Melissa Etheridge
Etheridge describes her songs as expressions of truth about herself.
The truth they contain could be a sliver of acknowledgment or a crushing
realization. The truth can be of a moment in the past, a reality of the
present, or a grasping of the future. Each song, therefore, reveals something
of the artist herself, of her past, her present, and her dreams of what
may come. Her music delves deep inside her, overturning stones others
might leave untouched to spare themselves the pain. Etheridge's expression,
even when painful, is primarily cathartic. She deals with, indeed rises
above and moves past, her problems, frustrations, and shortcomings by
expressing them in her art. She is a spiritual person who digs deep within
herself and airs her thoughts, hopes, and dreams for all the world to
view. In the viewing (or, to be more precise, the listening), Etheridge's
audience is given the opportunity to experience the catharsis with her.
Listening to the music of Melissa Etheridge is not painful or depressing,
despite what some early critics have said; it can be revealing and healing.
What does the religious imagery in her music say about the person Melissa Etheridge is or hopes to be? Perhaps only Etheridge herself can answer that question. However, let us take a look at some examples and follow them to a logical conclusion. In the body of western writing, angels are first referred to as such in the Bible. In popular culture, angels (whether believed to be real entities or not) are generally perceived of as beings with wings shrouded in an aura of light. They are often human in appearance, but with an advanced beauty, intelligence, and perceptiveness. The wings allude to the role of the angel as a messenger. Perhaps the aura of light ties into the promise of enlightenment one would receive from this intelligent, perceptive being.
There are many definitions as to what an angel is or represents. The first given in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is this: A ministering spirit or divine messenger; one of an order of spiritual beings superior to man in power and intelligence, who, according to the Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan, and other theologies, are the attendants and messengers of the Deity. In this sense, angels are very real, nonhuman entities who serve God. They are members of a celestial hierarchy sent to visit earth, but presumably not of this earth. A similar, yet fundamentally different, interpretation also views angels as messengers. Anyone whose message makes you aware of the existence of a higher order, of something greater than yourself, can be an angel in this sense. This type of angel is or can be of this earth, indeed, can be human.
Melissa Etheridge seems to be fascinated with the concept of angels. She has been incorporating the theme of angelic visitation into the lyrics of her musical compositions since very early in her career. One example, which Etheridge was performing as early as 1983 (5 years before the release of her eponymously entitled debut album), is the song "Angel" , an unreleased tune written by her in the early 1980s. The song begins with the initial encounter, "Well I met an angel on the street this morning/Or maybe it was late last night," and goes on to describe the messenger in greater detail:
Well you wouldn't recognize her this angel For she's not the celestial type She had no pair of wings
I don't even think she sings
And the words that she spoke were no heavenly hype. Clearly this is a more earthly type of angel. She is not depicted as a celestial being and possesses none of the accoutrements we have come to associate with angels in their heavenly sense. The woman in question seems to harbor a view of her own angelic nature that differs from that of the songwriter though. She relays to Etheridge that she has been sent down from above to deliver her communication, implying that it is from a higher source: "Well that was all that she said she had for me/All that she'd been sent down to say." Etheridge, on the other hand, describes her as a human woman, indeed as a street dweller, who delivered her message and then "straightened up her rags/And...walked off with her bags/Back into her city...." However, there is no condemnation of this woman from the songwriter, no attempt to label her as crazy for her self-depiction. Etheridge casts no judgment, choosing instead to focus on the message delivered to her and, indeed, attributing an other-worldly sense of perception to her angel (although in reality the songwriter is merely projecting what is in her own mind onto the woman's comments): Somehow she knew that I'd been thinking about you
Somehow she knew that the city held no light
Somehow she knew that I just needed a reason
To tell you the things that I feel in the night.
She said, "Oh, let it show.
If you love them then let them know."
Oh, let it show.
If you love them let them know.
Etheridge accepts the words as advice, and the knowledge imparted causes her to acknowledge a truth within her own heart and to admit to it to the object of her affection alluded to by this angel. This truth, once spoken aloud, frees her. So this is how I've come to you this morning
To tell you of a secret in my heart
I'll bring it to your feet
I'll dance it in the street
You know I love you
I love you, I love you.
