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Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 00:19:08 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hugo Westerlund ipm <Hugo.Westerlund@ipm.ki.se>
To: Undertow <undertow@law.lawlib.emory.edu>
Subject: Steel side of the knife
Good reply to Newsweek, Suzanne! And thanks for posting it, Jeremy.
Here are a couple of lines I've been thinking about a lot:
Did you ever keep the date
With the steel side of the knife
I'm fascinated by them, but they fail to make any "sense" to me. I'd like to know what *you* make of them...
In the newsgroup rec.music.folk I found the first Internet comment on Suzanne's participation in the Passim benefit -- someone wrote that she spent a lot of time talking about being a new mother. (Want to share some of that with us on Undertow, Suzanne?) Didn't anybody on Undertow see her? I'd love to read a review...
The latest news about Song of Tower, the Cohen tribute featuring Suzanne, is that it will be released in the UK on 27 February. It's about time ... but who knows if it's the final date...
Later,
/Hugo
Hugo.Westerlund@ipm.ki.se
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 17:44:24 -0600 (GMT-0600)
From: Irvin Fei-Chiang Lin <iflin@artsci.wustl.edu>
Cc: Undertow <undertow@law.lawlib.emory.edu>
Subject: Re: Steel side of the knife
On Sun, 12 Feb 1995, Hugo Westerlund ipm wrote:
>
> Good reply to Newsweek, Suzanne! And thanks for posting it, Jeremy.
i agree!!
> Here are a couple of lines I've been thinking about a lot:
>
> Did you ever keep the date
> With the steel side of the knife
>
> I'm fascinated by them, but they fail to make any "sense" to me. I'd like
> to know what *you* make of them...
i had thought that the song it was from "as girls go" was about transvestism and cross dressing and the whole transgendered community, and that thos particular two lines deal with the actual physical operation of a sex change, and suzanne was wondering if the cross dresser actually was a physical "woman" or a man dressed as a woman....
of course i might be wrong. i would love to hear suzanne's little story about how that song came about and if she is actually friends with a crossdresser (no i don't cross dress, but i wrote and presented a paper on crossdressing and the politics of drag...)
suzanne?
irvin
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 95 16:05:20 PST
From: John Relph <relph@presto.ig.com>
Cc: Undertow <undertow@law.lawlib.emory.edu>
Subject: Re: Steel side of the knife
>Here are a couple of lines I've been thinking about a lot:
>
> Did you ever keep the date
> With the steel side of the knife
>
>I'm fascinated by them, but they fail to make any "sense" to me. I'd like
>to know what *you* make of them...
My simple interpretation is this: The narrator is asking the he who makes a beautiful girl (as girls go) whether or not he ever actually underwent the transsexual operation. Went "under the knife". The steel side of the knife is the end with the point; the other side is the hilt (a much safer side to be on). "Did you ever get surgically changed from a man to a woman?"
So there it is.
-- John
--
http://www.ig.com/~relph/
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 21:03:31 -0500 (EST)
From: Deborah Sah <dsah@math.sunysb.edu>
Cc: Undertow <undertow@law.lawlib.emory.edu>
Subject: Re: Steel side of the knife
On Sun, 12 Feb 1995, Hugo Westerlund ipm wrote:
>
> Here are a couple of lines I've been thinking about a lot:
>
> Did you ever keep the date
> With the steel side of the knife
>
> I'm fascinated by them, but they fail to make any "sense" to me. I'd like
> to know what *you* make of them...
>
> /Hugo
>
> Hugo.Westerlund@ipm.ki.se
I don't have the rest of the lrics in front of me, but off-hand, I would
say it's either a suicide or a murder, but something invloving death, or
killing... What else would you need a knife for- besides cutting
something. It seems pretty basty, "the steel side" and all.
shrug.
deborah.
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 95 20:16:13 -0800
From: Tim Hunter <tim@Synopsys.COM>
To: Undertow <undertow@law.lawlib.emory.edu>
Subject: Re: Steel side of the knife
#On Sun, 12 Feb 1995, Hugo Westerlund ipm wrote:
#
#> Here are a couple of lines I've been thinking about a lot:
#>
#> Did you ever keep the date
#> With the steel side of the knife
#>
#> I'm fascinated by them, but they fail to make any "sense" to me. I'd
like
#> to know what *you* make of them...
It always seemed to me to be a question of whether or not the person who makes "a really good girl, as girls go" has had a sex change operation, to put it bluntly.
tim
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 10:28:40 +1100
From: Rex Bing Hung Kwok <rkwok@karl.cs.su.OZ.AU>
Reply to: rkwok@cs.su.oz.au
To: undertow@law.lawlib.emory.edu
Subject: Steel side of the knife
From hugwes@ki.se Sun Feb 12 10:48:05 1995
Here are a couple of lines I've been thinking about a lot:
Did you ever keep the date
With the steel side of the knife
I'm fascinated by them, but they fail to make any "sense" to me. I'd like to know what *you* make of them...
