Hear the what crackle and drag?

[Nevermind]

I can't make out what he is saying in Crackle and Drag

"Can you hear the crackle and drag"

Sometimes I think I hear blacks or bags. What is it actually?

[paulie]

can you hear the blacks crackle and drag

[RecordedInStereo]

The line "Her blacks crackle and drag" is from a Sylvia Plath poem called "Edge"
I'm pretty sure the song is about her.

[GtrPlyr]

I think Paul used a line from the poem 'Edge' because it was the last poem Sylvia ever wrote. She wrote it on Feb. 5, 1963. Six days later she commited suicide.

[Lush n' Green]

Crackle and Drag

What’s the matter here?
You never repair
The lady’s cursed with insight
You never fix her, with a cold stare
She’s all broken inside

She made a good go, like a weeping willow
Her limbs clung to the ground
She closed the window, and made a pillow
And lay her head down
And as her baby slept, she took a long deep breath

Now they’re zipping her up in a bag
Can you hear her blacks crackle and drag
And the Cadillac’s waiting to take her away
Can you hear her blacks crackle and drag

Another head cold, another spirit old
Mmmm, Febuary
Her hair was dirty, and she was 30 in 1963
And while her baby slept she took a long deep breath

And they’re zipping her up in a bag
Can you hear her blacks crackle and drag
The Cadillac’s waiting to take her away
Can you hear her blacks crackle and drag
And drag, and drag, and drag…

She made a good go, for a weeping willow
She stuffed some rags on the floor
She closed the window
She made a pillow on the oven door
And took a long deep breath
While her baby slept

Now they’re zipping her up in a bag
Can you hear her blacks crackle and drag
And the Cadillac’s waiting to take her away
Can you hear her blacks crackle and drag

They’re zipping her up in a bag
Can you hear her blacks crackle and drag
The Cadillac’s waiting to take her away
Can you hear her blacks crackle and drag
Hear her blacks crackle and drag

You can read all about sylvia here:
www.valkyrieshaunt.com/plath/sylviaplath.html

[SF69]

I'm not much of a poet, but what exactly
are "her blacks" that crackle and drag?

[claypigeon]

SF69 said:

I'm not much of a poet, but what exactly
are "her blacks" that crackle and drag?

Back in the early '60s Kelloggs made a cereal called "Barley Loops And Chocolate Krispies" or BLACKS for short. When you added milk to them they made crackling sounds much like Rice Krispies. Hence, can you hear her Blacks crackle and drag? This whole myth that the song has anything to do with Sylvia Plath is completely ludicrous.

[torethatbridgeout]

claypigeon said:

Back in the early '60s Kelloggs made a cereal called "Barley Loops And Chocolate Krispies" or BLACKS for short. When you added milk to them they made crackling sounds much like Rice Krispies. Hence, can you hear her Blacks crackle and drag? This whole myth that the song has anything to do with Sylvia Plath is completely ludicrous.

Jon Pareles eats 'em every day at his New York Times office. They taste like crow.

[ClamsCasino]

"Blacks" is theatre-geek speak for the curtains. As the curtains drag across the stage, they crackle with static electricity. The image of curtains drawing closed has obvious meaning in a song about an artist's suicide.

[butzodaddy]

Here's my cockeyed view of what Paul was thinking - now they're zipping her up in a (black, crackly) bag, you can hear her blacks crackle and drag (now, can't you?).

[Kathy]

Here's the actual poem:

Edge
Sylvia Plath

The woman is perfected.
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded

Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.

-----------------------------

[Kathy]

Here's another poem of hers, the last line will be familiar:

Death & Co.

Two, of course there are two.
It seems perfectly natural now----
The one who never looks up, whose eyes are lidded
And balled, like Blake’s,
Who exhibits

The birthmarks that are his trademark---
The scald scar of water,
The nude
Verdigris of the condor.
I am red meat. His beak

Claps sidewise: I am not his yet.
He tells me how badly I photograph.
He tells me how sweet
The babies look in their hospital
Icebox, a simple

Frill at the neck,
Then the flutings of their Ionian
Death-gowns.
Then two little feet.
He does not smile or smoke.

The other does that,
His hair long and plausive.
Bastard
Masturbating a glitter,
He wants to be loved.

I do not stir.
The frost makes a flower,
The dew makes a star,
The dead bell,
The dead bell.

Somebody’s done for.

--------------------------

[nobody74]

I thought the line was "can you hear the plaths crackle and drag..." [