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From Jeremy513@aol.com Sun Jul 16 01:49:55 1995
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 11:24:28 -0400
From: Jeremy513@aol.com
To: undertow@law.lawlib.emory.edu
Subject: a one-time thing
Okay, I'll admit to occasionally browsing through that informational junkyard otherwise known as alt.music. alternative, and I'll even admit that I sometimes read those silly posts about the 5 best songs ever or stuff like that. So anyway, for some reason I decided that a post called something like "best opening lines of a song" would be worth reading, and the first post is from someone who voted for this SV line:
It's a one-time thing
It just happens a lot
First of all it was pretty unexpected since SV is hardly the preferred sort of artist on that list. But the bigger surprise to me was that for the countless times I have heard that song (and I've had that album since the year it came out), I never really realized how funny that line is until I read it there. So there, in the first line of her first song on her first album, SV cracks (pun intended) a joke. So where did she get this oh-so-serious reputation from?
Of course, this still doesn't mean I quite know what she's talking about here. *What's* a one-time thing that happens a lot? Any ideas?
Jeremy
Jeremy,
Certainly, that opening line is ironically funny--in a way--in a very sad way though. Here's what I picture for the whole song: Cracking:
This person in an abusive relationship (physical/mental or both) who has just been abused again--her lover has gotten out of control again and beaten her up or whatever and she's contemplating it: It's a one time thing/It just happens (there is that pause when you listen to it) a lot. She's perhaps in love with the person--doesn't want to give up on the relationship--is beaten down though--confused--hurt. That's where the confusion comes in as she works her way through the song till the end:
The sun is shining
Dizzy golden dancing green
Through the park in the afternoon
Wondering where the hell
I have been
That's my interpretation of that line. The humor in that line I read as dark, sad, and ironical--I mean the person is "cracking" after all--and I'm sure she's referring to an emotional breakdown.
Anyone else?
Wendy!!!
>From a Southbank Show interview of SV from around '87 - '88 talking about the song "Cracking":
SV: "The narrator is going for a walk in the park. Through the
details reflected in the landscape you can see that this person is
cracking. Not the ice on the sidewalk. It's the person that is cracking,
that is the important thing. And so I guess what I tried to do with
that song, was write, put the kind of details in that someone who was
cracking would write. So from the first line - `It's a one time thing,
it just happens a lot' you know you're talking to someone who
is not making sense."
--
Mike Pritchard
mpp@legarto.minn.net
"Go that way. Really fast. If something gets in your way, turn"
[ -- cut -- ]
Wendy!, I think you're interpretation of "one time thing" is valid, though I've not quite thought of it that way. To me, these lines are, paradoxically, positive. Since I'm too tired to explain what I mean, let me quote Leonard Cohen:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
And these cracking moments are ideed "a one time thing", quite distinct from everything else, thought they may "happen a lot". I don't say that they are without pain, though. Life *is* painful.
/Hugo
Hugo.Westerlund@ipm.ki.se
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Hugo G. Westerlund <Hugo.Westerlund@ipm.ki.se>
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