Hey All,
1st post, yah. I was wondering something. I plan to start guitar lessons in a few weeks and would love to learn to play "The Queen and the Soldier." Does anyone know if there's a way I could buy sheet music for this song, especially along with other Vega music? Thanks in advance.

Jonathan

So this brings up a question my family argues about: the soldier says he wants "to love a young woman I don't understand," and the queen "wanted more than she ever could say." I see those two as unconnected, and the soldier's love as for the queen, but nationalistic (not romantic), part of his "please tell me why." My friend thinks he's talking about an unconnected woman at home, but I think that's kind of random. My parents think the queen and the soldier are attracted to each other, an aspect of the song that doesn't seem to fit.

 I don't think the "bleeding" is menstrual, or sexual, but connected with "strangling in the solitude she preferred," and specifically the battle going on, which she is weirdly invested in and removed from.

Great questions. The wonderful thing about this song is the seemingly infinite number of ways you can interpret it. Are these even two separate people at all, or are they two sides of one psyche warring with each other? Are you the queen today, or are you the soldier? Were you playing the opposite role yesterday?

I believe the standard interpretation, at least as Suzanne has told it, is that the queen is indeed drawn to the soldier, which is why she has to kill him -- surrendering to her desire means surrendering her power and ending up like the victimized queen in "Knight Moves," which she refuses to do. On the other hand, this is apparently the first time they've met, so I think you're onto something in suspecting that what she "wanted more than she ever could say" is about more than just this young man in uniform. 

And how much, if at all, did the soldier really love the queen? I've always thought his statement about wanting to love a young woman he doesn't understand was professing his love for her (in a wonderfully oblique way). Then again, he doesn't say he loves her -- just that he *wants* to. If indeed he's talking about her. Maybe he just pities her, seeing how alone she is. Maybe he's surprised she's so young. Maybe he wants to rescue her, or maybe he just sees her as an easy mark (mistakenly, it turns out). He seems to embody many of the qualities Suzanne says she admires (courage, honesty, straightforwardness), but one female Towie once remarked that he seemed like an overbearing jerk telling the queen how to live her life. Who's to say?

As for the bleeding, Suzanne has said the image came from a cat of hers bleeding internally after swallowing a thread (something cats do with alarming frequency). But what does it mean in this song? I had thought it might be menstrual : Perhaps she's the lone woman surrounded by militaristic men, confused by this thing her body is doing that nobody else's seems to be doing, and maybe the bleeding is one more thing that separates her from the people around her. Attributing the bleeding to a "secret" thread could just be a sign of how little she knows her own inner anatomy. Or maybe she's bleeding internally from the struggle within her. Maybe she secretly cuts herself in the bathroom when nobody else is around.

By the way, I think it's really cool you're in a family that has arguments about the meaning of Suzanne Vega songs. You're lucky!

I have personally interpreted the "secret burning thread" to represent the inner turmoil or even physical inner pain she suffers from her longings. It makes sense to me since the queen preferred solitude. She was a most lonely creature.

Bobby

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Last night when I was dying of food poisoning, I dreamt that I was a male scorpion contentedly tying a burning thread around my sting when I was suddenly swallowed whole by a female scorpion humming "Frank and Ava" to herself.

Lefty

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"...when the armies of emotion
go out to fight..."

The other night I was lying awake and reflecting on Suzanne´s songs and I came up with the following theory:

If one examines early compositions which have only enjoyed limited release, namely "The Marching Dream" and "Black Widow Station", it is possible to detect the basis of and formative background to "TQ&TS". In "TMD", Suzanne sings:

 

"I have wished that I could take each man
And hold him against the flame in my heart"

 

and

 

"I have wished that I could hear
Each secret told
By lovers in the battle
With each shade of red and gold"

 

and

 

"I have wished that I could take each man
And hold him to the flame
And read the secret writing there
And know each one by name"

 

Suzanne is on record as saying that "TMD" is based on a dream she had, possibly a recurrent dream as the same topics of passion, secrecy and death are transposed to "TQ&TS" - a later, more crafted and polished composition. 

 

In "BWS", Suzanne sings:

"There's this black widow spider darling
and she's been walking on my hand.
And we've had this little heart to heart 
and I think I understand."

and

"I am at Black Widow Station darling 
and I've been waiting for your train.
You've been too long darling and it looks like rain."

Wikipedia has the following to say about the behaviour of black widow spiders:

 

"When a male is mature, he spins a sperm web, deposits semen on it, and charges his palpi with the sperm. Black widow spiders reproduce sexually when the male inserts his palpus into the female's spermathecal openings. The female deposits her eggs in a globular silken container in which they remain camouflaged and guarded........The females can live for up to five years, while a male's lifespan is much shorter. Contrary to popular belief, the female only rarely eats the male after mating, and Latrodectus mactans - the Southern black widow - is the only black widow species for which this form of sexual cannibalism has been observed in the wild."

These three songs feature males being killed - literally or metaphorically - by females of a predatory nature. Only in "TMD" is the possibility of life and survival for the male to be found:

"I have dreamed that many men
Have marched across this field
I have wished that I could pour
My life into each one....."

It is false hope, however, as the female has only "wished" that events could take a different course  and bring life to the marching men.  Instead they are doomed to die.

 

Lefty
 

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"...when the armies of emotion
go out to fight..."

Thanks Lefty for the comment. I don’t want to say anything about “Black Widow Station”, because it is sort of scary song to me. But “Marching Dream “ is revelation to me. It had to be beautiful dream of Suzanne and I can’t see anything connected with the Queen or the Soldier.Maybe it is too fast opinoinion of me. You must know that I pay much attention to my dreams and just love dreaming and to kisten to other dreams. I don’t know if Suzanne started performing at the time she had written “The Marching Dream”, but there is so much love and interest to anonymous men – to all men who across your path. I wish it could be every listener of Suzanne's songs.

 At least it is better dream than I have tonight ;- ) I dreamed that Suzanne was in my apartment and I don’t know why she wanted to cook chops from potatoes and onion. (if anyone interested recipe in private message :-D) We need to squash potatoes. Suzanne wanted to do by hand on grater. I shouted to her, no Suzanne, you may hurt your hands, let use juicer to do that. And than happened something what I can’t tell you ;- ) By the way I was speaking English in my dream, what is funny.

 Love,

Anna

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"like a shadow, I am and I am not"