Widow's Walk

Widow's Walk

Consider me a widow, boys
and I will tell you why.
It's not the man, but it's the marriage
that was drowned.

So I walk the walk
and wait with watchful eye out to the sky,
Looking for a kind of vessel
I have never found.

Though I saw it splinter
I keep looking out to sea,
Like a dog with little sense,
I keep returning,

To the very area where
I did see the thing go down
as if there's something at the site
I should be learning.

That line is the horizon.
We watch the wind and set the sail,
but save ourselves when all omens
point to fail.

If I tell the truth
then I will have to tell you this
Though I grieve
and I believe I feel it truly

but I knew that ship was empty
by the time it hit the rocks,
we could not hold on
when fate became unruly.

So consider me a widow, boys,
and I have told you why.
Does the weather say
a better day is nearing?
I'll set my house in order now
and wait upon the Will
It's clear that I need
better skill in steering...

That line is the horizon.
We watch the wind and set the sail,
But save ourselves when all omens
point to fail.


Single release :	2001
Lyrics :	Suzanne Vega
Copyright :	© 2001 Waifersongs Ltd. & WB Music Corp.
Album :	Songs In Red And Gray
"Songs In Red And Gray" - tracklist : Penitent Widow's Walk (I'll Never Be) Your Maggie May It Makes Me Wonder Soap And Water Song In Red And Gray Last Year's Troubles Priscilla If A Were A Weapon Harbor Song Machine Ballerina Solitaire St.Claire Golden* * Available on the Japanese Release only

Notes:

""Widows Walk" is a song about my marriage, and the separation and the divorce of it, yes."
Interview with Steve Rosenfeld, Playback, February, March 2002 (http://www.ascap.com/playback/2002/march/radar-vega.html)

"It's about divorce. It's a sort of metaphoric look at divorce. The idea of Widow's Walk is when you live by the ocean you have that bit of architecture on the top of the house, where the sailor's wives use to walk around and look for their husbands on the horizon. So that's what the title refers to."
Radio Interview. Janice Long's BBC Radio 2 show, 2001

"It takes you to the ocean and it makes you think about a widow on the shore and the ship and, you know, it really takes you someplace other than my house."
Interview by Patrick MacDonald in The Seattle Times, Friday, February 1, 2002 (http://www.vega.net/seattimes.htm)

"All the things that had been stable and secure suddenly fell by the wayside, including my marriage, and I lost my manager who I've been with for fifteen years, I sold my house which I had for ten years. Everything happened at once and it wasn't anything I had planned. So when I was starting to write these songs and looking back on recent events and really thinking about what I had just been through and kind of starting from groundlevel. I just started at blind and one thing kind of led to another. I think there is a sentiment in the album of struggling with my faith or struggling with my destiny, the lines in Widow's Walk were about that, about faith becoming unruly."
Behind the Beat, audioportraits, 2003