[轉貼] Mavis - the real story!
轉貼自: Been Here Before http://website.lineone.net/~bhb/
(覺得這篇文章寫的很有意思 不過無奈自己英文不好 看得不是很懂 Orz)
Once upon a time, in a small village near Liverpool, lived an old
vicar named Albert. However, Albert was a very bad vicar, and by night,
to make his otherwise dull life a bit more interesting, he would travel
to the seedy lights of Liverpool to strip.
Sadly, after a while, all the immorality and corruption he was
seeing by night meant that he was swiftly becoming discontented with
being a vicar, and started losing his faith. He felt isolated (as the
whole of Wide Open Space suggests), but didn't know what to do about it.
This is the basis for 'The Chad Who Loved Me', which is the vicar
voicing all his thoughts on the matter - "Do I feel holy, or nothing
at all?", and justifying his thoughts to anyone who cares, saying
"You can't deny that your shit just tastes as sweet as mine", saying
that he can't be criticised, because no-one else is any better.
In Mansun's Only Love Song', we get a glimpse into his life as he
sees himself during the day - a vicar in appearance, but his mind is
far away, dreaming of the exciting world of being a stripper -
"Mavis looking sexy through her dress it shines, standing in the vestry
she recites her lines" are how he views himself at that time - just
reciting lines like an actor, not really meaning it, as his mind was
on being Mavis, his stripper alter-ego, who really is "all things to
no men" in the clubs. But this day time life becomes a bore for him,
and he quickly gets depressed. He's lost the very basis on which his
world stood, and sinks deeply into a depression, just wishing that
he could be a normal member of the public like his innocent
congregation, as mentioned in 'You, Who Do You Hate?' - the title
referring to the fact that the public should hate him for his
two-facedness, while really he's the last person they are likely to
hate, but don't realise what's going on. He yearns deperately to be
another face in the crowd - "If I ever lived again, I wish I could
be you", because his current world is so messed up he doesn't know
what to believe, yet stil preaches to the public - "How can I expect
you to believe, when I don't even believe in me".
He loses the sparkle that he had as a vicar and had as a stripper
in the early days. In fact, one of his friends he has as Mavis, who
he can't meet outside the strip joints for the obvious reasons
(so they have to write instead of meet in person), picks up on this
in the first line of 'Stripper Vicar' - "Dear Mavis, I'm compelled
to write this letter, in the hope that you may soon be getting better".
We'll call this friend Grey Lantern from now on to save time.
He can't contain his depression as he is, and one day just
"confessed to be a stripper" to Grey Lantern, who he did not recognise
as being Mavis's friend. Grey Lantern gets intrigued, and slowly works
out the story, taunting Mavis with this story of a messed up vicar he
knows in the next letter, when in reality he knows he's actually
writing to the vicar.
The vicar gets more and more stressed out now - not only is he
unhappy being a priest, but now Albert is sure that Grey Lantern's
worked out the whole story. Not only is he stressed, but he's sure
he's doing an evil thing, as the catholic mentality, despite not
being believed any more, is so deeply ingrained - "Mavis she knows,
Mavis she knows, she's got all these things around her... she'll
see you in hell".
But none the less, he loves the life in the seedy underworld.
'Taxloss' is the view of Mavis from a strip-joint goer. A taxloss is
something you put your money into, which isn't taxed, and so here is
the stripper. Hard as it is to draw the direct story from this song,
we know that it's about an old man "touching 74" who "wears a cracking
dress", which can describe no-one but our friend Albert. As a successful
stripper, he gets a lot of money, basically for looking good without
any mental stimulation. All the punters think he's stupid, but still
pay because they get their kicks from it - "our assets are fluid".
There is always a slight threat that someone will come in that
recognises him from his past and reveal the true identity back home
("we'll sell you down the river"), but this threat is never realised,
merely adding to the adrenaline kick that the vicar gets.
Again, we see the view of Mavis from the punter's point of view in
'Disgusting'. The song is what the average strip joint goer would think
of Mavis if they knew just a bit of the past history. It points out that
as a stripper, Mavis is different from the others "you're the stranger
in here, with your stranger face", as there's something even less pure
about her than all the others. What's worse is that while all the other
strippers in the place are doing it basically for the money, wondering
what they could have made of themselves otherwise, Mavis is there purely
out of choice - "you show no regret like we all know that you're supposed
to do". It questions whether Mavis should be doing this and be a vicar
at the same time ("I hope you've changed the clothes you wear"), and
says that he really shouldn't be doing it, morally - "You've been
disgusting, it's so regretful". The second verse says that the vicar
has had to go to these lengths to get his kicks because it would not
be tolerated in the village that he lives in, but it was actually
the boredom created by the village that drove him to it in the first
place.
