Video Blues

“Video Blues” is a lyric poem due to its numerous musical qualities and interest in the interior emotional state of the speaker. The poem opens with the speaker describing her husband’s “crush” (Line 1) on actress Myrna Loy and the way he “likes to rent her movies, for a treat” (Line 2). The use of the phrase “for a treat” (Line 2) establishes a humorous tone of sarcastic annoyance by indicating that, while her husband certainly enjoys the movies he rents, the speaker does not. This is made clear when the speaker admits that watching the movies “makes some evenings harder to enjoy” (Line 3). Over the course of the poem, the speaker fluctuates from poking fun at what may just be a quirk of her husband’s to feeling pangs of real insecurity in her marriage. Phrasing her husband’s interest in the actress as a “crush” (Line 1), for example, indicates that while the speaker may not initially see the attraction as a true threat to her marriage, she recognizes the negative impact it may be having on their relationship nonetheless.

The second stanza reverses the direction of the attraction by stating “the list of actresses who might employ / him as their slave is too long to repeat” (Lines 4-5). These lines imply that the husband has recited this “list of actresses” (Line 4) who would happily be with him to the speaker, and the speaker is sarcastically choosing not to repeat it. The end of the second stanza repeats the opening line “My husband has a crush on Myrna Loy,” (Line 6) and then expands the list to include other popular 1950s actresses Carole Lombard, Paulette Goddard, and “coy / Jean Arthur” (Line 7) at the beginning of the third stanza. This list marks a slight shift in tone for the poem, as the speaker describes Jean Arthur, who was known for having a breathy tone that added to her appeal and set her apart from her peers, as having a “voice as dry as wheat …” (Line 8). One of very few images in the poem, this description transforms the crushes from an abstract longing to a specific physical trait that is the object of the husband’s desire. As a result, the speaker’s repeating third line “It makes some evenings harder to enjoy” (Line 9) is colored with less humor and more pain and resignation than its initial appearance.

The fourth stanza marks another tonal shift through the use of a rhetorical question: “Does he confess all this just to annoy / a loyal spouse?” (Lines 10-11). This question is the first indication of the real emotional toll these crushes are having on the speaker. She questions her husband’s motives for giving voice to these crushes in the first place, with the addition of “all this” (Line 10) suggesting that even the specific commentary about Jean Arthur’s demeanor and voice may have been volunteered by the husband himself. The speaker confesses she “can’t compete” (Line 11) with these other women in a voice that is intimate and deflated compared to her initially more comical and sarcastic tone. Appearing in the middle of the poem and being the shortest sentence, the line “I know I can’t compete” (Line 11) carries an emotional weight that anchors the buoyant, lighthearted annoyance of previous stanzas. The fun and games of innocent crushes are over, and, as the stanza closes with the repeating line “My husband has a crush on Myrna Loy” (Line 12), the speaker sounds resigned to the crushes that now appear as endlessly repeating.

In the fifth stanza, the speaker shifts back once again to humor by asking if she can’t also “have her dreamboats?” (Line 13). This question addresses the idea that the husband’s “confession” (Line 10) of having all these crushes is tacit permission for the speaker to cultivate her own outside love interest. Almost as if the speaker doesn’t want to hurt or annoy her husband in the same way he does to her, however, she qualifies this question by saying she wouldn’t describe her “life as incomplete” (Line 14), but she would “enjoy / two hours with Cary Grant as [her] own toy” (Lines 15-16). The longest sentence in the poem, these lines infuse energy and playfulness back into the speaker as she suggests that the imbalance of love interests needs to be righted.

As the poem closes in the sixth stanza, the speaker again deflates and returns to a tone of resignation and defeat. After the burst of energy imagining an evening with Cary Grant, the speaker admits how unrealistic this fantasy is by saying, “I guess, though, we were destined not to meet” (Line 17). This sentence slows down the pace of the poem that had taken off in the final turn of the previous stanza. It offers the perspective that these movie stars are unattainable lovers for the average person, and it suggests that the same destiny keeping the speaker from meeting Cary Grant is also responsible for keeping her and her husband from meeting halfway in their marriage and addressing a point of contention. The final two lines combine the poem’s repeating refrains: “My husband has a crush on Myrna Loy, / which makes some evenings harder to enjoy” (Lines 18-19). The speaker has returned to the problem without any solutions. By the end of the poem, the husband’s “crush,” once seeming like a harmless “treat” (Line 2), now feels inevitable and inescapable.