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penfieldFolk singer Dar Williams sings a song called "Iowa." SKB had introduced me to the music of Dar Williams by playing me the girl-power anthem "As Cool As I Am" and the sentimentally relevant "Southern California Wants to Be Western New York." But it wasn't until I bought the album "Mortal City" that I found "Iowa," which rung me like a bell. It's a pretty song, but more than that, to me it sounds like Truth. Writing the lyrics don't really do it justice; maybe someone will be kind enough to link to an mp3 or something. Until then, my take:
Iowa by Dar Williams
I've never had a way with women
but the hills of Iowa
make me wish that I could
The first line of this song is always a little jarring to me. Dar Williams, for the uninitiated, is a woman. I don't wish to suggest that there's something wrong with women getting along with each other. But "having a way" with women usually implies a certain kind of way, a romantic way, a seductive way, a way that commonly results in kissing. Still, it resonates with me. I mean, what man doesn't want to have more of a way with women? Even if you already have a way, guys are always looking for a better way, a different way, or a variety of ways. So it's still a great line. The initial gender-bending simply makes me wonder if she's writing this song from a man's point of view, or if it's just coming from an earthy and feminine place.
Speaking of earthy and feminine places, she goes on to talk about the hills of Iowa and how it makes her wish she had a way with women. I've never been to Iowa. I'm willing and eager to believe that the lush, rolling hills, carved by glaciers eons and eons ago, are emblematic of a woman's curves. It's a very sensual image. I grew up in the suburbs of Western New York, which I suppose has its share of hills, and all they ever made me long for were a toboggan or anti-lock brakes.
And I've never found a way to say "I love you",
but if the chance came by, oh I,
I would
I could think of a zillion ways to say "I love you," most of which are not illegal. I've tried roughly half of them. But I know exactly what she means. She's talking about those times when you want to grab someone and wrap them in your coat, kiss them so the hairs stand up on the back of their neck, but. But the timing just seems wrong. Or you're too wrapped up in feeling it to communicate it. Or the other person isn't ready to hear it, or believe it, or want it.
And then, even if and when everyone is ready, you wait for that moment, that obvious moment to make your move, and it never comes. Or maybe you look back and realize that you missed it. Man, does that suck.
Personally, it has always been my policy to tell people how I feel about them at every opportunity, as soon as possible, because you never know when you're going to get another chance. This inevitably, understandably, gets me in a lot of trouble. But when the game is over, I'm going to know that I didn't hold anything back or leave anything unsaid. That, to me, would be the greater tragedy.
But way back where I come from
we never mean to bother,
we don't like to make our passions other people's concern
And we walk in the world of safe people
and at night we walk into our houses and burn.
Williams comes from Cambridge and Northampton, Massachussets. But I don't think that's really important. To me, the place she's talking about sounds a lot like any big city. We walk to work and school en masse, totally ignorant of each individual's drama. We are in fact insulated by the excess of humanity, so overwhelmed by the hugeness of the crowd that we turn our thoughts inward. Meanwhile, we naturally assimilate ourselves into that crowd, blending in, trying not to let our fears and desires reach the surface where everyone can touch them. And at the end of the day, even after our meals and our TV and our socializing, we lay in our own beds and confront the things we've been avoiding.
(chorus:)
Iowa, oh-ohh. Iowa, Oh-woh-oh-woh, I, Iowa
Iowa, oh-ohh. Iowa, Oh-woh-oh-woh, I, Iowa
Iowa.
How I long to fall
just a little bit,
to dance out of the lines
and stray from the light
The first inkling of love is always the best, because it's so brand new. That first discovery, like learning a secret nobody else knows, is a wonderful fall indeed. And, counter-intuitively, it brings with it a sense of freedom and independence because new love is a celebration of that you-ness; to be loved by another person, to be someone's favorite, is a validation of all the things that makes you so unique. "Somebody loves me. Fuck everything else, I'm gonna dance."
But I fear that to fall in love with you
is to fall from a great and gruesome height
To fall in love with anyone is to fall from a great height, which is what makes the experience so intoxicating. But the gruesomeness of the fall illustrates the inherent dangers. It's a brutally accurate metaphor, really: when you fall and no one is there to catch you, you can practically hear and feel the terrific SPLAT. I don't know that there are some people for whom the jump is higher -- it's pretty easy from any height to make an adequately satisfying SPLAT -- but it always feels like each jump is special and especially gruesome.
So you know I asked a friend about it, on a bad day,
her husband had just left her,
she sat down on the chair he'd left behind
She said,
"What is love? Where did it get me?
Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine."
(chorus)
Williams has a remarkable talent for writing characters and story and dialogue into her lyrics, and she paints a vivid picture here. You can practically see the poor woman scrunched in a crappy old chair -- a chair now stained by his mere fleeting ownership of it -- shaking off tears long enough to wax cynical about love. And if you haven't said these same words to yourself at some point and really believed them, then my friend, you haven't lived enough.