But he can't get enough of being Mavis, anyway, despite what
everyone else may think. The juxtaposition between Mavis and the
religiousness is shown again in 'She Makes My Nose Bleed', with
"I vowed to my God I'd give it all up, if he would bring her on
down from heaven" - saying that he knows that his Mavis habit
isn't a good thing, but he's addicted to the performance of it all.
He's so immensely happy being Mavis that to quit would be such a let
down, when he knows that he could be so exquisitely happy as Mavis.
If God made it less fun for him to be a transvestite, then he'd be
able to stop, but he can't. He loves the slap and tickle of it all,
the adrenaline he gets from parading round in womens clothing and
spanking and whatever that he can't get enough. This is similar to
the idea in 'Mansun's Only Love Song', where he says "If I feel God
watching me, I control the actions of his destiny", where he's saying
that if God would just manifest himself somehow, and give the vicar
back his faith, then he'd stick at being a vicar, but if God doesn't
then he'll go and be a stripper. As such, he could dicredit the church
if he was found out or confessed his story to the papers, and a story
like that would bring Christianity into disrepute.
But he realises that he can't go on like this. He must drop one of
his lives, and undergoes great mental anguish trying to decide which one
to settle on. He automatically leans towards the more exciting, glamorous
and interesting job of being a stripper, but fully realises that if he
does, his world will "all come crashing down". But he knows that it's
rich of him to keep on preaching, when he himself is so unsure of
anything religious, and has to concede (speaking in the third person)
"You've got a gob on, my desperate icon" ('icon' meaning a representative
of something holy, nothing computery).It's all so confusing for him,
but he knows he must go one way or the other. This is the emotion of
'Naked Twister' - "where do we" (the vicar and Mavis) "go, who do
you trust, who do we see" and so on. This mental indecision is summed
up in the line "stick or twist, tell me which will it be?". Shall he
stick where he is as a vicar or twist, take the gamble and go for a
stripper's life. The answer is clear in 'Dark Mavis' - "vicar twists
and gets away."
The only problem now is how to lose his vicar lifestyle and sever
all the bonds he had with the old Albert. He hatches a cunning scheme
to cover it up, because if Grey Lantern revealed the truth to everyone,
he knows he would be hunted down.
One day, someone died in the local parish who looked just like
the vicar. The vicar saw this as his chance to escape the meaningless
life as a vicar, making sure that Grey Lantern thought he was wrong
all the time. So, he buried an empty coffin, and took the body and
set it up, so people believed that the vicar had died.
This worked for a while - Grey Lantern believed that the vicar's
"time on earth had ended" and that he was found "gagged and bound in
stockings and suspenders". Then, Grey Lantern realised it was still
just a cover up, and, angry at having been duped, shouts the vicious
truth out at Mavis - "you are the vicar's daughter!". Daughter as in
offspring, as it is Mavis who is biologically carrying down the vicar's
bloodline.
Grey Lantern however forgives Mavis now. He realises that it is
what the vicar wanted, and narrates "Dark Mavis" on Albert's last day
in the village. He knows that the people would forgive him too, given
time, and doesn't want to lose his old pal. He practically begs Mavis
not to leave, but sadly cannot - "vicar twists and gets away - his
lipstick's running, his dress is stunning". "In the path of righteous
man, there is rubble where I stand", showing that Albert's spirituality
has died now. The next line could be "in the path of cheap slappers,
oooh! new hotel!". This song is completely about Mavis's departure from
this small town, so it's hard to pick out single lines to convey it's
message. The song is all about how he has transcended the religious
life to a material, aesthetic one, but his congregation think he has
just lived out his life - "his tights are nylon, his nails by revlon,
he's got high heels on, but his flock don't care now". It ends with
Mavis's plea just to be left alone where he goes to strip, and not
hassled - he's happy there. As he puts it, "if you should see me
passing by, do not disturb me as I shine".
--
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