Any mention of angels on Etheridge's debut album is rather brief. In the song "Chrome Plated Heart", recorded in 1987 and released as the fourth single off the album, the angels are somewhere in the unseen heavens "crying from up above/And they got rust in their eyes/They got rust on their love." These angels do not cry human tears; they cry rust, which threatens to tarnish and corrode the songwriter's chrome-plated heart. They are emotional beings, capable of love and of the pain of pity. Etheridge's imagery suggests her angels are crying for her in these rough times when "the night is black/As black as night." The angels here are not delivering a message and they offer no real comfort. Etheridge will keep the faith in herself and carry on even without their help; indeed, if anything, they add just a bit to her burden, for now in addition to the scratches she manages to sustain on her heart, she must deal with the stain of their rust as well: "I'll take the time to polish these scratches and these stains/On my chrome plated heart. Etheridge released her second album in September 1989. Brave and Crazy went gold in two weeks and remains to this day a strong fan favorite. In Etheridge's unofficial biography, writer Joyce Luck indicates that this record "boast[s] what Etheridge fans are fond of referring to as the greatest line-up of tracks on any album, ever: 'You Used to Love to Dance' followed by 'The Angels' followed by 'You Can Sleep While I Drive' followed by 'Testify'.
The Angels was the third single released off Brave and Crazy, and once again Etheridge shifts gears in her portrayal of the entities. Angels are generally thought to be innocent with regard to mortal sin and they are often encased within a shroud of moral goodness. In the song "The Angels" , Etheridge begins by describing herself to be the innocent victim: "Sometimes I feel like an innocent one/To deserve this fate what have I ever done?" And, what of the angels? They are the force victimizing her by keeping her from getting what she wants:<>br All I want is for your love to be all mine
But the angels won't have it
All I want is for a little piece of mind
But the angels won't have it.
If we were to cease the analysis here and believe the songwriter at face value, the angels would come across as rather cruel in insisting on a separation of this woman from the one she loves. However, Etheridge makes only a half-hearted attempt at self-deception; at some level she has the awareness that this love is not good for her. It can only be achieved by giving away too much of what makes her who she is: "I thought I had a piece of my soul left to sell/I guess it's just as well/'Cause the angels won't have it." These are true guardian angels; they are protecting her from doing the wrong thing, even when it is a thing she thinks she wants. She labels herself as "the innocent one whose heart could never break," but the truth is her heart is already broken; this song is her wail of lament. She hurts enough to feel as though she could "die before I wake," and if she does, she envisions that her guardians will "Lift me up; take me out of this bed/Watching, the angels shake their heads." The angels will watch over her in this life and beyond. With the next lines, Etheridge reveals some of the fire that draws fans to her. She may dip briefly into the well of despair, but she will not indulge long in self-pity nor does she require the pity of others. She will bounce back with the help of her angels.
Don't feel sorry for me baby; honey don't you cry
You can sell all of my clothes; you will forget me by and by
I'll be riding that train and I'll be singing that song
But I won't be gone for long
'Cause the angels won't have it.
Her angels will keep her from indulging in a destructive type of love, but they will not allow her to despair for long. The song "The Angels" gives us our first opportunity to explore Etheridge's use of angels in a more visual medium. A music video for this composition was filmed on November 14, 1989, with Julie Cypher and Etheridge listed as directors and Jeff Tinnell as producer. Unlike a song, a music video often reflects input from a variety of sources. However, Etheridge has stated about her videos that she "basically think[s] up the concepts" , so we can assume that some, if not all, of the ideas started with her.
The video represents a departure for Etheridge, whose previous forays into this medium were primarily performance clips. This is a straightforward video with a simple plot. Etheridge is a single mother of a young daughter and she has fallen on hard times financially. Her bills are past due and she has received cancellation notices. She is at the end of her rope and there is no hope in sight. Throughout the course of the action, a single angel, played in the video by actor Lou Diamond Phillips, watches over the protagonist and her daughter. He is their guardian angel, but it is clear that his role is to watch and not to interfere. He has difficulty with that aspect of his duty though. At one point, he saves the daughter's life by stopping her from running out into the street to retrieve a toy. Several times, the angel attempts to comfort Etheridge, but she is caught up in her daily toil and can not sense his presence. Etheridge has no awareness of the angel, but her daughter clearly does. In her youthful innocence, she is more ready to believe and accept that he is a presence in her life.
The angel cares deeply for the mother and her daughter, but he is less and less content to just watch while Etheridge's despair grows. He attends a gathering of angels, but his alienation among them is clear. He has begun to desire that which an angel can never have. He is haunted by a vision of Etheridge's face as he sits by himself to contemplate his existence. He must make a choice between love on the earthly plane and the celestial nature of his being. He chooses love and in doing so must give up his wings. Once stripped of his celestial presence he is a mere mortal man and Etheridge can see him. For the first time in the video, we see her smile, a signal of hope and the ending of her despair. The video closes with the mother, child, and former angel walking away together hand in hand.
