cinderella, cancer, and hypothetical biographies

"A change came in disguise of revelation
Set his soul on fire
She said she always knew he'd come around
And the decades disappear
Like sinking ships but we persevere
God gives us hope
But we still fear what we don't know
Your mind is poison"
- the Killers, 'A Dustland Fairytale'

I cannot get enough of this song. It really is, in my humble opinion, extremely close to being worthy of the classification of "mini-epic." As I listen to it now, for nothing short of the three-hundredth time this month, I find it to be resonating within me as beautifully and heavily as the first time I heard it.

For some reason, even though the song is full of superficial references to Cinderella and castles in the clouds, among other whimsicalities, I somehow remain focused on the underlying negatives. Upon further analysis, I’m finding myself convinced that we’re talking about death.

"Now Cinderella don’t you go to sleep
It’s such a bitter form of refuge
Don’t you know the kingdom’s under siege
And everybody needs you?"

I’ve just come across something on the internet that interprets the lyrics to the song, specifically in these two sections, as something that Brandon Flowers (the frontman) wrote in response to his mother’s death from cancer. I can see that, if the mother is Cinderella, and the "kingdom under seige" is their family dynamic being torn apart by the disease. This is surely heartbreaking, but causes quite a few problems for me in my analytical journey toward Killer enlightenment.

I have always been secretly disappointed in literature when, as the reader, we are made forcibly aware of an author’s motives for writing a story. Perhaps they spent a short amount of time at a mental institution, or maybe were a victim of a terrible accident or underprivileged childhood, or perhaps they were born a man and raised female, causing some subconscious damage I won’t even begin to describe.

For example, I was very deeply wounded when I discovered the real-life context for my favorite short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. To me, the story was obviously about suppressing feminism during the 19^th century, as the narrator is essentially held prisoner by her physician husband due to an “illness” which required her to be bed-ridden. She begins to hallucinate and see things in the wallpaper of her room, such as figures of other women, and constantly has the feeling of being “watched” by the eyes in the paper. I was perfectly content with my own interpretation, and then my inconsiderate professor had to go and tell me that Gilman spent some time in a mental institution, was treated by a physician who basically knew nothing at all, and that the eyes in the wallpaper were obviously metaphorical for her own experience being monitored by a sort of panopticon in the asylum. Interesting background? Sure. Unwarranted, homicidal Bubble burst? Absolutely.

Uncovering these things always make for a clean, neatly packaged textual interpretation, which is something I absolutely cannot stand. Can there really be symbolism in something if you already know what the author meant?

This is also why I tend to avoid reading the “about the author” flaps on the inside of hardbound covers, or usually the entire Preface to the book altogether. Other than it being extra pages to read where nothing exciting goes on, it almost inevitably will give me context that I do not appreciate. I think it’s a calculated move, too. They position those Prefaces and that inside-flap spoiler nonsense in a manner that attempts to force my reading through a specific, chronologically based lens, one most definitely lost in an abyss of factual understanding. This is no fun at all, and makes for cloned, predictable, robotic textual discussions.

To me, in this same way, music is literature. I don't want interpretation boundaries on lyrics. I really didn’t appreciate hearing that Flowers’ mother had passed from cancer, sparking the motive for these lyrics. Not to sound insensitive, but that wasn't what I (the "reader") was after. I do also understand that this theory may not necessarily be true, but now I feel like I can’t decide for myself what the song was about! Having to re-live the pain and agony caused by yet another Bubble Burst is almost too much to bear.

So, in short, while it can sometimes be mildly interesting to absorb some sort of Wikipedia-assembled explanation to some of art’s greatest mysteries, I find that I’d much rather openly interpret, correctly or incorrectly, and gather evidence as I see fit.

Similarly, I’d much rather make up ridiculous, hypothetical stories about people I know than hear something true about their life experience. A sort of hypothetical biography, or, if you’d rather, a “Hypography”.

I've written most of your Hypographies already.

check out today's muse on letterman's late show. i am especially fond of the orchestral jam that starts at about the 3:15 mark.