Telling Stories

I'll refrain from trying to speculate about Chapman's thoughts in writing this song (on grounds of respecting her personal/artistic boundaries as well as Barthesian grounds), but just in terms of what we're given with the song:

This isn't just a description of any two people -- this is everybody. As much as we want and struggle to feel like we really understand another person, ultimately we can only construct our own fictions of everyone else and hope that those fictions are something that other people might see themselves in. Thoughts and language alike are "fiction", not the reality we try to describe; but "sometimes a lie is the best thing" in that we can sometimes recognize that everything we think we know is, to some extent, a "fiction", and that really the best we can do is to try to come up with a "fiction" which respects and is sensitive to the needs of everyone else that we base our fictions on.

In other words -- this is a song about the impossible but necessary task of really understanding other people, and our failures along the way as well as our hopefully-reciprocal acceptance of the same failures in others.

I'm surprised no one has touched this one. TS is obviously directed to a fiction writer. The constant refrain: "there is fiction in the space between" shows that Tracy and this "person" have two different recollections of their relationship (that is obviously now over). Tracy's recollection (as far as she's concerned) is true, and the writer's is fictional. Tracy tells her ex that just because she writes things down, doesn't mean that she's 'not just telling stories.' Tracy goes on to show us how mellowdramatic her ex is as she paint tracy as "the scary monster" who 'eats the city as [she] leaves the scene'. But in truth when her ex wakes up from the nightmare there is no one but her standing. But apparently everyone expects mellowdrama from her author-ex and Tracy accepts that its not about her, its about how Alice Walker OOPS!, i mean... this "author" needs to keep being this dazzling author of the sad and sordid story in the public's eye. Tracy, you are the one that deserves the award for crafting YOUR rememberance of the relationship in this way!! I applaud your honesty!! And while it may not have generated the sales or mass appeal of other albums, "Telling Stories" is the Hejira of my generation!!

..right on CDHTUNE. tracy is awesome ...what makes this song special to me is that yrs before it came out i would warm up and play the same exact chord structure as this song ...she put words to my music and doesnt even know it. well, i hope she does i emailed about it an havnt gotten a replay back yet. but when i first heard the song on the radio, and loving her to begin with i listened closly to the lyrics at first, the music was very cool too ...so i down loaded it when i got home and listened to it again, then again ...something sounded very familiar. when i picked up my guitar and started playing along i couldnt believe it. i'll be playing along to it for ever ...thanks tracy!!! i love you.

I guess to me this song reminds me of my own life where in silence i create a fiction, a space to go where reality no longer exists. and like the last line sometimes you need that lie in order to exist.

Tracy Chapman is a great poet/songwriter, I love this song.

i think maybe they have totally different views of their relationship.like when she says there is fiction in the space between you and me.

CDTUNE you are awesome!

CDTUNE you are awesome!

I too have to give kudos to CDHTUNE.

I'm just wondering about the last bit of the song 'sometimes a lie is the best thing'. Is she forgiving her? Is she saying maybe it was for the best they broke up? Is she saying a lie is better than the truth sometimes - the truth can hurt more?