The video storyline follows a specific course and one that is vastly different from the solitary lament depicted in the song. Nevertheless, the basic theme remains the same. Etheridge has a guardian angel helping to pick her up when she hits a low point.
In 1992, Etheridge released a very different type of album. While her first two records were primarily assemblages of songs that worked well and were tried and tested in live performances, Never Enough was created in the studio. Etheridge had undergone a tremendous amount of growth and change and the new album reflected a myriad of different styles and themes that she had not previously fully explored. What of our theme of angelic visitation? Well, Etheridge visits a very different kind of angel in the album's lead single, the Grammy-award-winning song "Ain't It Heavy".
Sometimes I know that it's never enough
Survival is fine but satisfaction is rough
I try with an angel tonight
Spread these wings and I'm on for the ride
Cruise these streets where my innocence hides
There'[re] some things you can't deny.
This type of angel fits the OED definition 1d: "A person who resembles an angel either in attributes or actions". In "Ain't It Heavy," the angel is a human being and the angelic resemblance is in attributes rather than actions. Tired of merely surviving, Etheridge wishes to rise above her frustrations; she has found a very human lover with whom to spread her wings. Her own innocence will be hidden while she seeks satisfaction of a non-innocent nature. Never Enough was a critical success that earned Etheridge some much-deserved respect within the music industry, but it was less popular with the longtime fans who had followed Etheridge's career from its inception. Her fourth album finally put popular and critical success together to form a copacetic whole. Yes I Am, released in September 1993, was more than just another CD, it was a musical happening. In December 1994, more than a year after its release, VH-1 named it the one most essential album of the entire year. On this record can be found the song "Talking to My Angel," which is the artist's most poignant rendition of the guardian angel theme to date.
In 1991, Etheridge experienced a major defining moment in her life when she lost her father to liver cancer. She and her father shared a deep bond of love, one that transcends life. In a very real sense, Etheridge gained a new guardian angel with the death of her father. His continued presence in her life can be felt within the song "Talking to My Angel" . The composition is, at its heart, about Etheridge's need to leave the sometimes stifling small midwestern city of Leavenworth, Kansas, to find her way to the promised land of California. Even for an individual with huge dreams and desires, there is a fear that accompanies first the contemplation of leaving and then the actual action of letting go.
Don't be afraid
Close your eyes
Lay it all down
Don't you cry
Can't you see I'm going
Where I can see the sun rise
I've been talking to my angel
And he said that it's all right.
Etheridge's father was both her biggest proponent and her biggest fan. He was the person who most encouraged her from a very young age to pursue and achieve her goal of attaining a career in the music industry. In many ways, he was an angel to her even in life. When he died, he became part of a larger spiritual essence that continued to guide her. Of "Talking to My Angel," Etheridge has said, "I use the term angel to describe that higher, spiritual self that's apart from the physical self. So when I'm talking to my angel, I'm talking to my beliefs, the inspiration". She elaborated further with another interviewer: "The angel is both myself and my higher self, and it's [the song] about leaving my hometown and life as I knew it to go after my dreams". Thus, the angel, identified in the song by the masculine pronoun, is not merely the spiritual essence of her father, but is Etheridge herself. She could "feel the thunder/Underneath my feet/I sold my soul for freedom/It's lonely but it's sweet." She knew what had to be done and refused to let fear stand in her way. The encouragement came from within as well as without; she is her father's daughter, after all.
In no song has Etheridge created a richer palette of religious imagery than in her newest single, "Angels Would Fall" , co-written with guitarist John Shanks. The religion of this song is love. The songwriter's beloved is an object of worship for her ("I've dreamed of the divinity/Inside and out of you"), and the place of visitation is like a church ("I've crept into your temple/I have slept upon your pew"). This is an idealization of love in its purest form. The sexual expression of love, though never condemned as base in Etheridge's music, is nevertheless relegated to a lower level of importance here. Sex is a human, rather than spiritual, expression of love and the artist deems herself as unworthy of engaging in it with this being:
So I'll come by and see you again
I'll have to be a very good friend
Have mercy on my soul
I will never let you know
Where my mind has been.
