So far noone seems to have cared for that song(at least not in here).That's why I'd like to start this thread.Well, to me, this is the very best and most emotional song on this album.Sad to say it ends far too early like many of Suzanne's songs.Your opinions?Was this song ever played live?

Hi Ronald,

You're not alone in thinking "Song Of A Sand" is an underrated jewel. Musically it contrasts a lot with the rest of the album, but for some reason I cannot explain I always felt this contrast brings coherence to 99.9F

As for being so small, there's something magical about this song being followed (in some CD editions) by "Private Goes Public". The longer silence with Suzanne's sudden breathing just before starting the song puts both together as a perfect pair.

Was this song ever played live?

Yes, it was played for the first time in a special concert on March 2, 2003, in the Postscritp, NY, where Suzanne shared the bill with other artists. As far as I know it was the only time it was performed life, which makes it even more special.

José Carlos

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

Hello José

Thank you very much for your information.I think 'Song of Sand' does deserve to be played live more often then.I wonder what Suzanne would think of that...

I shoulda started a thread on this one a LOOOOOOOOOONG time ago.

"Song of Sand", along with "Wooden Horse", "Pilgrimage", "Rosemary", and "Neighborhood Girls" are my 5 favorite Suzanne songs. "Marching Dream" maybe would be in the top 5 and maybe a couple of others. All strong contenders.

First of all, this is a VERY TIGHT song, lyrically. The profuse alliteration here over such unforced minimalist lyrics is just too much a stroke of genius for me to withstand sometimes. And the rhythm, my God, the rhythm! Seriously, this ranks up there with "Rosemary" in terms of genius poetic songwriting.

Also, I really like the imagery and the suggestions. I always interpreted "If sand waves were sound waves, what song would be in the air now?" to be something like - okay, there is sand (or at least dirt or silt) practically everywhere on earth (all land surfaces, anyway). It has seen and felt EVERYTHING. It's like they're these unified motes of cosmic truth (please don't laugh because my articulacy is failing me) that could release the truth of the earth and the truth of history and become sound waves filling the air with their story. They could create a stinging tune (truth) that could split this endless noon (static, unevolving history?) and make the sky swell with rain, enriching the dryness of existence, flushing out the old staleness, and allowing for new life.

I didn't build that argument up very well, I realize, but I think you all can see what I was getting at.

The sheer lyrical beauty of that song combined with the immensely wonderful strings, within such a short frame of time (at only about 2 minutes, one of her shortest songs), packs quite a wallop.

Mark another one in the genius corner for Suzanne!!!

-Will/Milo

william,

your interpretation sounds fine to me and that's why "song of sand" is such a good song to embody the spirit of an album that's all about the need to act, to emerge from the inside out, to dare.

and in the versions that have "private goes public", the two work so well together because the latter is a sort of extension of the former - what happens in a cosmic sphere, to use your word, has to be reflected in an individual one, through an individual movement of daring to reveal the private in the public and the public in the private.

with affection,
fatima

Song of Sand has been one of my favourite SV songs since I first heard it. I LOVE the words-play with sand and sound and waves and noon and rain..... but what *I* think of it is not exactly the same as yours (William and Fatima). I always think of the desert when I listen to this song, and couldn't help but connecting it to the Gulf War.... The sand waves are the dunes in the desert....they fill the place and the view and the eyes and the heart of those who are there, where the sun always shines like at noon and the sky swelling with rain is such an usual sight that only a weird "stinging tune" could evoke..... and then the war bit, the madness of it... that seemed so fitting with what had happened in that war (and in so many others before and after that)!!... I always thought this was the song of a desert overwhelmed by war in the way it would be overwhelmed by rain if sand turned into sound stinging the sky.... Of course I'm not that good at explaining my ideas, and anyway the song speaks for itself much better ... I love the violins bit too..so touching, so moving.....

