| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I noticed that too. Not sure what it refers to, but it's significant and you could be right. Then again, that could be a metaphor as well... | |
| Joanna Newsom – Emily Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Aww. I just read them, if that makes you feel any better... | |
| Joanna Newsom – Monkey & Bear Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I don't think she drowns either. I think at first I did, but the discussion here, and deeper thinking, made it very obvious she didn't. | |
| Joanna Newsom – Sprout and the Bean Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| The mix of emotions feels both jarring in depicting a happiness that was ended before it could really begin, and so deeply, sincerely felt. And the feeling of the danger being towards her body also, from outside (maybe from the simplistic polarised ways abortion is talked about, speaking only of the mother or only of the child, or from or lack of support to really be able to make the choice of having the child). | |
| Joanna Newsom – Sprout and the Bean Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| The way she identifies so much with them, saying she is 'fey' maybe meaning fated, and the playful expression of wanting to go outside together. | |
| Joanna Newsom – Sprout and the Bean Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I also think it sounds like grief after abortion. Marriage being the difference sometimes about whether a foetus is allowed to grow. The song isn't about whether the decision was right or wrong, whether it should or shouldn't be legal. It sounds like it's about the loss, the feeling of maternal connection to the child, the reality of the child and wondering what would have been, that is often hushed in the effort not to put guilt on women who have made these decisions in extremely difficult, sometimes dangerous, circumstances. Who still feel a complex grief that's not always able to be openly talked about. |
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| Joanna Newsom – Sprout and the Bean Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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luvs_kitties... She seems spiritual, someone who's searching and questioning, who finds an intense spiritual connection with nature and kind of mystical archaic things, but can't accept reasons for faith and/or won't be tied down to an institution. Christianity still seems to be something that fascinates her in a number of different ways, and she refers to it a lot. Part of it is just the poetic technique of religious imagery implying that something is sacred to her, or using it as a literary reference. And part of it is yearning for a strong and safe response: "Down in a ditch where I nearly served you; up in the clouds where he almost heard you..." The ad mentioned above can be found here. I love it too :-) http://www.visitvictoria.com/melbournead/ |
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| U2 – Sweetest Thing Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Also, he talks about a stormy kind of love, a blind kind of love, almost as if wishing it could still work even without shared support/respect. | |
| U2 – Sweetest Thing Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| It does sound ironic saying that love is the sweetest thing while talking about how she seems not to care for him and he's in pain that they're falling apart. Maybe it isn't all cynical though, as it can also reach towards the idea that when it's real, love could be the sweetest thing. | |
| Joanna Newsom – Monkey & Bear Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Oh wait, I took my email off from public view. I'll send them to you anyway :-) | |
| Joanna Newsom – Monkey & Bear Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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They mayn't be mutually exclusive: I don't think they are. I'm just saying that after thinking more about the song, I don't think that was the original intended meaning. The transcription above is in places wrong, but yes, in the album lyrics the uppercase/lowercase thing with the word 'bear' still happens. Whenever the monkey refers to Ursala it's capitalised; at other times it changes back and forth. This annoyed me when I read it (I'm a little bit of a perfectionist), and I can't work out why it is: There could be a reason, but really it should always be capitalised unless preceeded by the word 'the', etecetera, 'cause it's used as a name... The thing with the way the lyrics are typed out in the cover is that they seem generally very deliberate, but there are some little details that seem to be kind of accidental--not real mistakes, but a few things like this. Because of this I think you can't really read too much into the poetic techniques in terms of how they're arranged on the page: it's more about the words themselves as she sings them. If you want a correct typed up copy of all the Ys lyrics, I have one (had to type it up to stick it in my Art process diary, 'cause I'm using some of her stuff for school): just click the link to my profile and email me, and I'll send it to you. |
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| Joanna Newsom – Monkey & Bear Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Treat the whole 'constellation' part of the interpretation as a Postmodern kind of reading: after hearing what other people have written I actually don't think that's the meaning Joanna had in mind. But if it adds something to the song for you, imagination is often a good thing :-) | |
| Joanna Newsom – The Book of Right-On Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| But what does she mean by "The Book of Right-On", or being right-on? | |