This same sentiment is repeated later in the song:
I'll come by and see you again
I'll have to be a very good friend
If I whisper they will know
I'll just turn around and go
You will never know my sin.
Etheridge can express one aspect of her love, she can "be a very good friend," but she can never reveal her desire for the other, indeed must ensure that the individual "will never know my sin." At a deeper level, another layer of meaning in the song is revealed. Many early cultures viewed Love as a god or goddess (the ancient Greeks, for example). In modern thinking, it is hailed as an ideal as often as it is addressed as an emotion. In "Angels Would Fall," the spiritual aspect of love is strongly felt. In a debate on the true nature of love in one of the dialogues of Plato, Diotoma tells Socrates that love "is a great spirit, and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal....he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them" . Love, then, is a spiritual essence, not unlike an angel. Humans are sexual beings; angels are not.
Angels never came down
There's no one here they want to hang around
But if they knew
If they knew you at all
Then one by one the angels
Angels would fall.
For the angels to know the type of love Etheridge sings about, they would first have to fall. In this sense, the object of devotion in the song is not another person, but love itself. Plato wrote, "Love will make men dare to die for their beloved--love alone" (14). Etheridge, too, feels this; indeed, she wants it:
I want it more than truth
I can taste it on my breath
I would give my life just for a little death.
However, she will not be the reason the angel of love falls:
I will not look upon your face
I will not touch upon your grace
Your ecclesiastic skin.
In July 1999, Etheridge created her second music video utilizing angels when she made her directorial debut on "Angels Would Fall." She chose to direct the video because she wanted the presentation of the song to reflect her own vision from start to finish. She said of the project, "Yes, that's what I am; that's what I meant. If you hate it, it's me; it's not somebody else" (15). This then is the artist's own visual depiction of her song and it is very true to the essence of the lyric.
The video setting is an abandoned bar, the type of venue from which Etheridge's career was launched. Etheridge is the sole human occupant; she plays her guitar and sings as angels fall to the floor around her, some landing very hard. These angels are wingless from the onset, but they are clearly celestial, because feathers are falling all around Etheridge as she sings and the angels are bathed in an aura of light, which they retain even after they land. As the angels regain their awareness, they begin to look around the bar and they are fascinated with the items within this earthly realm. With a sense of wonder, they tactually explore such mundane human inventions as a table and chairs, a candle in a glass holder, a cigarette lighter, and some bottles of alcohol. This indulgence leads to the next and soon the angels are touching one another. They pair up female to male, female to female, and male to male and they touch each other with a lover's caress. A full set of wings falls to the ground and from within the bar, a door opens to the outside, offering the angels a choice. They can retain their celestial nature or abandon it and claim love. One by one, they turn and walk out the door, losing their unearthly glow as they choose. One angel steps on the wings on his way out, a sign of no regret. In the video, as in the song lyric, the angels must fall in order to achieve the love they desire and that love, once known, is hard to deny.
Use of religious symbolism in songs of the rock genre is nothing new; after all, the gospel influence on rock has long been established. Likewise, we often find angels (entities with wide appeal in secular society as well as religious) referred to in the lyrics of rock musicians. Perhaps the most popular use of the term angel in non-gospel genre music has been as a human (more often female than not) with stunning attributes. Indeed, Melissa Etheridge creates this image with the angel referred to in the song "Ain't It Heavy." However, in general, Etheridge ties a more spiritual connotation to her depiction of angels, and by visiting them so often as a subject matter in her songs, she reveals her own fascination with the spiritual imagery surrounding them.
One of the strong points of Melissa Etheridge's music is the multi-layered nature of the message delivered in her heartfelt lyrics. What then would be the logical conclusion revealed about Etheridge's concept of the character of angels, peeled down to its deepest layer? In every song described herein, with the exception of the lover in "Ain't It Heavy," the angels portrayed contain some element of Etheridge herself, of her "higher spiritual" essence she described when commenting on "Talking to My Angel." At a deep level, Etheridge seems to know what is right for her and what she needs to do; the angels who help guide her reflect back that deeper knowledge she projects onto them. In "Angel," she encounters a tattered woman claiming to be a messenger from above who tells her to show her love. To some, this might be taken as just an inane comment from an unfortunate individual with damaged mental functions. Because she is obsessing about the object of her affection at the time, Etheridge thinks her angel just somehow knows all about her. In "Chrome Plated Heart," Etheridge is well aware that there is no angel to help her; she must maintain her faith in herself. In "The Angels" and "Talking to My Angel," again Etheridge reveals her own innate self-perception and, through her angels, confirms her own actions as right. "Angels Would Fall," with its clever use of religious terminology, depicts the artist's concept of and reaction to the notion of love. She can choose to continue her worship of love in its purest sense, to remain above the human expression of it forever as an onlooker, or she can fall and revel in its utter bliss. When faced with this decision, every angelic aspect of her that keeps her apart from that which she knows ultimately will make her whole will "one by one...[have to] fall."
