From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V5 #279 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Wednesday, December 10 2003 Volume 05 : Number 279 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [RS] seven seals - daddy was a one shot deal... [rfoxwell@wso.william] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 11:05:43 -0500 From: rfoxwell@wso.williams.edu Subject: Re: [RS] seven seals - daddy was a one shot deal... Quoting Christy Thomas : > now...i can recall little about that fatigue induced > epiphany...HOWEVER...the song seemed to me to be about > a child (yes, a BIOLOGICAL child of jesus)...don't > tell dad - Jesus Christ... and...perhaps he was a "one > shot deal" because he was HUMAN...now...don't get me > wrong...an AMAZING human...but...human...i.e., he had > a REAL human life...with love and sex and...A CHILD! Hmm, that is *definitely* an interesting take. Cool! This would change the entirety of the song, because it would challenge the very divinity of Christ, the promise of God, the Messianic Prophecy, etc. However, I want to suggest one change. I like Christy's (and Smokey's) idea that the stanza is saying that Jesus is human, not divine...but it doesn't quite fit (to me) that the singer would refer to Jesus as "dad" when talking to Mary, seeing as how Jesus is Mary's son, and referred to himself in the Gospels as the "Son of Man". Here's a suggestion: what if the "dad" in "Be a sport Mary, and don't tell Dad" is God, not Jesus? God is the father of us all, and since the singer views Mary as a mother figure ("I adore thee, Mother Mary"), it would make sense that she would also refer to God as "dad". This has some VERY interesting implications for the stanza, and the song as a whole. Let's take a look at this. "Be a sport Mary, and don't tell Dad He need never know how he's been had And never you mind about those Seven Seals 'cause daddy was a one-shot deal" Now, let's run with Smokey and Christy's interpretation, with the one change I suggested. Consider: what if Jesus was human because his father was actually Joseph and not God? Oooh. The "Dad" who has been "had" in this case would be God, who mistakenly thinks that Jesus is His Son, and divine! Doesn't the singer seem to be referring to a kind of a secret regarding Mary, something that "Dad" (God) doesn't know about: that Mary really isn't a virgin after all and Jesus really isn't divine? It's kind of like a conspiracy in which both the singer and Mary are in the know, and the singer is reminding Mary of the shared secret. This is really cool: the singer then would be reminding Mary that hey, she isn't as virgin-white as the Church (and God) believe, she actually conceived Jesus with Joseph, "cheating" on God so to speak...so why should the singer not be given some leeway to go out and be the same? Nuns are supposed to be married to God, but the singer is reminding Mary of her infidelity in order to gain approval for her own. It's like she's saying "I know your secret, Mary, you've done this too; why can't I?" God being unaware of being "had" is highly improbable, of course, given His omniscience, but I like how this take contributes to the overall cheeky and irreverent tone taken by the singer. I had previously viewed the song as a very gentle, powerfully emotional beseeching of Mary to allow the singer to experience motherhood, but I think it gains subtlety and character by throwing in some subversive elements to the singer's request. The balance between the singer's stark emotional desire and her irreverence, even cockiness, is pretty darn cool. Unfortunately, I'm having some trouble working in the second two lines. If the Dad in the first line is God (according to my change), then it makes sense that it would have to be God in the last line too. So then the singer would be saying that God was a one-shot deal, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Well...it kind of does, but it's pretty iffy: God could be a one-shot deal in that he made one attempt to have a Son, he had one chance to bring divinity into the mortal world, but it didn't work, since Mary conceived Jesus with Joseph instead. There was one attempt made, it didn't work and Mary's child wound up being human and not divine, so hey, no need to worry about those Seven Seals: Jesus ain't coming back. I know, I told you it's a stretch. Christy and Smokey's interpretation definitely makes more sense here; if Jesus is "daddy" then, being human, he is literally a one-shot deal: here once, never to return. This expresses the same point as the iffy one above, but it does so much more elegantly. I dunno, I'm tempted to take the easy way out and switch the identity of the dads: God in the first line in order to support my take, Jesus in the last line as described by Christy/Smokey. Whew! I hope this isn't tortuous for others here. I really enjoy this sort of picky analysis, especially when a coherent meaning can be brought out of it all, as I believe is true in this case. Although it may be wearisome and complicated, as a whole I believe that it fits in very well: the theme of a religious woman longing for a child, mixed with some scandalous church suggestions and tinted with an overall confusion about one's status in the church seems to be right up Richard's alley. - --Chris ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V5 #279 ***********************************