| Joanna Newsom – This Side of the Blue Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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In light of the references to philosophy and linguistics, the first part "and I am progressing abominably" might refer to reading philosophy (for study?) and finding it difficult, conceptually or emotionally. The name Svetlana means light, so she could symbolise understanding, but sucking lemons could be about disillusionment. The idea of lemons curing scurvy, mentioned in another comment, is interesting with this, as sometimes a negative focus can be a way towards acceptance, but in this case it sounds like the reading is bringing distress. In the second verse, the city that turns seems to be the earth, and there may be a feeling, or fear, that lived experience is essentially meaningless, yet drawn out repetitively. "This side of the blue" could be about 'this side of the sky', 'under the sun', the mundane experience; being in the middle of depression, yet aware that there could be (elusive) healing beyond it; and/or standing at the edge of what we don't know. Toeing the Embarcadero could then mean perhaps considering human experience with uncertainty about meaning, deciding whether it's worth it, or pondering the unknown that edges onto understanding. Wishing to know and discover, or to escape knowing. It's beautiful how the rhyme shifts in this verse, too, for "knowing the things that I knew" (rather than 'things that I know'). We can define so little in absolute terms, and yet we hold onto the meaning in what we've experienced. Kindness is one of those things, and I wonder if Jaimie could be someone whose friendship helped Joanna feel secure within all this cognitive loss of foundations. "The signified butt heads with the signifiers... across the sky sheet the impossible birds" sounds like the way it's impossible to really express some things in words, both emotions and our perceptions of meaningfulness in life and relationships. Falling down slack-jawed being the surprise of discovering that the words we use can hold such a variety of meaning, related to personal experiences, yet language exists to express connections in our experiences and intuitions, and can't reason about anything else. It can be a shock to see language as a subjective expression of experience in a complex world that we all perceive with both differences and overlap in perspective. And then to realise that many of the questions we ask may not be completely able to find answer or anchor. Gabriel appears to represent a way through, acknowledging the untameable wilderness and standing in it, while also navigating it. Camus' question of whether existence is worth all the trouble becomes a paper hat, maybe representing something simple and bearable despite its cognitive weight; childlike, just one part of a bigger picture than just that question, yet also taken seriously, thought about, probably worn. Gabriel is an angel of peace on earth and revelation from beyond, but perhaps it refers to a specific philosopher (could be with the same name) who brought Joanna some sense of anchoring and stability. The last verse holds acceptance and stoicism alongside emotion and longing, essentially integrating the analytical part of the mind with the intuitive part (and the same in terms of outlooks in literature). This interweaving brings a kind of peace and openness, inner cooperation, instead of jarring between rigid thoughts and chaotic emotions, even while painfully holding the tension of uncertainty in some questions that are close to the heart. The emphasis at the end on doing, not just knowing, is important, because we can neither be well nor make things easier for others unless we focus on what needs doing. Not with disregard for emotional processing or conceptual honesty and foundations, but also staying grounded in the non-lyrical, often not very verbal things that we find helpful for wellness, kindness, and sensory regulation. Yet the imagery of Gabriel beneath forest and moon grasps at imagination as a higher part of desire, holding hope that there is more than just mechanics in the essence of realities we care about. It's religious/mythical imagery even if seeing the world from an evolutionary point of view, as a way of affirming the emergent value of a friend's kindness and of experiences, and people, both loved and missed. |
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| Joanna Newsom – This Side of the Blue Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Thanks, that's a beautiful image about being in a foreign place whereas the birds are free to travel. It reminds me of Shaun Tan's book 'The Arrival'. I don't have the album, are the lyrics in the cover? Does it say "kindest heart" or "hardest heart" about Jamie? I've seen it variously written. |
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| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Bill Callahan is... um... at his best here, I think. But I agree, it does sound fantastic :-) | |
| Joanna Newsom – Monkey & Bear Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Wow. I think I agree with you! That's so fantastic, thanks so much for pointing that out... You're clever :-) | |
| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| That's cool, it's good to throw things down in the brainstorming, so people can pick them up and do with them as they see fit. I wouldn't be surprised if heaps of my ideas were wrong or only partial, so I hope everyone imagines and thinks and then shares :-) | |
| Joanna Newsom – Emily Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Now that is clever. I would not be surprised if both you and Neuron were right... | |