What does the religious imagery in her music say about the person Melissa Etheridge is or hopes to be? Perhaps only Etheridge herself can answer that question. However, let us take a look at some examples and follow them to a logical conclusion. In the body of western writing, angels are first referred to as such in the Bible. In popular culture, angels (whether believed to be real entities or not) are generally perceived of as beings with wings shrouded in an aura of light. They are often human in appearance, but with an advanced beauty, intelligence, and perceptiveness. The wings allude to the role of the angel as a messenger. Perhaps the aura of light ties into the promise of enlightenment one would receive from this intelligent, perceptive being.
There are many definitions as to what an angel is or represents. The first given in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is this: A ministering spirit or divine messenger; one of an order of spiritual beings superior to man in power and intelligence, who, according to the Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan, and other theologies, are the attendants and messengers of the Deity. In this sense, angels are very real, nonhuman entities who serve God. They are members of a celestial hierarchy sent to visit earth, but presumably not of this earth. A similar, yet fundamentally different, interpretation also views angels as messengers. Anyone whose message makes you aware of the existence of a higher order, of something greater than yourself, can be an angel in this sense. This type of angel is or can be of this earth, indeed, can be human.
Melissa Etheridge seems to be fascinated with the concept of angels. She has been incorporating the theme of angelic visitation into the lyrics of her musical compositions since very early in her career. One example, which Etheridge was performing as early as 1983 (5 years before the release of her eponymously entitled debut album), is the song "Angel" , an unreleased tune written by her in the early 1980s. The song begins with the initial encounter, "Well I met an angel on the street this morning/Or maybe it was late last night," and goes on to describe the messenger in greater detail:
Well you wouldn't recognize her this angel For she's not the celestial type She had no pair of wings
I don't even think she sings
And the words that she spoke were no heavenly hype. Clearly this is a more earthly type of angel. She is not depicted as a celestial being and possesses none of the accoutrements we have come to associate with angels in their heavenly sense. The woman in question seems to harbor a view of her own angelic nature that differs from that of the songwriter though. She relays to Etheridge that she has been sent down from above to deliver her communication, implying that it is from a higher source: "Well that was all that she said she had for me/All that she'd been sent down to say." Etheridge, on the other hand, describes her as a human woman, indeed as a street dweller, who delivered her message and then "straightened up her rags/And...walked off with her bags/Back into her city...." However, there is no condemnation of this woman from the songwriter, no attempt to label her as crazy for her self-depiction. Etheridge casts no judgment, choosing instead to focus on the message delivered to her and, indeed, attributing an other-worldly sense of perception to her angel (although in reality the songwriter is merely projecting what is in her own mind onto the woman's comments): Somehow she knew that I'd been thinking about you
Somehow she knew that the city held no light
Somehow she knew that I just needed a reason
To tell you the things that I feel in the night.
She said, "Oh, let it show.
If you love them then let them know."
Oh, let it show.
If you love them let them know.
Etheridge accepts the words as advice, and the knowledge imparted causes her to acknowledge a truth within her own heart and to admit to it to the object of her affection alluded to by this angel. This truth, once spoken aloud, frees her. So this is how I've come to you this morning
To tell you of a secret in my heart
I'll bring it to your feet
I'll dance it in the street
You know I love you
I love you, I love you.
Any mention of angels on Etheridge's debut album is rather brief. In the song "Chrome Plated Heart", recorded in 1987 and released as the fourth single off the album, the angels are somewhere in the unseen heavens "crying from up above/And they got rust in their eyes/They got rust on their love." These angels do not cry human tears; they cry rust, which threatens to tarnish and corrode the songwriter's chrome-plated heart. They are emotional beings, capable of love and of the pain of pity. Etheridge's imagery suggests her angels are crying for her in these rough times when "the night is black/As black as night." The angels here are not delivering a message and they offer no real comfort. Etheridge will keep the faith in herself and carry on even without their help; indeed, if anything, they add just a bit to her burden, for now in addition to the scratches she manages to sustain on her heart, she must deal with the stain of their rust as well: "I'll take the time to polish these scratches and these stains/On my chrome plated heart. Etheridge released her second album in September 1989. Brave and Crazy went gold in two weeks and remains to this day a strong fan favorite. In Etheridge's unofficial biography, writer Joyce Luck indicates that this record "boast[s] what Etheridge fans are fond of referring to as the greatest line-up of tracks on any album, ever: 'You Used to Love to Dance' followed by 'The Angels' followed by 'You Can Sleep While I Drive' followed by 'Testify'.
