Recessional revisited

[Strider]

Anyone consider that 'Recessional' could describe a dream Vienna had during a snooze in an airport terminal?


Blue Caravan

The first song on the album sets up a thesis. You know the story. Girl dreams all her life of soulmate. Girl dates series of guys that turn out not to be 'the one'. Dry desperation ensues. Girl loses faith in her childhood vision, and gives up on soulmate. Emptiness fills the void.

Some posters here have equated this theme to a search for God. This view resonates with the album's theme in that finding God is indeed very much like finding a lost lover, as marriage is the metaphor for uniting with God most powerfully used in the Christian scriptures. But the last song, I think, fixes the theme firmly in the earthly realm.


Recessional

A dream in the terminal. Who can guide where dreams go? Who can say what they do? Or hear what they say? Dreams have minds of their own.

So the last song is perhaps an answer to the thesis. What can sometimes happen when you give up on guys. Who is to say it's the correct answer? Or not?

A dream in the terminal. She wakes to find the object of her night vision fast asleep, her face buried in her corduroy jacket. And her four walls, her paradigm, transformed. Who is this stranger in the shell of a lover whom with she encountered so intimately in a dream? A dream that fades with each passing minute like a dark descending curtain.

But she remembers her words from the dream, this moment now. The dream has changed her view of her bandmate. And now she has to work with her as if nothing had happened. Perhaps nothing did. But who can say what dreams can do?

Yes, it is a speculative interpretation to be sure. And who is to say that it really happened, given Vienna's penchant for blending inner truth with fictional circumstances the way the best novelists do.

The imagery in Recessional feels very real to me, too real to have not been personally experienced. I can also very much relate to the yearning and disillusion of Blue Caravan -- in this song I live.

In counterpoint I quote from the movie Flashdance: "When you give up your dream, you die. "

Regards,
Strider

P.S. This is my first post here. Hiya!

[Ginny]

Hi Strider, welcome to the forums. I think I can only move your topic to another forum rather than add it to another topic in the same forum. You could copy & paste this one to the thread you want it in and I could delete this one if you like. Or maybe Eric can help you with your orig. request! ~Ginny

[darthscsi]

(channeling Ginny): Hi Strider! (ok, done channeling)

I'm pretty sure that the dreaming going on in Recessional is simply dreaming of where to put the bookcases in the new appartment. Furniture layout is very important and can haunt your dreams for weeks when you move! (Seriously! and smaller spaces are that much harder) Especially when suffering from jet lag from staying up way too late at the airport (really, you could have called in the morning). Fortunately tonight things are quiet, probably because the cold and blinding rain has driven everyone inside. If only you knew where to put the bookcases, then all your books wouldn't be lying around useless anymore!

But if you want to believe your interpretation, well, that's fine by me.

[Ginny]

(channeling Ginny): Hi Strider! (ok, done channeling)

Ooh you have superpowers! If I could have superpowers I'd want to be able to shoot fireballs out of my eyes. I decided that yesterday while working with a high school trumpet player who is so good some of the time and so lazy the rest of the time. I thought if I could just shoot fire at him when he's having a lazy, "I'm not going to put any energy into this" day then I could make my point better. Fussing at a boy 6 inches taller than me just doesn't cut it on the whole fear factor thing. Fireballs would be much better. ~Ginny

[darthscsi]

See, now there is your problem. Dealing with high schoolers (appologies to all the high schoolers reading this.... well, only maybe).

So if I really can channel you, perhaps I need to find myself a trumpet. I suspect my channeling abilities are not that well developed though

Fireballs are nice. I have a friend who builds death rays in her research. Not quite a superpower, but might accomplish the same thing.

[Ginny]

hehe, I actually like the high schoolers I work with (usually!). They're hard to work with sometimes but when I have one that's really making no effort for more than a few weeks I tell them they're wasting their parents' money and kick 'em to the curb....I really love teaching. I enjoy the younger ones the most--the beginners and junior high kids have the cute personalities but you can do more musicially with the older ones...so I'm happy to have a mix. ~G