I thought that the date would be that with a surgeon for a change of sex operation. Steel side of the knife I guess refers to the hard edge of a surgeons scalpel.
rex
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 00:52:52 -0500
From: TIMEWARP23@aol.com
To: rkwok@cs.su.oz.au
Cc: undertow@law.lawlib.emory.edu
Subject: Re: Steel side of the knife
>Here are a couple of lines I've been thinking about a lot:
> Did you ever keep the date
> With the steel side of the knife
I find all of these interpretations interesting, but I have always had a different view of these lines.
People often link a transvestite or other "deviant" automatically to a deeper sexual deviantcy. This is similar to those who see all gay people as child molesters. I see the lines as asking did you ever "keep the date," as in consumate the relationship using force, "the steel side of the knife." In other words, being a "deviant," have you raped ever raped an unsuspecting schmoe that didn't have a clue until the last second.
This is just my view. We all see things from our own biases, and, being involved with the Rocky Horror Picture Show, I have built up my own set on observations based to those that dress up like a girl for pleasure or any other reason. A simple deviation is often seen as a sign of something deeper and more sinsister to someone who doesn't understand it.
--davey
Dave LeFevre
timewarp23@aol.com
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 22:33:30 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hugo Westerlund ipm <Hugo.Westerlund@ipm.ki.se>
To: Undertow <undertow@law.lawlib.emory.edu>
Subject: Re: Steel side of the knife
Thanks for all the interesting replies to my question about the Steel side of the knife!
The majority seems to be for surgery. Another theory is that the knife refers to violence or rape. Both interpretations seem valid to me. But there is another, more far-fetched thought that has stayed in my mind.
Let's chronicle
The dark side of a life
Did you ever keep the date
With the steel side of the knife
'Date' could have several meanings: a doctor's appointment (certainly in line with a main theme on the album), a sexual date (which seems equally plausible). The word 'chronicle', however, suggests that there could be another meaning as well: the day of the month and year. If I remember it correctly, Robinson Crusoe would "keep the date" by cutting a mark in a stick for each day that passed. This practice goes far back in history -- some of the earliest calenders were sticks, where the important (often astronomical) dates had been marked. This also reminds me of hunters, who cut a mark in the butt of their rifles for each animal (or human being) they kill. It is not a question of *measuring* time, it is a way of *marking* time, of making something more real than the ordinary flow of things -- a bit like pinching yourself to make sure that you are awake (alive).
Psychologically, this is related to the antisocial behaviour mentioned by a couple of posters, but it is also a part of healthy functioning, as pointed out by Eliade in his excellent book The Sacred & The Profane: "For religious man time ... is neither homogenous nor continuous. On the one hand there are the intervals of sacred time, the time of festivals ...; on the other there is profane time, ordinary temporal duration, in which acts without religious meaning have their setting. Between these two kinds of time there is, of course, solution of continuity; but by means of rites religious man can pass without danger from ordinary temporal duration to sacred time."
Without danger this passage need not be, though. Often the highest and the lowest lie perilously close together. Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaak is but one example. By taking things to their extreme, perhaps by an act of violence, or by surgery, we hope to find the essence of existence:
I wanted to learn all the secrets
from the edge of a knife
From the point of a needle
from a diamond
from a bullet in flight
I would be free then
Is this what the transvestite is trying to do? Perhaps. The interpretation is somewhat far-fetched, I admit, but very compelling to me. Does it make sense to anyone else? Any comments?
***
Finally, I want to express my gratitude to Eric for the work he has done to set up a WorlWideWeb site for Suzanne Vega. Now it seems to be only days before it is up and working (a test version already is) -- what an amazing speed!
[I added the bold - anyone reading? :) -ES ]
Later,
/Hugo
Hugo.Westerlund@ipm.ki.se
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 23:51:23 -0800
From: "Robert P. King" <bobking@well.sf.ca.us>
To: undertow@law.lawlib.emory.edu
Subject: Steel Side of the Knife
While I'm certainly eager to find whatever great philosophical significance resides in Suzanne's songs (witness the 79K thesis on "Wooden Horse" I posted a while back), I really have to disagree with all the metaphorical interpretations I've been reading of "As Girls Go." I think the simple, prosaic, boring interpretation makes the most sense: the song is a conversation with a crossdresser or transsexual, and the "steel side of the knife" question refers to the sex-change operation.
I'd place this song with some of the quirkier, somewhat light-hearted material that makes up a good portion of _99.9F_ (the title song, "Fat Man and Dancing Girl," "(If You Were) In My Movie," etc.) and help distinguish that album from _Days Of Open Hand_, which is so filled with hefty ruminations about life, death, one's place in the cosmos, etc. (I think my next mega-interpretation is going to be about "Those Whole Girls" or "Tired of Sleeping," or maybe just the whole album, so watch out, folks.)
Of course, this is Suzanne Vega, and her light-hearted songs are far more perceptive and intriguing than a lot of songwriters even approach in their most philosphical mode. I find a few things very perplexing about this song.
