(TV) Prove It

["Emilie Hsu" <ehsu@mindspring.com>]

Sorry, I didn't trim the lyrics -- so this is a little longer than I'd like.
Leo -- I think your theory is as good as any other.  Verlaine uses a nifty
trick with his lyrics -- he often associates words together by sound, and
this creates an illusion of meaning.  Illusion -- I don't mean it in a
derogatory way -- but it's a bit of an illusion because when you think very
hard about the relationship among the words of his lyrics, you realize that
the relationship is very elusive.  It's entirely possible also that the
association has a personal meaning to Verlaine, a hidden meaning, a
symbolism that's only apparent to him -- but obscure to the "uninitiated."

He then intertwines these auditory associations with visual associations.
In this case, "the docks/the clocks," "cave/waves," "light/night," etc.
(pairs of auditory association), on the one hand.  "[D]ocks/smell of water,"
"cave/room," "leap/birds" (visual associations), on the other hand.  In
general, as a writing technique, I am not personally a big fan of this, but
it does work quite well for TV songs.  Actually, in this song -- it works
quite beautifully.

The way the song is written -- I always thought that the case to prove is
more metaphysical than emotional.  So I have always thought that it's more
about the existence of life, or rather this feeling of existence that we
have -- whether it's real, whether sensations are "real" in some way.  The
kind of questions one half-asks oneself in that semi-conscious state between
sleep and wakefulness.  A bit like the state that Proust was in at the
beginning of _A la Recherche du Temps Perdu_, when one is in between thought
and feeling.  Mixing sensations outside of oneself with one's thoughts.

When you're in bed, you had just been woken up by a whisper or the ticking
of the clocks -- experiencing things (smell of water, sound of the waves,
the "light" of the darkness at night, the space of your room, later on, the
sound of bird chirping); and you half-dream things, the bird songs taking on
almost supernatural meaning... this feeling itself is too "too too" to put a
finger on.  A clever image actually because you can't put a finger on this,
either literally or figuratively, because this feeling is more than purely
physical (the finger being a synecdoche for the entire being).  He's been
working on "this case" for "so long" -- indeed for all of one's life, one
works on this -- and this answer... the answer... well, the answer is
"confidential."


> Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 15:32:25 -0500
> From: "Casey, Leo J" <CaseyL@VOLPE.DOT.GOV>
> Subject: (TV) Television Set List:  Prove It
>
> PS: Of course, in a TV song a word  is not just a word, it often possesses
> multiple meanings. E.g., the words  "..case closed..." also represents the
Fact that his
> pursuit and wooing of this  person has successfully ended.
>
> PROVE IT (Verlaine)
> The docks
> the clocks
> a whisper woke him up
> the smell of water
> would resume.
> the cave
> the waves
> of light the unreal night.
> that flat curving
> of a room.
> PROVE IT... JUST THE FACTS... THE CONFIDENTIAL
> THIS CASE, THIS CASE, THIS CASE THAT I... I'VE BEEN WORKIN' ON SO LONG...
> first you creep
> then you leap
> up about a hundred feet
> yet you're in so deep
> you could write the Book.
> Chirpchirp
> the birds
> they're giving you the words
> The world is just a feeling
> you undertook.
> Remember?
> Now the rose
> it slows
> you in such colorless clothes
> Fantastic! You lose your sense of human.
> Project
> Protect
> It's warm and it's calm and it's perfect
> It's too "too too"
> to put a finger on
> This case is closed.
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