Song Notes: Judy Is Your Viet Nam by They Might Be Giants

Songs that hinge on central metaphors typically fasten themselves to a familiar structure: the first verse introduces the situation, the chorus introduces or solidifies the metaphor, and further verses elaborate on the metaphor while further choruses act as a grounding device to keep everything safely within the bounds of the metaphor. Brick by Ben Folds Five is a terrific example of this.




Which brings us to Judy Is Your Viet Nam by They Might Be Giants, and the interesting way it approaches its central metaphor.



Broadly, the song uses the U.S. involvement in Vietnam as a metaphor for a long-term relationship that went bad a long time ago - and was maybe even bad from the beginning - but is nonetheless difficult to extricate yourself from. It's a perfectly sound little idea with the occasional truly great lyric like, "she's the storm before the calm," standing for the awareness that ending the entanglement would make you much happier, which leaves the fact that you haven't disentangled yourself to imply the idea that you can't.

But what makes the song distinctive is this: it doesn't introduce the metaphor until the very last line. They Might Be Giants realize that whatever the merits of their lyrical idea, it is a little idea. Small but significant details of the relationship under examination get introduced over the course of the song, but the central conceit gets introduced as a punchline at the end. What could have been an over-reaching and wearying metaphor in the traditional format becomes fun in this one.

Does this alternative metaphoric format have much outside application? Well, no. A mix of commercial demands, audience expectations, and semantic necessity require that the standard format remain the default, but whatever its instructive value, "Judy Is Your Viet Nam" does illustrate that the standard format is not the only one available. It is a little trifle of a thing, but a fun and even valuable one. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to write a song about a messy one-night-stand called "Meredith Is Your Falklands."

Review - Arrow Season 3, Episode 10, Left Behind

Arrow appeared at its mid-season finale to be going in a more interesting direction, having ostensibly killed off its main character. And, to be fair, at the beginning of episode 10 we get a little taste of the sort of show that might have arisen were the series to have stuck to its guns, with the Arrow-family teaming up to fill the void left by their friend and mentor, trying to honor his work while still letting the criminal element of Starling City - and incidentally, the hinted name change to the more source-appropriate Star City cannot come soon enough - know that the Green Arrow never truly left.

What we get instead is a great deal of dreary is-he-dead-or-is-he-not wavering, both from the characters and from the show itself, as it stretches out a disappointing reveal over the full runtime of the episode. Spoilers, I suppose, though anyone who has not figured this out probably does not have much of a future in comics media - Oliver is not dead, and a figure from his past looks set to repay a life-debt to him by nursing him back to life. At the very least, this means that we might have a couple more episodes before Mr. Myfault McHumblebrag makes his inevitable return to the city, allowing us to focus on the more interesting characters in the meantime.

To this end, the oddball work relationship between Ray and Felicity is given a nice wrinkle by the disappearance and presumed death of Oliver, as Felicity tries to work through a grief that Ray has had much longer to adjust to since his own seemingly obligatory personal trauma. That said, Brandon Routh and Emily Bett Rickards have probably the two most compelling characters on the show and remain perhaps its two most engaging screen presences, to the point where if the show was announced to be retooled entirely around them it might have a chance of surpassing The Flash as best DC show on the air right now.

Despite all this negativity, I am interested to see where the show is going with all of this, particularly with the introduction of new supervillain mastermind Brick, played by Vinnie Jones doing his best impression of Vinnie Jones. As with The Flash, Arrow is taking advantage of a lull after a mid-season blowout to pick up its plot threads in preparation for a spirited dash for whatever end-goal it has in mind. That, in my view, is reason enough to keep watching for a spell.