saint in every dream

And they all pretend they're orphans and their memory's like a train
You can see it getting smaller as it pulls away
And the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget
That history puts a saint in every dream
("Time", Tom Waits)

A great phrase in a great lyric comes to mind as readily as a lovely image you remember from a distant place of important events in your life. In this case: "history puts a saint in every dream". I've wondered for years what exactly that means.

It's not the kind of line you sing while hanging upside down, wet, on a trapeze dripping over those awestruck young women who all seemed, in their faces, to be screaming "I want to be her!" It's something you overhear in a bar, over the smell of urine and stale beer, and the rumble of streetcars or trains, and the dismal cuckold of useless tears.

I think it means that what we don't remember--that we are not conscious of-- constantly intrudes on our interpretation of past events, especially when our memory of those events is suspect.

History is written by the victors, of course, including the emotional victors, and we typically interpret events in light of the prejudices adopted afterwards. Most of us probably remember that the Americans entered the war against Germany to stop them from killing Jews. They did not-- they entered because Japan bombed Pearl Harbour and Germany happened to be allied with Japan. Most of us probably remember a kind thing or two about someone who later treated us shabbily.

Only a few years before Pearl Harbour, Great Britain had negotiated a great peace with Hitler and Nazi rallies were held in Madison Square Gardens. A few years later, Stalin became our best friend, our comrade, until he too had to be reanimated. America supported Bin Laden when he took on the Soviets-- we know how that ended.

But "history puts a saint in every dream".

Rant of the Week

Saint in Every Dream