On A Side Note. . . . .

The album cover of "Frances the Mute" the Mars Volta's second album is an interpretation of the Rene Magritte painting called the Lovers. This album came about when Jeremy Ward (one of the members of Mars Volta) found a diary in the back seat of a car when he was working as a repo man. He read the diary and identified with the original owners story as they were both adopted. In the diary the man told the story of his search for his birth parents and the named songs on the album are the names of the diary author's parents. The song "The Widow" (of the same album) has many interpretations as to what the meaning behind it is. One "story" behind it that of Jeremy Wards fight with a drug addiction that eventually ends the reason for his death. The second, more theatrical verson is about a Priest who had been having sexual relations with a young member of the church, Frances. The Priest who was not so much of a man of the faith because of the sounds of it he was a bit of a man whore, had slept with many other women in the town and eventually contracted the AIDS virus and given in to Frances. When he found out he then cut out Frances' tongue making her mute so that she couldn't tell the town what had happened. Personally I like the story of the second one better, and nobody will know for sure unless they've heard it from Jeremy Ward or read the infamous repossessed diary.