Here's a video clip of Calypso as performed on July 6, 2003 in Liverpool, England.

Calypso- Liverpool
http://homepage.mac.com/mooncusser/Vega/iMovieThea ter95.html

I really liked the video and I like more and more the song. There's something in the way Suzanne Vega sings

It will be a lonely time ahead
I do not ask him to return

that I find very moving. A real courage in that nymph leaving willingly her love and although she has no hope of seing him again, still proud in front of the sea. She's the real heroic one in the story. Great song.

Hey, thanks for that link, Chris. My first glimpse of SV in action.
I hope this doesn't seem rude, but I think she looks better without bangs, as in the TD'84 clip.

Cantabile, as in another thread regarding what we get from songs, I got a feeling of resignation, rather than courage. Remember, Calypso was (is?) immortal, so his passing was inevitable, nonetheless moving.

Uncle Fid

This, honestly, is easily one of the best of her songs in terms of how well she consistently plays it live. As beautiful as it is on the studio album, it's a million times better in person. She just brings you SO CLOSE to her by the way she sings and plays the guitar for this one. Un-be-liev-a-ble.

-M

best song of all ive heard so far from her!!! Love the ilyad reference

"What do you look in a relationship after all?", she asked me. "Not to be a Calypso anymore" I answered with a serene smile. "But I thought Calypso was a woman, what am I not getting here?" she asked.

And then I told her. I explained her how being a Calypso has nothing to do with gender. You may be a Calypso being either a woman or a man. "It's the attitude", I told her, "It's what defines you. It's who you are."

"You see? All my life I've been a Caplyso. I'm the one people come to when they feel lost, weary, weak. I'm the one they trust above everyone. I'm the one they leave when they feel reassured and fit again for the long journey called life. I'm the one who stays behind after spending all my energies and dedication in a sincere commitment to heal them, to make them regain their self confidence, to give them faith and a goal."

"Because you must understand, it's not only the wait that makes a Calypso. It's not only isolation that makes a Calypso. Calypso is the one who provides the solid ground so that the others can fly. She's the one who worries so that the others can enjoy themselves freely. She's the one who builds a home to provide a safe habour for others to return when something goes wrong and they feel astray."

"You know, I've been called too rational, too predictable, too serious, too sensible. And it's all true, I don't contest it. But it's not my choice to be like that. I'd like to run through life with no worries. I'd like to dare without thinking ahead. I'd like to jump blindly knowing someone would always catch me on the fall. But you know, it's easy to do it when there's someone always there for you. There's no science in falling if there's someone always there to help you to get up. There's no bravery in living as a child when there's always a grown up to worry for you. There's no magic in daring to be crazy when sensibility lies in someone who watches over you."

"Just think, I was always thought how to be Calypso, and the Odysseus of this world sooner or later come to me. Weak at first, lost, sometimes. They crave my stability, the supporting pilar to their life of adventure. Then they despise me, for I'm not like them, I can't jump because I need to catch them. I can't risk, because I need protect their losses. I can't fly, because someone needs to hold their hands."

"You may not believe, but it breaks my heart no to be like them. It's all I want from life. I want to dare, I want to risk, I want to be the child who has no concerns. It's so easy for them for they have me. But when I try... well, when I try I fall, and it hurts. I risk and I fail. I look down, and the ground is hard, it's painful when no there's one to catch you, you know? Because an Odysseus doesn't stay to hold you. They fear your weakness, and they run away."

"Oh yes, I'm week too, couldn't you tell? I just hide it, because no one dares to face a weak Calypso. Only Odysseus can be weak, it's part of their charm. Not us, not the Calypsos. When we finally dare, we find the ultimate truth, we're alone, and there's no one there to hold us and help us to get on our feet again. No! Weakness is a luxury we can't afford. It's the only luxury I dream of."

She looked at me in silence. I could almost guess a tear in her eye. After what it seemed a eternity, she finally spoke: "I want to be your Calypso. You need to finally let your Odysseus come out. You need to be whole, you can't only live on one side of life. Yes. I'm your safe harbour now. You found your Calypso."


That was six years ago. I remember it as if it had been today. Today I still have the same smile. The same perseverance. The same serenity.

She left after her wounds were healed. She left after she found herself again.

And me? I let her go. No need for words when life is stronger than them. Nothing was new. Nothing was unexpected. Nature simply followed its course.

So what now? It's simple. I'll stay... waiting. Waiting for nothing in particular. She won't return. Odysseus never do. Life never turns back. I'll wait for the future instead. Trying to live with myself. Learning to be myself, eternally... simply being Calypso.

I let her go...


j.c.

