in that we like him and what he represents, but he's not who we're meant to identify with, nor whose decision we care about.
The story of the soldier who stopped fighting is a different story than the story of the queen confronted with the consequences of her power, and it's not the story the song tells.
No panache, I daresay, but do I get points for dogmatism?
I'd say the one who left the interview dead.
I'm open to suggestion on who that was.
(kind of a leaden metaphor, though, isn't it?)
Actually, I must say I'm not a particularly big fan of the song either. But sometimes I am.
On the surface level I feel for the guy, he just wants to be an honest guy and doesn't want to fight for royalty, and she doesn't want to be royalty (oh woe) and so kills him. I find any sympathy I have for her disappears at that point (on this level).
But on a metaphorical level, it seems to be talking more about a woman's "role" in our society, and that she has "swallowed that thread", and that she doesn't desire to be this role. And that the ridiculousness of his pompous "self righteous melodramatic goodness" makes her feel more alone, and she turns away from it. So the song is just her feeling she's playing this role and feeling alone. I've known many women to feel this way. So yeah, metaphorically, I tend to feel for her.
Although I may be totally wrong on the metaphor.
But I was just talking to a friend the other day about Suznne Vega and how much I adore her because she was a geek, and her words had all these double-meanings and word-plays. I love that.
Maybe it works better in person; I dunno. Yes, the song has not aged well. Yes, it's a bit of a thunderous metaphor. Still: the look of consternation which passes over a person's face when they realize that there are people out there who find the other figure in the song to be the more sympathetic is always a source of cheeky amusement for me.
(For the record: Vince gets it "right," and polished his apple, to boot. Teacher's pet. You may beat him behind the monkey bars at recess, if you like.)