The Angels was the third single released off Brave and Crazy, and once again Etheridge shifts gears in her portrayal of the entities. Angels are generally thought to be innocent with regard to mortal sin and they are often encased within a shroud of moral goodness. In the song "The Angels" , Etheridge begins by describing herself to be the innocent victim: "Sometimes I feel like an innocent one/To deserve this fate what have I ever done?" And, what of the angels? They are the force victimizing her by keeping her from getting what she wants:<>br All I want is for your love to be all mine
But the angels won't have it
All I want is for a little piece of mind
But the angels won't have it.
If we were to cease the analysis here and believe the songwriter at face value, the angels would come across as rather cruel in insisting on a separation of this woman from the one she loves. However, Etheridge makes only a half-hearted attempt at self-deception; at some level she has the awareness that this love is not good for her. It can only be achieved by giving away too much of what makes her who she is: "I thought I had a piece of my soul left to sell/I guess it's just as well/'Cause the angels won't have it." These are true guardian angels; they are protecting her from doing the wrong thing, even when it is a thing she thinks she wants. She labels herself as "the innocent one whose heart could never break," but the truth is her heart is already broken; this song is her wail of lament. She hurts enough to feel as though she could "die before I wake," and if she does, she envisions that her guardians will "Lift me up; take me out of this bed/Watching, the angels shake their heads." The angels will watch over her in this life and beyond. With the next lines, Etheridge reveals some of the fire that draws fans to her. She may dip briefly into the well of despair, but she will not indulge long in self-pity nor does she require the pity of others. She will bounce back with the help of her angels.
Don't feel sorry for me baby; honey don't you cry
You can sell all of my clothes; you will forget me by and by
I'll be riding that train and I'll be singing that song
But I won't be gone for long
'Cause the angels won't have it.
Her angels will keep her from indulging in a destructive type of love, but they will not allow her to despair for long. The song "The Angels" gives us our first opportunity to explore Etheridge's use of angels in a more visual medium. A music video for this composition was filmed on November 14, 1989, with Julie Cypher and Etheridge listed as directors and Jeff Tinnell as producer. Unlike a song, a music video often reflects input from a variety of sources. However, Etheridge has stated about her videos that she "basically think[s] up the concepts" , so we can assume that some, if not all, of the ideas started with her.
The video represents a departure for Etheridge, whose previous forays into this medium were primarily performance clips. This is a straightforward video with a simple plot. Etheridge is a single mother of a young daughter and she has fallen on hard times financially. Her bills are past due and she has received cancellation notices. She is at the end of her rope and there is no hope in sight. Throughout the course of the action, a single angel, played in the video by actor Lou Diamond Phillips, watches over the protagonist and her daughter. He is their guardian angel, but it is clear that his role is to watch and not to interfere. He has difficulty with that aspect of his duty though. At one point, he saves the daughter's life by stopping her from running out into the street to retrieve a toy. Several times, the angel attempts to comfort Etheridge, but she is caught up in her daily toil and can not sense his presence. Etheridge has no awareness of the angel, but her daughter clearly does. In her youthful innocence, she is more ready to believe and accept that he is a presence in her life.
The angel cares deeply for the mother and her daughter, but he is less and less content to just watch while Etheridge's despair grows. He attends a gathering of angels, but his alienation among them is clear. He has begun to desire that which an angel can never have. He is haunted by a vision of Etheridge's face as he sits by himself to contemplate his existence. He must make a choice between love on the earthly plane and the celestial nature of his being. He chooses love and in doing so must give up his wings. Once stripped of his celestial presence he is a mere mortal man and Etheridge can see him. For the first time in the video, we see her smile, a signal of hope and the ending of her despair. The video closes with the mother, child, and former angel walking away together hand in hand.
The video storyline follows a specific course and one that is vastly different from the solitary lament depicted in the song. Nevertheless, the basic theme remains the same. Etheridge has a guardian angel helping to pick her up when she hits a low point.