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http://www.vega.net
http://setlists.vega.net
http://rustedpipe.vega.net

j.c.—you wrote:

"And me? I let her go. No need for words when life is stronger than them. Nothing was new. Nothing was unexpected. Nature simply followed its course.

So what now? It's simple. I'll stay... waiting. Waiting for nothing in particular. She won't return. Odysseus never do. Life never turns back. I'll wait for the future instead. Trying to live with myself. Learning to be myself, eternally... simply being Calypso.

I let her go... "

While much can be said about all that you've written, knowing you as I do, these are the words that remain etched in my mind as your 'natural essence.'

I am lucky that our paths in life have crossed....hopefully one day they will not be just 'virtual.'

Thank you for sharing this.

Much Love—
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

Catherine, I've been mailing you, but I don't think you've been receiving me. Please be in touch soon.

-- Spikes

P.S.: Sorry for the thread hijack, but Catherine obviously reads this one ;).

Spikey,

I just received your mail yesterday (an old one of ours that you came across)! Don't know what's going on, but I'll write back to you from my usual addy—if I don't get a quick confirmation from you, I'll write from another (Yahoo).

Sorry for the (double) hijack in this thread, folks. Although time is difficult for us all—I don't want to lose 2 important friends because of some e-mail glitch.

xx/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

It is quite a strange thing that the experiences we think the most personal ones are indeed shared by others and, what's more, expressed in a way we could assume (except your talent for writing, I mean).
I see, José Carlos, we've had two experiences very much alike, by several threads where we've met. Such things always astonish me.

Only, I must say I doubt serenity, for myself at least.

Back to the song, 'it's a lonely time ahead' - not that we are alone after that, but somebody
inside is, and will be. I think Calypso will spend the rest of her immortal life on the shore, though active she may be elsewhere.


'I let her/him go'... I can't think of anything more brave in a man's life.

The worst partings, for me, other than deaths, are those I look back upon feeling that my good-byes were inadequate or nonexistant.

You can never make a second first impression and too often we find we didn't let friends know how much they'd be missed.

Dear Cantabile, thanks for your kind words.

"It is quite a strange thing that the experiences we think the most personal ones are indeed shared by others"

That's what keeps me posting here. Knowing exactly that, as Hugo Westerlund uses to say "the more we get in touch with our most private self, the more we find a common ground with the others". The Undertow taught me that. And I guess that's what Suzanne means with "somewhere inside of us we must be similar, if not the same" from "Left Of Center"

Back to "Calypso", consider that post my "song in the wind".

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Dear Catherine, what to say? With you around Solitude leaves through the window...

j.c.

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http://www.vega.net
http://setlists.vega.net
http://rustedpipe.vega.net

Today nostalgia made me listen to a song that is probably the first pop song I ever liked: Phil Collins' "Against All Odds". I was much younger back then, and I associate this song to the moment I started listening to the radio, and became interested by the pop music phenomenon. It was a kind of first love. Maybe for that, it's a song I still like.

Well, and what makes me write about it here? I was paying more attention to the lyrics and found the final bit very interesting:

Take good a look at me now,
'cos I'll still be standing here
And you coming back to me is against all odds
That's the chance I've got to take
Just take a look at me now


Was it Calypso saying this? It could have been. The "standing here" waiting with no hope for a return sounds familiar...

j.c

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http://www.vega.net
http://setlists.vega.net
http://rustedpipe.vega.net

Someone used to say (or sing? But it was in Italian I think...) :
"If you love him/her, let him/her go"...

Harder to do than to say, sometimes.

As for parting, this word always reminds Emily Dickinson's poem, ending with:
"...Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell."
...and if even an immortal being as Calypso couldn't help but part with her beloved one...

I felt like Calypso quite a few times with a few people, but I also wonder if to some other people I might have seemed more like an Odysseus, in a neverending chain...

Just a few thoughts.

Miki

I also noticed the role of nature in the song :
[...]I took him into me
[...]my garden overflows

and so on... I believe that in the song Calypso is also the island itself. From that point of view, the story is a bit different : Calypso is earthly, so to speak, and thus limited to the small land she owns/is, while Odysseus is the one who came from the sea and made her clear that her island, although beautifull and magical, is a desert without love. Earth and sea with love burning in between. But at the same time, he got tired of her and of love maybe, longing for his own land, as if love couldn't be but a parenthesis in one's life.
Who saved who, finally? I admire the Calypso that SV portrays in the song and I wonder if she would be so great without her love for Odysseus. She saved also herself from a greater downfall when she let him go.

Don't know. Just a fancy I had listening to the song tonight.
What do you think?