I have no doubt that this woman believes what she's saying. I've believed it. And yet, this woman, this jaded girl, this shipwreck, will eventually pull herself out of that chair and try again. And so, what is the greater delusion: to believe that love is fallacy, or to believe that love is a savior?
Is there something in between -- an acceptance of love as a flawed but useful societal construct? Maybe this idea exists subconsciously, or on a primal level, but I don't think anyone knowingly operates that way. I think we all thoughtfully shift between believing and not believing, and popular art, music, religion and entertainment are designed to keep the believers outnumbering the non-believers. This imbalance probably makes for a more peaceful world, though perhaps less interesting.
Once I had everything
I gave it up
for the shoulder of your driveway and the words I've never felt
This is what it feels like to pursue another person, to leave behind everything we have and everything we know in order to play a game in which the odds are aligned against us. We are dumb and desperate enough to perch on the outskirts of a driveway, coiled like a spring but filled with little more than disorganized thoughts and potential energy.
And so for you, I came this far across the tracks,
ten miles above the limit and with no seatbelt (and I'd do it again)
Told in retrospect, the pursuit gets hotter and scarier. We have ventured "across the tracks," into dangerous territory. Fueled by urgency, we raced to our destination; the world around us a blur except for a single point on our horizon. In our haste, we discarded all notions of safety, not out of recklessness but because these moments are simply what we stay alive for.
These chase scenes are thrilling and spectacular -- while they last. They rarely actually end well. Steep odds, as I said, rarely make for big winners. We all know this, really. And yet, we will do it again and again and again, sometimes with the very same person, not just for the chance at victory but for the thrill of the chase itself.
For tonight I went running
Through the screen doors of discretion
For I woke up from a nightmare that I could not stand to see:
You were a-wandering out on the hills of Iowa
and you were not thinking of me.
(chorus x3)
I love that image, a person obliterating all sense of propriety as if they were tearing through a screen door. A screen door is the perfect analogy for discretion, really, because through it you can see the other side, feel the heat, smell the perfume, hear the voices. But still, you know there's something tangible -- if flimsy -- between you and outright lunacy.
To make this leap requires either great courage or a frenzied lack of self-awareness -- the latter of which could be dramatized by the awakening from a nightmare. But it is an unusual kind of nightmare that Williams sings about here; there is no violence or disfigurement or destruction here. It is a more subtle, core-shaking tragedy she speaks of: when the object of our affection simply does not see us. Call it blindness, indifference, bad taste or bad timing, it all means the same thing. SPLAT.
But then we pick ourselves up and come back to Iowa, where we start to think about our way with women -- or someone else's way with us -- and eventually we climb out of that chair (which is not making us any less sore), maybe believing now, and we resolve to do it again.
And again, and again.
Iowa by Dar Williams
I've never had a way with women
but the hills of Iowa
make me wish that I could
The first line of this song is always a little jarring to me. Dar Williams, for the uninitiated, is a woman. I don't wish to suggest that there's something wrong with women getting along with each other. But "having a way" with women usually implies a certain kind of way, a romantic way, a seductive way, a way that commonly results in kissing. Still, it resonates with me. I mean, what man doesn't want to have more of a way with women? Even if you already have a way, guys are always looking for a better way, a different way, or a variety of ways. So it's still a great line. The initial gender-bending simply makes me wonder if she's writing this song from a man's point of view, or if it's just coming from an earthy and feminine place.
Speaking of earthy and feminine places, she goes on to talk about the hills of Iowa and how it makes her wish she had a way with women. I've never been to Iowa. I'm willing and eager to believe that the lush, rolling hills, carved by glaciers eons and eons ago, are emblematic of a woman's curves. It's a very sensual image. I grew up in the suburbs of Western New York, which I suppose has its share of hills, and all they ever made me long for were a toboggan or anti-lock brakes.
And I've never found a way to say "I love you",
but if the chance came by, oh I,
I would
I could think of a zillion ways to say "I love you," most of which are not illegal. I've tried roughly half of them. But I know exactly what she means. She's talking about those times when you want to grab someone and wrap them in your coat, kiss them so the hairs stand up on the back of their neck, but. But the timing just seems wrong. Or you're too wrapped up in feeling it to communicate it. Or the other person isn't ready to hear it, or believe it, or want it.
And then, even if and when everyone is ready, you wait for that moment, that obvious moment to make your move, and it never comes. Or maybe you look back and realize that you missed it. Man, does that suck.
Personally, it has always been my policy to tell people how I feel about them at every opportunity, as soon as possible, because you never know when you're going to get another chance. This inevitably, understandably, gets me in a lot of trouble. But when the game is over, I'm going to know that I didn't hold anything back or leave anything unsaid. That, to me, would be the greater tragedy.
But way back where I come from
we never mean to bother,
we don't like to make our passions other people's concern
And we walk in the world of safe people
and at night we walk into our houses and burn.
