| Suzanne Vega – Rosemary Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I love this song. I can't believe no one commented on it yet! I think it's about a moment in time - cherishing those strange moments, when someone happened, or almost happened, and it's meaning can't be quite grasped, but something inside you tells you to remember it. I think it's also demonstrating three different worlds - the loved one, who is aching to grow, to change, to go on, never ceasing to enjoy the moment, always thinking there is something beyond. His view of life is that so the speaker understands though they both might have fell inlove, he would rather move on, because he can't stay and explore the moment. He does not believe in things like "accident of fate", and though the woman wants to break to the room beneath his skin, she also knows it will have to wait - he's not ready. The place of their final meeting - she comes baring the question, but already knows the answer is 'no' - since his journey is just began (and there comes the metaphor of the statues carrying so much their heads and hands were taken off). The second world is that of the sister who never dreams, because in her waking hours she lives in fantasies. She can do what the man can't - cherish the moment, enjoy the dream, but her way is unreal - her wishes and wills are so far from reality they can never come true. The third world is of the speaker, who loves a man but knows he is too different then her, too rushing towards life - he can't enjoy the small moments or understand the meanings behind them, he can't look for the meaning in the smell of rosemary (the song's name represent a very small and meaningful moment for the speaker, which was not like that for the man she loved). In the end, coming to term with their difference, she simply asks him to remember her. |
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| Indigo Girls – Cedar Tree Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I think this song is about different perspectives of dealing with losses. There story is quite simple - a man who's wife (possibly, wives) dies and he buries her and plants a cedar tree above her grave. The three perspectives are the outsider's, the tree's, and the man's. Only one line doesn't change, but this line means something else every time. The first perspective is the outsider, and it is judgemental: "You dug a well, you dug it deep" - you don't need to dig a well to plant a tree, or to bury someone. Digging a well to bury someone means you have something to hide, especially if you dig it deep. "For every wife you bury, you planted a cedar tree-" that is also a cold judgement of the events - a woman dies, you plant a tree: like a machine, like something emotionless. "The best you ever had" in this meaning is to blame. This verse is blaming, judging the man for the death(s) of his wife. The second perspective is the tree's: "I stand where you stood" - I'm here because you want to remember this woman who died. "I stand for bad or good," - you want to remember her forever, because I will always stand here. "I am green and you are wood" - you and me are exactly the same. "The best he ever had" - I am the most loving act you can make for you deceased wife - you cherish her memory through me. The tree's perspective is all-knowing and all-seeing: The tree sees both into the man's soul and has the grand understanding of events. The last perspective is the man, and he is, of course, crushed: Just like the first speaker, he blames himself for his wife's death, when he again repeats the well's metaphor. But he also knows it is "for my only love." wether he had one or two wives buried, this is his view, which is romantic, loving and passionate - this was his only love, he will never love another. "The best we ever had," in this point of view, means the best he can do for her - he feels helpless and mourning. In the final verse, it also becomes clear the most objective, the most beautiful and the most true perspective is not the perspective of any live people, but that of a tree, that sees all and knows the act of planting it for what it really is - the most noble act the man could have done. |
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