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Subj: Re:The queen and the soldier
Date: 95-09-17 17:43:25 EDT
From: MJSCHIFF@aol.com
To: VegaNet@aol.com
CC: Undertow@serv1.law.emory.edu

Today, I discovered all the discussion on this song while I was browsing around America On Line. I cannot believe how many people know TQATS, how many people think about it. I have always felt like it was about me, but I never understood how. The song got me through my summer, I sang it in the shower almost every day. Okay, here are some more questions to think about. In the beginning, when the soldier says, "I've watched your palace up here on the hill, and I've wondered whos the woman for whom we all kill, but I am leaving tomorrow and you can do as you will, only first I am asking you why." This seems like the soldier does not know the queen, although she "has seen his face someplace before." He knows that she exists, and that he has been killing for her (along with everyone else). He does not know anything about why they are all doing this. It also seems as though he has given up on her before he even knows her motives. NOw that he has given up, he tries to understand her purpose and is let inside. If she is supposed to represent all women (and he all men), does this mean that after men give up on women as something to battle for, that they finally try to understand them. Is this similar to the way she gives up in the end? Or has the queen given up from the beginning? The soldier then says "I've got this intuition, says it's all for your fun, and now will you tell me why." Perhaps he thinks women play games, that it's all one big game. When she responds, "..with an arrogant eye. You won't understand and you may as well not try." THis could mean that he will never understand why she plays her games. I think it means that the game is all his illusion and she knows it. Men think that women tease men, hurt men for fun, as a game. THe queen knows how mistaken the soldier is. That is why she is arrogant, he won't understand that she is a human being. Maybe the "castle on a hill" is the soldiers illusion, just that they are killing for her. THey are killing for themselves. Maybe instead of being immature, the queen is wise and knows they are fooling themselves into thinking they are killing for her. WHen she does try to let him inside, when she tells him about bleeding, when she shows him her humanity, he bows her down to the ground and tells her she is hungry and weak. He says "I won't march again on your battlefield", he has missed the point of what she has told him. He still thinks he is at war with her. I don't know how much of this I believe, but your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Rebecca Schiff

Subj: Re:The queen and the soldier
Date: 95-09-17 18:30:48 EDT
From: G.Black@Queens-Belfast.AC.UK (Gregory Black)
To: MJSCHIFF@aol.com
CC: VegaNet@aol.com, Undertow@serv1.law.emory.edu

Replying to Rebecca Schiff,

I remember talking to my roommate a few years ago, about this song, and *at the time* it just seemed obvious that the soldier and queen were some sort of (maybe secret) lovers, which my roommate didn't think was true - he figured they didn't know one another.

I thought it was basically about the isolation of 'rank', that she was the ruler and commander of her subjects and army, and that the 'secret burning thread' she swallowed was the bitter pill of her 'responsibility' to her country, which, as its ruler meant (she felt) that she had to make horrible decisions and set her feelings to one side.

So, when she has the soldier killed, she's doing it for mixed reasons. For one, she could not marry a common man, and she would not have her authority challenged (for pride and the sake of her reign and country), nor would she have her isolation broken.

I think her authority and isolation are, at least to her, necessarily bound together, and to lose one would mean the loss of the other. In the end, then, she's left in the 'solitude that she preferred'.

Well, that's the way I see it, and thinking about it that way I'm sure you could read something about the relationships between men and women (I figured you were a man when I read your letter, cos I read it as 'women hurt men for fun', instead of 'do men think that women do this..' ; my fault for reading too fast). But I don't think that it's taking any sides between men and women - read King for Queen and female soldier for male soldier ? Okay, the story wouldn't seem as much a typical fairytale, but I think that my meaning's clear.

I can't explain why I think that the two are lovers in the story, but I do think that it's somehow implied; guess I'm too stoopid to figure out how.
Greg (no relation to Galen) Black

p.s. MJSCHIFF is a Brilliant name!

Subj: TQATS - more...
Date: 95-09-20 18:29:39 EDT
From: rwalters@lafayette.unocal.com (Rob Walters)
To: undertow@law.emory.edu

Hello everyone,

Greg Black wrote:
>Okay then: what about Rebecca Schiff's earlier question - what are everyone's
>thoughts on 'The Queen and the Soldier', its meaning in the story and its
>relevance to relationships between people (and *did* the soldier know the
>Queen, and if so, how well?).

My own opinion is that the entire event is representational of an occurrence in Suzanne's life dealing w/ a power struggle, a 'secret' relationship which is somehow hurtful or damaging. In the Performing Songwriter interview from last year, she even says so herself. She said the original idea was about two queens fighting each other, and once she got the idea of substituting a soldier for one of the queens and "put[ting] the battle outside the castle," the song made more sense. Perhaps the soldier's 'intuition' is a remnant from the earlier idea, since we really don't hear too often of "male intuition"! :-)

Also in the interview, she says that the "secret burning thread," which the queen swallows, is possibly representative of a relationship ("I used to think of relationships between people as threads..."). So, I would characterize the song as using the battle metaphor to highlight these aspects of power and possible abuse in a relationship. Ultimately, of course, the queen keeps everything inside, breaks off the relationship without telling the other person why ("the soldier was killed *still waiting for her word*"), and goes on alone. Important thing to think about - a 'castle' represents someone's home - draw your own conclusions!

BTW, the last line, in which Suzanne sings the words "*strangling* in the *solitude* she preferred / the battle ** continued on" is not only a great lyric but excellent musically w/ those short, punctuated guitar chords - here represented by the asterisks. Very effective at conveying the point.

-Rob
rwalters@lafayette.unocal.com

Subject: TQATS - more...
Subj: Queen & the Soldier
Date: 95-09-21 07:15:34 EDT
From: joao.correia@balliol.ox.ac.uk (Joao Dias Correia)
To: undertow@law.emory.edu

I have a bootleg (1982 or 86 concert at the London School of Economics) in which SV introduces Q&S as "this is not a love song", or words to that effect.
Also, when introducing "the rent song" she says friends always complain that she only writes on two topics, those topics being love and mental illness, and that she had thought about what else is there to write about. She also ads that since writing it, friends have classified it as a mental health song...

Joao

Subj: Re: too numerous to list
Date: 95-09-21 07:20:20 EDT
From: G.Black@Queens-Belfast.AC.UK (Gregory Black)
To: GHAM8304@Mercury.GC.PeachNet.EDU (Gary Hamrick Jr.)
CC: undertow@law.emory.edu

Okay then: what about Rebecca Schiff's earlier question - what are everyone's thoughts on 'The Queen and the Soldier', its meaning in the story and its relevance to relationships between people (and *did* the soldier know the Queen, and if so, how well?).
greg black.

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