Gianluca wrote:

"Just my random thoughts..."

Hey Gianluca, you're stealing my line!!!!

j.c.
trying to get back in the Undertow submarine

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Fátima wrote:

"i always thought of it as suzanne's little tribute to lou reed/the velvet underground."

And very appropriately! Suzanne has mentioned, on several occasions, the Lou Reed inspiration on the writing of this song.

j.c.
keeping on adding useless bits of information

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The lovely Catherine of the threads wote:

"P.S.— José Carlos, why did you feel that the women (talking) were arrogant in tone? I didn't pick that up at all. Just curious."

Maybe arrogant is not the best word. I could also use "condescendent"...

What I mean is the "superiour" (snobbish) way they seem to use, as if they were talking about something they saw on Discovery Channel, and not real people. For me that distance can also be heard on Suzanne's voice.

At first it was the only song I'd skip in the eponymous album, but later I learned to appreciate it, and now I see it has an edge I'd like to see in other songs.

j.c.
always a sucker for the underrated versatility in Suzanne's voice.

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The much missed J.C. wrote:

"At first it was the only song I'd skip in the eponymous album, but later I learned to appreciate it, and now I see it has an edge I'd like to see in other songs."

Now you're talking, my dear friend! Yes, I admit, they do have a sense of being "blase" about their subject matter (a person), but I took that as a kind of 'matter of factness.' An acceptance, if you will, of their everyday lives and who and what makes up those lives.

Anyway, thanks for answering—and I know that our 'silence' is way off the charts! I'm the one who owes you mail!

Love to see you writing in again....

xox/Catherine

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"If we don't change the direction we are headed,
we will end up where we are going."

—Chinese Proverb

Hey Cath,

"but I took that as a kind of 'matter of factness.' An acceptance, if you will, of their everyday lives and who and what makes up those lives."

That "acceptance" is too cold to me. Or maybe all acceptances of this kind are always cold to me. Maybe I need to look for some kind of warmth all the time.

But that's only my interpretation, of course.

"Anyway, thanks for answering"

Sorry for the lateness, I could not go back and forth with the emails before, so I kept delaying my replies. Now I'm flooding everybody's mailboxes.

Much Love,
j.c.
running to the next thread

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I have one question: why are we assuming that the two people speaking are two women?

I too have this sense sometimes, while listening to this song, probably due to that very "condescendent" tone that José was underlining. Infact, while listening to this song or reading its lyric, sometimes I have the sense that the two persons are talking about a subject that they deliberately want to keep at a certain distance from themselves. As if to underline the difference between them and the two "Neighbourhood Girls", and so it is easy (maybe too easy) to imagine that the two persons speaking are women.
But I think this is not the only way to look at this conversation.
What if they were two men? I think the perspective would change a bit...

J.C.- Hi José Carlos, it's always nice to hear from you. Ooooppps... Sorry for stealing your line, but they truly were random thoughts! ;-) We have missed you!
(edited in the other thread and written again in the right one: this one).

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“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William Arthur Ward

I think it's pretty obvious that the speakers are women... I can't think of any man who would be "interested in her and her CLIENTELLE" ;-)
Having said that, I think there's a possibility that the Neighborhood Girl is not actually a prostitute, but rather an outsider, someone "who used to hang out in front of McKinsey's Bar". This can be just an odd girl who is desperate attention, sometimes drawing the wrong kind of attention. It doesn't sound quite right to say that a hooker "hangs out" in front of the bar... then again I might be wrong.
Anyway, this sounds to me like something that would happen in a smaller community, where everybody knows each other, and the gossip is gospel. Maybe somewhere in the suburbs or a small town, but not in the middle of Manhattan.

Yuval =8-)

Hi Yuval,

Even if I'm in agreement with what you said about the small community, I'm not with you on the fact that the speakers have to be necessarily women: I wouldn't be so sure. I mean, as I wrote, most of times this is what I think too, but probably because I'm unconsciously referring to a stereotype: two women speaking in a "superiour" way about another women who "used to hang out, in front of McKinsey's Bar". Mmm... it fits, but sometimes it seems to me too simple. And I don't think that that part of the lyric you mentioned is a strong argument for thinking JUST this way. Even a men could be curious and "interested in her clientele" (a strange kind of man, no doubts about it. But again, it is possible).
Anyway, this is just my opinion.

Have a nice day, Gianluca.

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“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” – William Arthur Ward

Gianluca asked:

"I have one question: why are we assuming that the two people speaking are two women?"

Because Suzanne said so??? Check out the Bible:
http://rustedpipe.vega.net/neighborhood_girls.htm

Actually for many years I always supposed it was a dialogue between two men. Interested in these girls, curious about them... and maybe a bit more.

Well, on a deeper level, arrogance can be a sign of envy, so, no matter the genre (or should I say sexual oriantation) the curiousity could be there anyway, even if for different reasons.

"J.C.- Hi José Carlos, it's always nice to hear from you. Ooooppps... Sorry for stealing your line, but they truly were random thoughts! ;-)"

No worries I just have to gain it back. Thanks for your welcome, but I never left, I was just outside thinking.

j.c.

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haven't you ever thought that the quoted monologue in this song could so easily be inserted on "cracking", the song we know so well? stories are never ending but life isn't. and on a day when these hands that are touching these keys right now touched the lifeless ones of someone so dear to me, in a final touch, i just want to say these words to you: forgive (believe) me if you can. my crooked self is within the motion. may we move towards peace, paths separate, as we go about the never finished movement of uprighting our selves? just never stop. never give up on your self.

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

life is never ending. any manner of want, any mind will do. do you wish to come with me?

more days, more nights, more roads, shouts, flowers, each changing place with what went before, and forwards, how it all contends, across the crookedness to be itself, the place, the cruelties, the hand in mid-air, not stalling but not progressing, one remembering a face, a version of a face, don't forget.

story never ending, pushing out life never ending. elegant, votive. the comma holds. sometimes the living is forgotten to be living. get up. you must believe - sentences pour from everything.

yes, i wish to come with you. i accept all that went before, all that is now, and all that is forwards, whatever that might entail. i am waiting. i want so much to believe again. and i vow everything in me to fulfill life - that's what makes it never ending.

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

there was not an invitation nor a hand extended. you are there regardless, and you have been there. i would not have the daylight touch you. what you suffer seems as if yet unlived through - you keep holding the moment. i am an errancy, i am no dialogue. an aftertaste, as of ashes, in my mouth. an aubade, the dawn like something rusty starting its engines up again, the gears of thirst and gravity. listen closely: go. hurry home. i pointed out the stars for you. i drove you through the cities and prairies. you - who is that? each with our single destination at the core. hurry home. both of us. go. hurry home.

i'm sorry. i misunderstand in my effort to understand. i can't read the signs anymore nor the secret writing in me. the pain in my body, heart and soul shrunk my essence to its nakedness and it has been looking me in the eye. i am mute, staring back at it. you're right - i have been holding the moment. i let myself be carved by my pain instead of living it through. i'll let myself go now. i'll start living through the journey back. back home. i've been waiting "to hear a straight line to help me find my way" and you just gave it to me. thank you. i hope you make it home.

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

Actually, i do not really like this song either. Not this version. The lyrics are great, the problem is the way it is played; they play it too slow. I think the "Live in London 1986-version" is much better.

By the way, i ordered "Songs in red and grey" today.