@ImpossibleSoul523

8 years ago

The confounding words of this song are all of the "you's" and "my's." If the third stanza were taken literally, it would actually be Jesus talking, as his was the cheek that was kissed by Judas. The earlier line "Beloved OF John, I get all wrong" is somehow resolved here, as (Jesus, as I am presuming) speaks John's true identity; Beloved MY John. John is securely his, and with that knowledge Jesus carries on until the day of his death (so I'll carry on, counting my cards down to one). Christ's fossil though--his memory, the way he will be remembered and thought about--is bright in the sun, which is the great physical sustainer of life and the greatest symbol of life that we have. Without it, there would be no life. The fossils from before, the memories of other lovers, perhaps, do not have life at all ("covered in lines, the fossils I find--have they no life of their own?"). The song contrasts Stevens' human lovers, his love for his mother (second stanza), and the love of Jesus. These musings inspire the last three lines: Jesus, I need you; shield me from my ugly, painful, death-filled history with YOUR history, which is indeed resurrection and life out of death. This is why, though the phrase is colloquially "manner of speaking," he actually sings "matter of speaking." If it's a manner of speaking, then he is absolutely dead; the phrase implies that what he speaks is the truth, expressed in a certain way but true nonetheless. If it's a matter of speaking, then he is absolutely dead in that matter. If he is the one who speaks, then he is dead. But there is another matter--the matter of Christ himself, who has spoken and called John his beloved. On a more grandiose and cosmic level, in John 1 we read that Christ is the Word itself and the source of life, through whom all things were made and without whom nothing would exist, much like the sun. Because of this matter, Stevens is not dead at all.

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