From: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org (trajectory-digest) To: trajectory-digest@smoe.org Subject: trajectory-digest V3 #11 Reply-To: trajectory@smoe.org Sender: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk trajectory-digest Sunday, January 17 1999 Volume 03 : Number 011 Today's Subjects: ----------------- "bellyfish" interpretation [John Drummond ] Re: "bellyfish" interpretation ["Tim" ] Re: "bellyfish" interpretation ["alexis" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 01:43:28 -0800 (PST) From: John Drummond Subject: "bellyfish" interpretation Speaking of "bellyfish", I seem to be the only person who has interpreted the song in the manner I have... I think it's about the speaker having a boyfriend who leaves her for another man, and it culminates when she walks in on the two of them having sex. That's "bellyfish out and backfish over, what have you put in your body your body? You put that in your mouth and it's over!" The fish is the idea of something that is being, well, fucked... and belly could be some kind of strange belly-frottage practice, you know, dry humping or something, so "bellyfish out" is that the guy he's cheating on the speaker with begins and gets his erection from the stomach-thrusting (sorry, there's no delicate way to put that at ALL) and the "backfish over" is anal sex leading to orgasm, which goes right into "what have you put in your body your body?", meaning that the speaker is aghast at the sudden discovery that her boy or whatever is having sex with another man, and then "you put that in your mouth and it's over" is her walking right in as he's about to, well, fellate the other man. And the "bed in a hotel bed in a field" is the two mens' secret trysts, so to speak, and then she does a double-play on words with "you lay in it now you make it", in that, you sleep with him, you keep him, and "you lay on him now you make him", is a word to the man he's cheating with, as in, if you take him from me, if you have sex with him, he's all yours. She's abandoning both of them to each other. And the whole beginning, the "hook in my leg sweat it out sweat it out" is her knowing something is wrong and being distressed and upset about it, she has to sweat it out, or sweat it into her sheets or something. And the eye for the spine is her recalling, perhaps when they were driving, that her boyfriend was staring at some attractive man's back, perhaps? That's a bit more thin, definitely... "he knows how to use his hands and mouth", that's direct homosexual experience in her mind, and then at the end, "blood in a basin blood on a screen" is her own menstrual blood in the first, her own reflections of why she's perhaps been abandoned like this, the fact of her womanhood itself, and "blood on a screen" could be simply her own seeing of red, or her own aversion to violence and/or bodily fluids, which is also thin and very open to debate... but "what has that blood ever meant to me" is her saying, "what good has it ever served me?", making blood into a direct symbol of femininity and the reason she was left for a man, and "what has that bed ever meant to me" is her questioning the whole affair, the denial at the end of the rainbow, so to speak. Sorry for the convoluted, rough nature of that little interpretation there... but I figured if it flowed with thought, it might be a bit easier to follow. Anyhow, I'm very open to disagreements, more questions, debate, etc... I'm just curious to know if anybody else got that from the song... my friends who know of Veda (all through my knowledge of her) think that I'm on crack and yet still say they have no clue what she's talking about. Damn New Criticism folks! ;p Anyhow... so yeah, hit me! John Drummond == If God didn't want for us to eat animals, He shouldn't have made them out of meat. - - Evan Matthew Cobb _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 00:01:41 +0000 From: "Tim" Subject: Re: "bellyfish" interpretation >so yeah, hit me! Well, it *could* be right. On the other hand, I'd be interested to know what made you think of it first, as I would *never* have seen the connection. By the way, the "eye for a spine on the side of the road" could mean that the boyfriend has picked up as the result of a cruising or something? Who knows... Regards, Tim ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 07:46:20 -0800 From: "alexis" Subject: Re: "bellyfish" interpretation wow. NEVER got that from the song. maybe because I saw a lot more of HER in the song as opposed to something that happened to her. This is what Veda told me the song is about: "bellyfish is about sexual regret. realizing you might have ruined something essential without noticing or being able to stop." I had sent her some questions for my zine and the mystery behind the illusive Bellyfish was one of them. So...you very well could be right. I personally think that the "bellyfish" is something a lot more internal--as in gut, instinct, that rotten feeling in the pit of you stomache when you realize you did something emotionally brutal to someone without knowing it. I think there is less of a "witness" quality to the song and more of an inter-personal dialogue. As in, when she uses the command form, it feels more like she's telling herself what (not) to do. What I feel when I hear the song is a lot more about personal shame than vicimization. But...who knows? - --alexis ------------------------------ End of trajectory-digest V3 #11 *******************************