Williams comes from Cambridge and Northampton, Massachussets. But I don't think that's really important. To me, the place she's talking about sounds a lot like any big city. We walk to work and school en masse, totally ignorant of each individual's drama. We are in fact insulated by the excess of humanity, so overwhelmed by the hugeness of the crowd that we turn our thoughts inward. Meanwhile, we naturally assimilate ourselves into that crowd, blending in, trying not to let our fears and desires reach the surface where everyone can touch them. And at the end of the day, even after our meals and our TV and our socializing, we lay in our own beds and confront the things we've been avoiding.
(chorus:)
Iowa, oh-ohh. Iowa, Oh-woh-oh-woh, I, Iowa
Iowa, oh-ohh. Iowa, Oh-woh-oh-woh, I, Iowa
Iowa.
How I long to fall
just a little bit,
to dance out of the lines
and stray from the light
The first inkling of love is always the best, because it's so brand new. That first discovery, like learning a secret nobody else knows, is a wonderful fall indeed. And, counter-intuitively, it brings with it a sense of freedom and independence because new love is a celebration of that you-ness; to be loved by another person, to be someone's favorite, is a validation of all the things that makes you so unique. "Somebody loves me. Fuck everything else, I'm gonna dance."
But I fear that to fall in love with you
is to fall from a great and gruesome height
To fall in love with anyone is to fall from a great height, which is what makes the experience so intoxicating. But the gruesomeness of the fall illustrates the inherent dangers. It's a brutally accurate metaphor, really: when you fall and no one is there to catch you, you can practically hear and feel the terrific SPLAT. I don't know that there are some people for whom the jump is higher -- it's pretty easy from any height to make an adequately satisfying SPLAT -- but it always feels like each jump is special and especially gruesome.
So you know I asked a friend about it, on a bad day,
her husband had just left her,
she sat down on the chair he'd left behind
She said,
"What is love? Where did it get me?
Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine."
(chorus)
Williams has a remarkable talent for writing characters and story and dialogue into her lyrics, and she paints a vivid picture here. You can practically see the poor woman scrunched in a crappy old chair -- a chair now stained by his mere fleeting ownership of it -- shaking off tears long enough to wax cynical about love. And if you haven't said these same words to yourself at some point and really believed them, then my friend, you haven't lived enough.
I have no doubt that this woman believes what she's saying. I've believed it. And yet, this woman, this jaded girl, this shipwreck, will eventually pull herself out of that chair and try again. And so, what is the greater delusion: to believe that love is fallacy, or to believe that love is a savior?
Is there something in between -- an acceptance of love as a flawed but useful societal construct? Maybe this idea exists subconsciously, or on a primal level, but I don't think anyone knowingly operates that way. I think we all thoughtfully shift between believing and not believing, and popular art, music, religion and entertainment are designed to keep the believers outnumbering the non-believers. This imbalance probably makes for a more peaceful world, though perhaps less interesting.
Once I had everything
I gave it up
for the shoulder of your driveway and the words I've never felt
This is what it feels like to pursue another person, to leave behind everything we have and everything we know in order to play a game in which the odds are aligned against us. We are dumb and desperate enough to perch on the outskirts of a driveway, coiled like a spring but filled with little more than disorganized thoughts and potential energy.
And so for you, I came this far across the tracks,
ten miles above the limit and with no seatbelt (and I'd do it again)
Told in retrospect, the pursuit gets hotter and scarier. We have ventured "across the tracks," into dangerous territory. Fueled by urgency, we raced to our destination; the world around us a blur except for a single point on our horizon. In our haste, we discarded all notions of safety, not out of recklessness but because these moments are simply what we stay alive for.
These chase scenes are thrilling and spectacular -- while they last. They rarely actually end well. Steep odds, as I said, rarely make for big winners. We all know this, really. And yet, we will do it again and again and again, sometimes with the very same person, not just for the chance at victory but for the thrill of the chase itself.
For tonight I went running
Through the screen doors of discretion
For I woke up from a nightmare that I could not stand to see:
You were a-wandering out on the hills of Iowa
and you were not thinking of me.
(chorus x3)
I love that image, a person obliterating all sense of propriety as if they were tearing through a screen door. A screen door is the perfect analogy for discretion, really, because through it you can see the other side, feel the heat, smell the perfume, hear the voices. But still, you know there's something tangible -- if flimsy -- between you and outright lunacy.
To make this leap requires either great courage or a frenzied lack of self-awareness -- the latter of which could be dramatized by the awakening from a nightmare. But it is an unusual kind of nightmare that Williams sings about here; there is no violence or disfigurement or destruction here. It is a more subtle, core-shaking tragedy she speaks of: when the object of our affection simply does not see us. Call it blindness, indifference, bad taste or bad timing, it all means the same thing. SPLAT.
But then we pick ourselves up and come back to Iowa, where we start to think about our way with women -- or someone else's way with us -- and eventually we climb out of that chair (which is not making us any less sore), maybe believing now, and we resolve to do it again.
And again, and again.
