THT Playlist

Songs: Matte Kudasai (1981) - King Crimson

https://youtu.be/eoAupjcnm1c?si=Mwg_hYjNdxg7JuoZ

I Talk to the Wind (1969) - King Crimson

https://youtu.be/UlKrH07au6E?si=gPDgsOOtm7T49GSa

Epitaph (1969) - King Crimson

https://youtu.be/vXrpFxHfppI?si=_hfIQnPxiOXcb7-O

Everything You’ve Ever Dreamed (1998) - Shiro Sagisu & Arianne

https://youtu.be/gfbTvv076dQ?si=nyUJ3DqVYX65MGFO

TalkTalk (2018) - A Perfect Circle

https://youtu.be/-aOyAvbj2Fg?si=4Ol5lO7QFN3bUCAs

Connections:

Matte Kudasai (1981): Matte Kudasai, from the 1981 King Crimson album Discipline, is a song about memory, loss, and a longing for something unattainable. The title of the song comes from a Japanese phrase roughly translating to “Wait, please.” These feelings of memories, loss, nostalgia, and the such are ever prevalent throughout The Handmaid’s Tale, especially in the Night chapters. But there is one scene where I think that the ideas of the song are more pertinent then in most other scenes. “I lie in bed, still trembling. You can wet the rim of a glass and you run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word shatter. I want to be with someone.” This is the first line in chapter 18 of The Handmaid’s Tale. For the rest of the chapter Offred talks about her need for love, specifically that of Luke. She wants him here with her, and without his love or any love in general she feels empty, like a husk. This is exemplified in lines such as, “It’s lack of love we die from.”, “I am like a room where things once happened and now nothing does,”, or “It’s this message, which may never arrive, that keeps me alive.” Offred is so desperate for any form of love that even a more than likely futile hope can keep her going. The second verse of Matte Kudasai fits perfectly with this scene; “When, when was the night so long? Long, like the notes I’m sending. She waits in the air, Matte Kudasai. She sleeps in a chair In her sad America.” As I said earlier this is a song about loss and nostalgia and that specific verse illustrates those themes particularly well. The lyrics themselves also match up fairly well with the text in chapter 18, at least to me, they give off a similar emotion as well as a similar prose. The themes present in the song are themes that are intrinsic and vital to the character of Offred, so the song works as both a theme for this scene but as a leitmotif for Offred as a character.

I Talk to the Wind (1969): Yet another King Crimson Song though this one is from their debut album In the Court of the Crimson King released in 1969. Where Matte Kudasai gives off a much sadder and melancholic tone I Talk to the Wind is much more ethereal and airy. It feels like a trailing thought dancing in the wind, but beneath the calming music and celestial vocal performance there are very somber undertones. It is a song of confusion and disillusion with the idea of God. And the tone and themes of the song fit very well with many moments in The Handmaid’s Tale. In chapter 27 Offred and Ofglen are walking through the city when they pass the Soul Scrolls storefront and after a short conversation Ofglen asks Offred “‘Do you think God listens,’ […] ‘to these machines?’” to which Offred responds “No.” This scene showing both Offreds and Ofglens doubts on whether or not God listens fits perfectly with the chorus of I Talk to the Wind, “I talk to the wind, my words are all carried away. I talk to the wind. The wind does not hear, the wind cannot hear.” Many, including myself, interpret the song as a pious man talking to a non-religious person. And as the pious man talks to the “Late Man” he begins to doubt whether God, the wind, is listening or even can listen. These doubts on whether or not God listens is critical to how Offred views both Gilead and religion in general.

Epitaph (1969): From the same album as I Talk to the Wind, in fact literally the next song on the album, Epitaph is the most rock-like of these three King Crimson songs. Written at the height of the Cold War in the late sixties, it is a song about the end of the world, not by nature nor God, but rather through the deeds of men. This fits well with the fall of the United States and the rise of Gilead, as many of the people who lived through it view it as the end of the world as they knew it. “It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen?” This line from page 174 aligns closely with one of the repeating lyrics of Epitaph, “Confusion will be my epitaph” When massive change, especially bad change, happens most people feel only confusion, it’s all one can feel in these situations. I think the most important line in Epitaph and the one that fits most closely with the world under Gilead is near the end of the song, “Will no one lay the laurel wreath when silence drowns the screams?” The laurel wreath is a symbol of victory, given to Roman commanders after a successful war or conquest. But there was no victor in Gilead’s takeover. No one won, say for an extraordinarily small number of people, everyone is either a slave to a master or a slave to the system as a whole. No one is happy; not the Wives, Marthas, Handmaids, or even the Commanders. They are all silenced and repressed

Everything You’ve Ever Dreamed (1998): Everything You’ve Ever Dreamed was an unused song in the animated movie End of Evangelion and is therefore deeply tied to the themes of that movie and the Eva franchise as whole. Those themes being that of escapism, freedom, despair, and most importantly in our case love, or lack thereof. And though it was made with a completely different series in mind, it fits The Handmaid’s Tale shockingly well. In chapter 35 of The Handmaid’s Tale Offred is meeting with the Commander and on her way she ponders love. What love is now and what it was before. “God is love, they once said, but we reversed that, and love, like heaven, was always just around the corner. […] We were waiting, always,” In the before times and especially now love is always just out of reach. Everything You’ve Ever Dreamed mirrors these ideas perfectly with the songs chorus, “You can sail the seven seas Love is a place you’ll never see Passing you like a summer breeze You feel life has no other reason to be You can wait a million years and find That heavens too far away from you.” Even as I am writing this I am a little shocked on how well this works, I mean the mention of heaven as a way of showing that love is just out of reach is perfect. This song, like Matte Kudasai, works perfectly as themes for Offred and her character. She is someone who has lost a lot and has been denied almost all forms of connection, platonic or romantic. She, like everyone, is desperate for any kind of bond, but in Gilead, it is all too far out of reach.

TalkTalk (2018): This is the most different song in the playlist, where the others were softer and much longer, TalkTalk is shorter and a lot more aggressive in its tone. TalkTalk also has, in my opinion, the most unique meaning of the five songs listed here, being a commentary on the people who only talk about issues and do nothing about it. Another interpretation, and the one I personally like more, is that it is a song about those who twist words of religion to further means and to say something without really saying anything. The main repeating lyric of TalkTalk is, “Sit and talk like Jesus Try walkin’ like Jesus Sit and talk like Jesus Talk like Jesus Talk, talk, talk, talk” People talk like Jesus, use his words to push their agenda, but they do not act like Jesus, do not do as he said, they don’t walk like Jesus. This relates to The Handmaid’s Tale as Gilead is a theocracy, a government built around one state religion, and this religion is some sect of Christianity. Everything in Gilead is based around Christianity; Marthas are named after the sister of Jesus, the ‘slogan’ for the handmaids (Give me children, or else I die) is a quote from Genesis 30, even the name Gilead is a reference to a fertile land within Jerusalem, hell even the storefronts are references to the Bible. Everything in Gilead is built around this bizarre sect of Christianity, but they just happen to leave out all of the parts that don’t fit their agenda. They spew out the words of a doctrine they don’t even properly follow, they talk like Jesus but do not walk like Jesus.