Miki

hi miki,

let me clear my interpretation a bit more. i agree that war (any war) is one of the themes of "song of sand" - how could i not if the last 5 verses talk eloquently of its "madness", as you say, and paradoxes? but its first 5 verses, to me, indelibly root the song in an abstract place, a "big space", "a wide flat land", a "flat field", more of an inner place than an outer one. and war is also something waged in an outer and inner dimension, with maybe an emphasis on the latter, to me anyway. hence the symmetry of the two sets of verses and the question mark at their end, as if to ask, is there a way out, an answer, some humanity?

in "the passionate eye" there's a poem called "in the flat field". let me transcribe what i think is the most significant part for this discussion:

"I'll tell you about my flat field.
As flat as a desert
twice as long and dry
I will be forever marching
looking for the limits
hoping there's something
underneath.

In the flat field
with nothing hidden.
No shade or shelter,
one stripped land.
No hiding here,
No relief."

to me, just like in "fat man & dancing girl", "song of sand" is set in a mental, abstract place (i liked william's interpretation because it was filled with abstractions), where you look for what's "underneath" and where there's "no relief". "nothing hidden" - a time comes when you have to come out of your inner world, and dare to reveal it. that's why i mentioned "private goes public" in my last post.

geez, i hope i made some sense to you.

with affection,
fatima

I am going to jump right into this very cerebral-sounding thread, even though I have not been very cerebral-feeling as of late.

Fatima, when I read your post, it occurred to me that "no relief" is double-edged, meaning both a lack of elevation, as well as a lack of easing up. I didn't *get* this before! (see what I mean about lacking in the brain area!!!)

It makes sooo much sense in how I perceive you are interpreting this theme: in the abstract, there are no dimensions, surface and depth don't mean the same thing when we are out of concrete reality. Suzanne goes "underneath" often in her songs, her poetry. She goes to that abstract side where perceptions of concrete reality are used to hint at more, in a way which is so universal as to not take away from our own perspective's ability to look "from our own direction."

William, when I hear the idea of sandwaves being soundwaves, a Jewish saying comes to mind about G-d saying things every day, emminating from Sinai. The Talmud asks, "Why take the time to tell us this is we can't hear what G-d is saying?" The answer is that we CAN, if we just tune in... That's why I think this song also reminds me of the Gulf War (like Miki!) because there was such madness, such chaos, but such miracles, if we could just tune in!!!

And it resonates for me now as well. My mother lives in Israel, and her husband walked from Iraq, where he was born, to Israel. She thought the war on Iraq, on Saddam, was a great thing. I didn't blame her, for she had to go through the hell of sitting in a sealed room with her husband doing his army service! But I couldn't help feeling the war was wrong, unjustified. And now the American Public is realizing how unjustified it was.

All this because we haven't "tuned in" to the sand/soundwaves of our own inner landscapes, our own motivations...

Sorry for rambling, but enjoying the 'tow...

Miriam K

hi miriam,

yes, you say it beautifully: "'no relief' is double-edged, meaning both a lack of elevation, as well as a lack of easing up". in my last post i was going to make another connection, but then i refrained myself.

it was with the song "penitent", because in it the struggle is about filling those lacks you talk about through a process of being both humble and daring enough to "tune in", as you rightly put it, to the "You" in each of us. thank you - your words made me want to mention this song and this aspect of it after all.

love,
fatima

I love Song of Sand, too, I can listen to it endlessly, as I am doing now. It has been playing for 20 minutes. Thanks, you tuned me up to listen to this song again.

As for interpretation. I can't stop thinking about Woman in the Dunes while listening to this song. I don't want to interpret whole book, especially that I read it long ago, but it comes to my mind that in that book sand and water have their's own life. Sand and water are connected somehow. The woman doesn't use water to wash the dishes but sand instead of water and the man finally came up with idea how to produce water from sand. It seems that matters of things mix up and penetrate each other, are changing depending on our world where we live in. All is unpredictable like that man in book, who finally has changed himself and his perception and adapts to new circumstances.

As war is not a game where someone is winning, so water is not sand, but it seems they are the for some people in some circumstances which are independing on their free will. As far for some fools, and the question is where is that rule what can overthrow them and kill the illusions of free will which they created for personal purposes and only in their mind.