In 1992, Etheridge released a very different type of album. While her first two records were primarily assemblages of songs that worked well and were tried and tested in live performances, Never Enough was created in the studio. Etheridge had undergone a tremendous amount of growth and change and the new album reflected a myriad of different styles and themes that she had not previously fully explored. What of our theme of angelic visitation? Well, Etheridge visits a very different kind of angel in the album's lead single, the Grammy-award-winning song "Ain't It Heavy".
Sometimes I know that it's never enough
Survival is fine but satisfaction is rough
I try with an angel tonight
Spread these wings and I'm on for the ride
Cruise these streets where my innocence hides
There'[re] some things you can't deny.
This type of angel fits the OED definition 1d: "A person who resembles an angel either in attributes or actions". In "Ain't It Heavy," the angel is a human being and the angelic resemblance is in attributes rather than actions. Tired of merely surviving, Etheridge wishes to rise above her frustrations; she has found a very human lover with whom to spread her wings. Her own innocence will be hidden while she seeks satisfaction of a non-innocent nature. Never Enough was a critical success that earned Etheridge some much-deserved respect within the music industry, but it was less popular with the longtime fans who had followed Etheridge's career from its inception. Her fourth album finally put popular and critical success together to form a copacetic whole. Yes I Am, released in September 1993, was more than just another CD, it was a musical happening. In December 1994, more than a year after its release, VH-1 named it the one most essential album of the entire year. On this record can be found the song "Talking to My Angel," which is the artist's most poignant rendition of the guardian angel theme to date.
In 1991, Etheridge experienced a major defining moment in her life when she lost her father to liver cancer. She and her father shared a deep bond of love, one that transcends life. In a very real sense, Etheridge gained a new guardian angel with the death of her father. His continued presence in her life can be felt within the song "Talking to My Angel" . The composition is, at its heart, about Etheridge's need to leave the sometimes stifling small midwestern city of Leavenworth, Kansas, to find her way to the promised land of California. Even for an individual with huge dreams and desires, there is a fear that accompanies first the contemplation of leaving and then the actual action of letting go.
Don't be afraid
Close your eyes
Lay it all down
Don't you cry
Can't you see I'm going
Where I can see the sun rise
I've been talking to my angel
And he said that it's all right.
Etheridge's father was both her biggest proponent and her biggest fan. He was the person who most encouraged her from a very young age to pursue and achieve her goal of attaining a career in the music industry. In many ways, he was an angel to her even in life. When he died, he became part of a larger spiritual essence that continued to guide her. Of "Talking to My Angel," Etheridge has said, "I use the term angel to describe that higher, spiritual self that's apart from the physical self. So when I'm talking to my angel, I'm talking to my beliefs, the inspiration". She elaborated further with another interviewer: "The angel is both myself and my higher self, and it's [the song] about leaving my hometown and life as I knew it to go after my dreams". Thus, the angel, identified in the song by the masculine pronoun, is not merely the spiritual essence of her father, but is Etheridge herself. She could "feel the thunder/Underneath my feet/I sold my soul for freedom/It's lonely but it's sweet." She knew what had to be done and refused to let fear stand in her way. The encouragement came from within as well as without; she is her father's daughter, after all.
In no song has Etheridge created a richer palette of religious imagery than in her newest single, "Angels Would Fall" , co-written with guitarist John Shanks. The religion of this song is love. The songwriter's beloved is an object of worship for her ("I've dreamed of the divinity/Inside and out of you"), and the place of visitation is like a church ("I've crept into your temple/I have slept upon your pew"). This is an idealization of love in its purest form. The sexual expression of love, though never condemned as base in Etheridge's music, is nevertheless relegated to a lower level of importance here. Sex is a human, rather than spiritual, expression of love and the artist deems herself as unworthy of engaging in it with this being:
So I'll come by and see you again
I'll have to be a very good friend
Have mercy on my soul
I will never let you know
Where my mind has been.
This same sentiment is repeated later in the song:
I'll come by and see you again
I'll have to be a very good friend
If I whisper they will know
I'll just turn around and go
You will never know my sin.
Etheridge can express one aspect of her love, she can "be a very good friend," but she can never reveal her desire for the other, indeed must ensure that the individual "will never know my sin." At a deeper level, another layer of meaning in the song is revealed. Many early cultures viewed Love as a god or goddess (the ancient Greeks, for example). In modern thinking, it is hailed as an ideal as often as it is addressed as an emotion. In "Angels Would Fall," the spiritual aspect of love is strongly felt. In a debate on the true nature of love in one of the dialogues of Plato, Diotoma tells Socrates that love "is a great spirit, and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal....he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them" . Love, then, is a spiritual essence, not unlike an angel. Humans are sexual beings; angels are not.