First, I get the distinct impression that this transvestite or transsexual is someone Suzanne (or the narrator, anyway) has known for at least a short time -- in his/her female guise. That's my reading of the "Still kind of look like a guy/Never though to wonder why" line: "I never thought to wonder why you have this somewhat masculine appearance." She never would have had any occasion to wonder before if they'd just met; at least that's my reasoning.
Maybe the person has just revealed his/her true birth-gender to Suzanne, and she's reacting to it. She's clearly trying to be supportive. My interpretation of "You make a really good girl/As girls go" is: "You really look good as a female, by normal female standards -- that is, keeping in mind that many women differ from the idealized female image that's always being shoved at us by popular culture." (I can't imagine that any but a small percentage of transsexuals or transvestites can conceal all traces of their male origins if you get a chance to observe them at close range. Then again, most women I know complain about being made to feel inadequate by Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue models and the like.)
Suzanne goes on to reassure him/her about her/his appearance: "Not exactly natural/stunning none the less." She also tells him/her that gender doesn't matter and the ambiguity doesn't bother her: "It doesn't matter to me/which side of the line ..."
Then Suzanne expresses her curiosity: "What happened to you ..." ("more girl than girls are" probably refers to the other person dressing/acting more femininely than biological women generally care to) and the "steel side of the knife" question. "Dark side of a life" could refer to "dark" as in hidden, since the status of a person's genitals is kind of a private matter, or dark as in "gloomy, dismal," referring to whatever trauma the person must have gone through during his/her transition.
But we also we have this really weird shift into first person early in the song, and that starts to throw my theory off: "If I could pull this off/would I know for certain/the real situation/ behind the curtain."
My main theory is that these are the thoughts of the crossdresser wondering if he can be accepted as a woman in society and, by being treated as one, learn the secrets of what many guys tend to regard as the mysteries of women's lives. (Such as, what DO they talk about in the bathroom together?)
But whose point of view is this, anyway? My guess is that we're shifting momentarily into the mind of the other person, which makes for jarring narrative but has been done before. But if that's true, why does this sound like the first time s/he has been dressed as a woman? The rest of the song makes it sound like this person has some experience at this. Is this a flashback? If so, why?
Another possibility is that this is the narrator, maybe trying to identify with the point of view of someone crossing the gender boundary and wondering what it would be like.
Or maybe the narrator has agreed to try it out and is experiencing crossdressing first-hand. But that doesn't seem to fit the rest of the song; and it really doesn't fit if the narrator is female, as I've always imagined. (The level of supportiveness from the narrator is not what I'd expect from most men who find out the woman they're talking to is/was a guy.)
Or maybe the narrator _is_ male. You could draw that conclusion from the lines "Would you ever show or tell/'cause you're so good so far," which have a distinctly flirtatious and sexual tone to them (not at all out of place on this album). So maybe we're in a "Crying Game" type of situation here. Maybe they did just meet in a bar or club, and the guy was attracted to the person based on the female appearance, just realized the situation and is curious/excited anyway. Or maybe it's a female narrator who is excited. Are these people Suzanne knows, or is this a conversation she overheard somewhere (a la "Neighborhood Girls")?
Or perhaps this is all a monologue conducted by the crossdresser looking in the mirror, musing over his life, etc. (But then why the uncertainty about the operation? Wouldn't he _know_?)
Anyway, you can see I have a number of interpretations here and can't defend any one of them with 100% certainty. Anyone else care to take a crack?
-- Bob King
bobking@gate.net
bobking@well.sf.ca.us
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 14:49:18 +0200 (METDST)
From: Hugo Westerlund ipm <Hugo.Westerlund@ipm.ki.se>
To: Undertow <undertow@law.lawlib.emory.edu>
Subject: Re: Steel Side of the Knife
Thanks for the analysis of As Girls Go, Bob. Your interpretation makes good sense, although I may add that the reality behind the song was that Suzanne used to see this (wo)man in a local restaurant -- I think (s)he was the waitress.
However much I agree that the "simple, prosaic" interpretation is the one that makes the most sense, I do think that every possible ambiguity is significant, at least in a song by someone like Suzanne. I'm sure you could say "did you ever undergo a sex-change operation?" in a million different ways, so why did Suzanne choose the words that she did? Surely not by chance or mistake -- there must be some, conscious or unconscious, intention, and therefore I think alternative symbolic (rather than metaphorical) interpretations are called for.
In this particular case, however, I may very well be mistaken. English is not my first language, so perhaps I see an ambiguity where there is none. Besides, I never claimed that my ponderings make any real sense, quite on the contrary, and I certainly never intended to come up with *the* interpretation of the song.
So I'm hoping to read more comments about this, or any other, song...
Finally, Bob, please send me your 64k interpretation of Wooden Horse -- you must have posted it before I joined Undertow in September last year.
Later,
/Hugo
Hugo.Westerlund@ipm.ki.se
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