In our mind even tune can split the noon and brings rain.

I am thinking of all this while listening to Song of Sand

be well

Anna Maria K.

---

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

So great that this song has FINALLY generated some conversation. I just wanted to say to people whose posts are subsequent to mine that YES, it IS also about war (I'm not just acquiescing here, Suzanne herself has said this and the interpretations I have put up here were arrived at before I read that she said that it WAS about or prompted by the Gulf war, and I still go back to my own interpretation because whether or not Suzanne intended the words to mean that, the interpretation can still work).

Write on!

-M

I'm not on the right frame of mind do delve into the beautiful posts written in this thread (my favourite thread at the moment - thank you beautiful people), but I'd like to add two personal points of view, as I tend to see the song split into two parts

1) "If sand waves were sound waves" reminds me of "If language were liquid" or "water through a rusted pipe would make the sense that I do". In all these songs a physical element is used to explain the limitations of communication. The image on my mind is of a dune lazily moving and changing its shape under the power of the wind, and under the "stinging" effect of the sun. A song slowly forming under dominant influences from the exterior, where once again language is seen as sterile.

2) "If war were a game that a man or a child could think of winning" reminds me of "Rock In This Pocket", where the "game" between the weak and the strong is also played. The strong being the power in command, forceful, faceless, fool, and the weak being those who are forced to obey to that power, keeping the hope of overthrowing it one day. And this power may be a dictatorship, but also any simple daily impersonal situation ("Institution Green", in my mind, here).

Anyway the first Gulf War had just happened, so Miki is probably right when suggesting that it could have helped to provide the imagery for this song.

Your friend,
José Carlos

---

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

Hi again!

> YES, it IS also about war (I'm not just acquiescing here, Suzanne > herself has said this and the interpretations I have put up here were > arrived at before I read that she said that it WAS about or prompted > by the Gulf war, and I still go back to my own interpretation because > whether or not Suzanne intended the words to mean that, the > interpretation can still work). > > Write on! > > -M

Where did you find Suzanne actually saying it's about the Gulf War?? Because that is something I always guessed, but I can't remember reading anything clearly stated about it!

Thanks for any info!

Miki (always curious about sources of Vega's interpretations...)

I have to say I'm very suprised that nobody sees "sand waves" as being a symbol of the passage of time.

The lyrics are a classically composed riddle. The Spynx may ask, "What creature has four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?"

Song of sand presents itself in that context.

"If sand waves were sound waves, what song would be in the air now?"

Sand waves are time. Sound waves are the sound of a song. We know it's a song because next she asks...

"What stinging tune could split this endless noon and make the sky swell with rain?"

And there we see that in her journey across this flat, endless desert of time, she longs for the releif of a good, hard rain. Such releif comes in the form of a song.

In a second, related riddle, she asks, "If war were a game that a man or a child could think of winning, what kind of rule could overthrow a fool and leave the land with no stain?"

War is for men as games are for children, but either way she's talking about a contest. She is saying, "I'm the one who sings to soothe your pain, but who will sing to soothe mine? And how will I ever hear that song? And what kind of shield can protect me from the absurd and disturbing strangers who would try for my heart?

Remember, when she wrote this song, she was much younger, and had never been married.

Patrick:

Getting back to the tow after having been absent for several days.

I didn't TOTALLY get into your post (due to ADD, etc.) but your final point shocks me because I never thought of THAT before and I think that you could be DEAD-ON. This would ALSO fall in line with the Leonard Cohen interview (Cohen interviewing SV, that is) that happened around the time of this album, the same interview that's in "Passionate Eye" because one of the main cruxes of that interview was the conclusion that 99.9F, the album, was, among other things of course, a "mating call" for SV. If I remember correctly, that is.

I'm not TOTALLY assenting to your argument Patrick, but I do think that you are REALLY onto something, and it is a very interesting argument and, as I said before, would fall in line with the Cohen interview I talked about.

-Milo/Will