Angels never came down
There's no one here they want to hang around
But if they knew
If they knew you at all
Then one by one the angels
Angels would fall.
For the angels to know the type of love Etheridge sings about, they would first have to fall. In this sense, the object of devotion in the song is not another person, but love itself. Plato wrote, "Love will make men dare to die for their beloved--love alone" (14). Etheridge, too, feels this; indeed, she wants it:
I want it more than truth
I can taste it on my breath
I would give my life just for a little death.
However, she will not be the reason the angel of love falls:
I will not look upon your face
I will not touch upon your grace
Your ecclesiastic skin.
In July 1999, Etheridge created her second music video utilizing angels when she made her directorial debut on "Angels Would Fall." She chose to direct the video because she wanted the presentation of the song to reflect her own vision from start to finish. She said of the project, "Yes, that's what I am; that's what I meant. If you hate it, it's me; it's not somebody else" (15). This then is the artist's own visual depiction of her song and it is very true to the essence of the lyric.
The video setting is an abandoned bar, the type of venue from which Etheridge's career was launched. Etheridge is the sole human occupant; she plays her guitar and sings as angels fall to the floor around her, some landing very hard. These angels are wingless from the onset, but they are clearly celestial, because feathers are falling all around Etheridge as she sings and the angels are bathed in an aura of light, which they retain even after they land. As the angels regain their awareness, they begin to look around the bar and they are fascinated with the items within this earthly realm. With a sense of wonder, they tactually explore such mundane human inventions as a table and chairs, a candle in a glass holder, a cigarette lighter, and some bottles of alcohol. This indulgence leads to the next and soon the angels are touching one another. They pair up female to male, female to female, and male to male and they touch each other with a lover's caress. A full set of wings falls to the ground and from within the bar, a door opens to the outside, offering the angels a choice. They can retain their celestial nature or abandon it and claim love. One by one, they turn and walk out the door, losing their unearthly glow as they choose. One angel steps on the wings on his way out, a sign of no regret. In the video, as in the song lyric, the angels must fall in order to achieve the love they desire and that love, once known, is hard to deny.
Use of religious symbolism in songs of the rock genre is nothing new; after all, the gospel influence on rock has long been established. Likewise, we often find angels (entities with wide appeal in secular society as well as religious) referred to in the lyrics of rock musicians. Perhaps the most popular use of the term angel in non-gospel genre music has been as a human (more often female than not) with stunning attributes. Indeed, Melissa Etheridge creates this image with the angel referred to in the song "Ain't It Heavy." However, in general, Etheridge ties a more spiritual connotation to her depiction of angels, and by visiting them so often as a subject matter in her songs, she reveals her own fascination with the spiritual imagery surrounding them.
One of the strong points of Melissa Etheridge's music is the multi-layered nature of the message delivered in her heartfelt lyrics. What then would be the logical conclusion revealed about Etheridge's concept of the character of angels, peeled down to its deepest layer? In every song described herein, with the exception of the lover in "Ain't It Heavy," the angels portrayed contain some element of Etheridge herself, of her "higher spiritual" essence she described when commenting on "Talking to My Angel." At a deep level, Etheridge seems to know what is right for her and what she needs to do; the angels who help guide her reflect back that deeper knowledge she projects onto them. In "Angel," she encounters a tattered woman claiming to be a messenger from above who tells her to show her love. To some, this might be taken as just an inane comment from an unfortunate individual with damaged mental functions. Because she is obsessing about the object of her affection at the time, Etheridge thinks her angel just somehow knows all about her. In "Chrome Plated Heart," Etheridge is well aware that there is no angel to help her; she must maintain her faith in herself. In "The Angels" and "Talking to My Angel," again Etheridge reveals her own innate self-perception and, through her angels, confirms her own actions as right. "Angels Would Fall," with its clever use of religious terminology, depicts the artist's concept of and reaction to the notion of love. She can choose to continue her worship of love in its purest sense, to remain above the human expression of it forever as an onlooker, or she can fall and revel in its utter bliss. When faced with this decision, every angelic aspect of her that keeps her apart from that which she knows ultimately will make her whole will "one by one...[have to] fall."
