[Alex Ysoltsev]

[Julia]

Chiastic structure! That was the term I was looking for with regard to "The Things I Say" and the reversed singing in the end. It would be interesting to try and trace that in the topics and lyrics of the songs ...

Thank you for pointing out Nabokov!

As refered to in the German article posted in "Reviews & Interviews", the song cyle tradition may also be significant for interpreting the structure of "Divers": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_cycle
Unfortunately I don't know enough about that genre to carry the point further ... The "song cycles" I know (Schubert) all seem to have a definite narrative beginning and ending.

[under a CPell]

Fascinating!

[under a CPell]

I thought this was very interesting about the "Songs of Travel", Vaughan Williams' song cycle:

"Whither Must I Wander" offers the first of Vaughan Williams's many "big tunes," the essentially strophic song recalls happy days of the past and reminds us that while the world is renewed each spring, our traveller cannot bring back his past. However, the composer offers the listener some consolation in "Bright is the ring of words": The listener is reminded that while all wanderers (and artists) must eventually die, the beauty of their work shall remain as a testament of their lives. The final song, "I have trod the upward and the downward slope", was added to the cycle only in 1960 after its posthumous publication. This song recapitulates the whole cycle in just four phrases that form a miniature scena of recitative and arioso, quoting four of the previous songs in the cycle, before ending with the opening chords, suggesting that the traveller's journey continues forever, even in death.

And of course it is well known that Joanna loves Van Dyke Parks album Song Cycle.

[Impossible birds]

^^^ lots to think about!

In terms of literary influences, the cyclical thing occurs in Nabokov's 'Pale Fire' as well. The 999 line poem featured in the story is revealed to be a 1000 line poem, where the last line ('I was the shadow of the waxwing slain') also functions as the first. It's unwritten in the poem but mentioned several times in the footnotes, and there's a Finnegans Wake reference in there too!

The stickers on each side of the vinyl feature a little picture of the moon at different stages in its cycle, ranging from a sliver on the first side to a full moon on the last. I guess it's just a reminder that these sorts of circular patterns occur in nature all the time- the changing of the seasons is another example.

[source of the light]

[under a CPell]

[butterbean]

A chiastic structure makes total sense for the organization of the album! Time moving both ways, and then also in a ring cycle, holy crap.

Not sure about what connects the third ninth songs? The one thing that draws my attention is that there seems to be a mysterious act undertaken in both Leaving the City and You Will Not Take My Heart Alive. There's the climbing of these rungs of light and the severing all connection in "You Will Not..", pushing against and going beyond limits, and the doing of whatever it was that "they alluded to" which leads to some mysterious experience in which light figures largely, and the final acceptance of limits in "Leaving..".

Fourth and Eighth: Goose Eggs mentions "old strangers" and "broken hopes", which are pretty well pictured in Same Old Man. A certain dryness and resignation is present in both, though Goose Eggs seems to have a little flicker of possibility in it, about trying to find a way to be a better friend, or the kind of friend that was needed earlier on; and the questioning in the last lines, maybe - do we have a reason to go, even though everyone else has vamoosed? Also, the theme of leaving town in both of those songs, and also the mention of repetition in Goose Eggs paired with the sense of repetition and the repeated lines in Same Old Man.

Fifth and Seventh: Divers and Waltz both have sea imagery and speak specifically of "my love", "my true love"...

Did anyone else get the vinyl? Those individual liner sheets are different sizes, some of them match and some don't ... I wonder if that has anything to do with anything about the songs, or if it was a basic design choice in order to get the desired crops of the images. I didn't have time to investigate yet.

[under a CPell]

I think the line "the Selfhood inverts on a mirror" might also be a hint at the chiastic structure of the album.

[margot]

The image for "Time, As a Symptom" and "Anecdotes" in the vinyl liner notes are of the same tree, but the coloring is different between them.

I wonder about playing the sides of the vinyl in reverse order, since the markings go from a new moon to a full moon, so to complete the lunar cycle you would have to go backwards. Might try doing that.

Also there is very faint writing on the discs, I haven't read through all of the threads but I will post them here:

Disc 1 Side A: "BEFORE THE SUN IS GONE"

Disc 1 Side B: "INTRAVELING LIGHT" (note there does not seem to be a space between "in" and "traveling"

Disc 2 Side A: "THE CITY CONTINUES ON ALONE"

Disc 2 Side B: "NIGHTJAR TRANSMIT! (ONCEMORE, AND INNUMERABLE TIMES MORE.)"

Some of the letters are backwards here and there. These mostly come from the lyrics of songs on each respective side, with the exception of "the city" replacing "New York City" for the lyric of "Same Old Man" (could connect "Leaving the City" and "Same Old Man"). Other exception is the "Once more, and innumerable times more"

[under a CPell]

How wonderful! Thank you for mentioning this!

[butterbean]

[syntaxegg]

"NIGHTJAR TRANSMIT! (ONCEMORE, AND INNUMERABLE TIMES MORE.)" seems like a possible anagram, doesn't it? I did a bit of searching at OneAcross*, but didn't come up with anything very definitive. It contains a few evocative possible words -- "Joanna," "Time," "Unborn" (you can get all three of those simultaneously). Anyone else see a clear possibility?

Or maybe all the bits written on the discs, taken together, are an anagram?

Just a thought

* http://www.oneacross.com/cgi-bin/search ... S+BRED&c1=

[syntaxegg]

Actually, there are actual lyrics that feel like possible anagrams, as well. eg, in "Time, As a Symptom":

"A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked (a god)"

Or if not anagrams, maybe some other form of wordplay where every character counts?