I think that Birth-day is one of my favorite songs from 9ood...
The first thing that caught my attention was the unique sound...felt kind of weird druggy violent dreamy... :-p If that makes any sense to any of you.
Then the lyrics...the almost violent imagery "shake all over like an old sick dog/there's a needle here, needle there tremble in the fog" and "strap me down from wrist to heel"

I don't know... I think it's the coolest song anyone could ever write about giving birth. None of that "i'm a happy happy mommy" crap. (Not that SV isn't a happy mommy!) Who else would call their newborn a "hot little treasure"??


okay, sorry... lame post...but I can't really think of how I can describe my liking for this song.

Heay Christie

I think it's a beautiful song, too. I always imagine someone giving birth to a child everytime I listen to the song, and the song makes me feel so connected to the main character, it feels like I'm giving birth to a child myself (that's kind of weird [since I'm a guy and all]). I imagine the main character lying in bed (most of the time in a hospital), in gusts of great pain. The only thing to get rid of the pain is to get that baby out, and I feel too much blood raging to her body, too much blood going out of her body, and too much blood rising to her head. That's kind of an experience everytime I listen.

The funny thing is, I displayed my Suzanne Vega collection of vinyls, cds and other stuff on my birthday, and one of the Cd's in the front row was by accident a promo of birth-day; everyone said like "put this on, it's a birthday song", while I had never even thought about it that way; I explained it was more a song about birth than about a birthday.

Spikey

The first time I heard it I didn't make the giving birth connection. I got the (what I figured) usual first impression of some kind of drugged up masochism time. Hahaha
Um, but in trying to connect the title with the lyrics (at first i was like, "birthday? what? whose? where?") But then I started to figure it out.
I still really love how you can take the lyrics and see them in so many ways. It really adds to the song, I think... allows more people to get more from it. And it can just be fun to take it from serious to a sort of strange playfulness depending on your mood.

-christie

I think the phrase "Love made real" is a beautiful way to describe a baby that has been conceived and carried in love. The love between two people becomes "incarnate" in a new person, a "hot little treasure".

I'm so stupid... I totally didn't make the "giving-birth" connection when I heard the song the first 5 times. I was thinking "meet my love made real" was some meeting with an adult lover and it was called "birthday" because... I dunno... it was on her birthday or maybe it was the birth of a new romance or something (Duh?). Of course the rest of the lyrics then tend to illustrate a very bizarre relationship. "Don't listen down the hall" still kind of haunts me in either interpretation.

This song totally kicks ass. It is her hardest hitting song, the lyrics are very appropriate and perfectly delivered. I like her very much when she is slow, solitary, and beautiful (Calypso, In Liverpool...when performed live without much accompaniment, Gypsy), but she can also really kick ass on songs like this (and also When Heroes Go Down, Blood Makes Noise, etc.)

Sometimes when people rap and all the words go by so fast, the lyrics tend not to be savored so well, but consider this pseudo-rapped part of Birthday with my parenthetical commentary:

"Shakin' all over like an ole' sick dog
(need any further explanation?)
"There's a needle here, needle there, tremble in the fog
(maybe on IV sedatives, definitely shaking from delivery)
"She's a tight squeeze, vise grip, ice and fire
(tightly squeezing a baby out of the womb, gripping your hand really hard in exertion, waves of hot and cold flashing all over your body)
"A Hot little treasure and the wave goes higher,
(freshly delivered baby is hot (if health) and the wave, though this is vague, could be the mother's exhilaration)
"BIRTHDAY!"
(WORD!!!)

This is a perfect example of how great a singer/songwriter Vega is. The lyrics are very feverish, delivered appropriately feverishly, and just freakin' great. Mind you, she does a MUCH better job with "Pseudo-Rap" than Madonna could ever hope to do. The woman has RHYTHM!!!

And the instrumentation was PERFECT!!! This song TOTALLY rocked!!!

-M

Most commentators for this song are men!

In fact Suzanne’s treatment of this feminine process manages to engage men as well as women. I agree with Christie, it is the coolest song anyone could ever write about giving birth. 'Tried and true', the song was written by a woman who knows exactly what birth is about, a woman who is caring, warm, loving, protective towards her child (World before Columbus, Soap and water) but the description of the experience of giving birth is hard-hitting, masculine or perhaps simply sexless.

The writing reminds me of 99.9 F, the song. It is the same clinical and modern-day vocabulary that conveys emotion - pain, fear, love. In 99.9 F the character seems to be seducing a man, in Birth-day she is taking love to its fruition. Totally refreshing approach to the subject.

Niluferplum: "she is taking love to its fruition. Totally refreshing approach to the subject."

but that refreshing approach means that the experience is couched in terms both novel and universal. Thus, the song is laid wide to other interpretations. To Suzanne it was about giving birth... but to us it can be about so many other things.

This miracle of birth, itself is such an archtypical symbol. To draw parallels is inevitable, and yet... each strange interpretation leads us back to a deeper understanding of birth.

Strange, that.

Yes, I agree. Suzanne's songs always have a universal dimension, which makes them relevant. She also cautiously leaves some details out so that you can bring your own imagination and experience to the song.

I hadn't been thinking about this song for quite some time, but then I got these recent posts and...well, now I'm thinking about it again. (ha)
Lately, I haven't been thinking much about birth--not directly--but about this strange desire of mine to find a sort of womb... (not literal) but a safe place or a safe person. Thought I'd share... anyone else ever feel this way?

Hmmm.... is it safe to say we all feel that way? this whole journey through life on Earth seems to be about finding some real security.

I think we come out of that womb confused, but anxious to embrace this world... and maybe the most important thing we do is make ties with other humans. But as for that ultimate issue of security... it's something we have to find in ourselves I guess. Or in God. No other human or institution, or parcel of goods can guarantee anything.

People die without warning. Institutions are overthrown. Goods are stolen. They rot. They break down. Nothing is eternally reliable outside your self determination and your God.

What is God? What if you don't believe in that one?

Spikey, I would gladly speak with you about this via personal e-mail. The subject that you bring up, often results in rather heated insult laden discusion (which often is against the principles that people understand that God stands for.)

I just meant what I said... a thing you find in yourself *or* in God (if there is a God, or if you believe in God). If you don't believe in a God, or if there isn't a God... then ultimate security in life comes from within yourself.

When everyone (if anyone) finds their security, could you tell me where? I've been searching... and have seen pieces of it in my dreams.