| Joanna Newsom – En Gallop Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Come to think of it, maybe it's just talking about her wrestling between an opportunity for stability, and following her desire which may leave her vulnerable to the system. Don't know for sure... Guess who gets to see Joanna live tonight? ME! Yay! :-) |
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| Joanna Newsom – Sawdust and Diamonds Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| " | |
| Joanna Newsom – Sawdust and Diamonds Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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This was in an article on Joanna: some of it relates to this song: "...The last element of Newsom’s magnum opus to arrive was its title. Newsom spent a long time fishing for a name that would encapsulate the spirit of the project. One night she dreamed about the title, a swirling reverie that featured the letters Y and S smashing together in unusual combinations. Afterwards she began searching for a single-syllable word that bluntly combined the two letters. At the same time, Newsom also finally got around to reading the fantasy novel on her nightstand, which happened to be her best friend’s favorite book. She thought the novel might be cheesy, but she loved it. And one night, there it was: a passage about a seaside castle that had been raised 'by the magic of the ancient folk of Ys.' "Et voila–Newsom had found her title. Ys is a lost city immortalized in the folklore of Brittany, a region that lies along the northwest coast of France. As Newsom read more deeply into the legend, things got a little spookier. Here, in a nutshell, is one version of the tale: Dahut, the blond daughter of King Gradlon, begs her father to build her a citadel by the sea. And so he does, creating a city that’s protected from the waves by an enormous wall of stone whose one entrance, a gigantic bronze door, is opened by a key that Gradlon carries around his neck. Like a lot of seaside towns, Ys attracts horny sailors laden with goods, and Dahut makes a wicked pact with the powers of the ocean to make the already decadent city rich. The agreement is rather kinky: every night the princess takes a new sailor as a lover, and places a black mask on his head. In the morning, when the song of the meadowlark is heard, the mask strangles the guy, whose body is then offered to the waves. Eventually Dahut meets her match: a haughty crimson-clad lover who persuades her to slip the key from around the neck of her sleeping father. The rake then opens the gates of Ys to the raging ocean, which swallows the city. Father and daughter escape on a magic steed, but daddy is forced to drop the princess into the sea and she drowns. In some tellings, she is then transformed into a mermaid. "Newsom saw so many parallels between this story and her own that it freaked her out. There were the themes of decadence and excess, of fathers and daughters and boundaries burst, not to mention details like the meadowlark and the heroine’s underwater metamorphosis. Then Newsom stumbled across the clincher: according to Breton folklore, on calm days along the coast you can hear the sunken bell of the cathedral of Ys, tolling evermore. Later, as Newsom finished the fantasy novel, she stumbled across yet another uncanny echo of her own tale: a line that spoke of 'that damnable bell,' a direct sample, as it were, from 'Sawdust & Diamonds.' |
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| Joanna Newsom – This Side of the Blue Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| The reference to Jamie could be one of her friends. | |
| Joanna Newsom – Cosmia Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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On the cover the 'butterfly' is a pinned Cosmia moth. This song is about the death of one of her best friends. Here are some quotes from an article I found: "...The hammer blow that began this series of hard knocks [the experiences that inspired the album] was the sudden death of Newsom’s best friend, 'one of the loves of my life.' Newsom got the call while she was driving between gigs, during the year when her career was first blowing up. 'So mortality is huge on this record. And there’s more than one type of death, of course, and that’s where the turmoil of the relationship figures in, but not quite as largely as you might suppose.'” "After the singer gets the devastating news, she walks into a cornfield, and moths almost drown her. Later, she invokes the classic image of moths immolating themselves in the artificial sun of a porch-light—those attractive but dubious goals towards which so many of us so readily plunge. But here wild Cosmia, her form a thing of water and fire, flutters off on a farther flight, towards the possibility of a 'true light' that might even shine back down here, when the night comes in. "Like the whole record, 'Cosmia' affirms life without offering a wisp of false consolation. 'The thing that I was experiencing and dwelling on the entire time is that there are so many things that are not OK and that will never be OK again,' says Newsom. 'But there’s also so many things that are OK and good that sometimes it makes you crumple over with being alive. We are allowed such an insane depth of beauty and enjoyment in this lifetime. It’s what my dad talks about sometimes. He says the only way that he knows there’s a God is that there’s so much gratuitous joy in this life. And that’s his only proof. There’s so many joys that do not assist in the propagation of the race or self-preservation. There’s no point whatsoever. They are so excessively, mind-bogglingly joy-producing that they distract from the very functions that are supposed to promote human life. They can leave you stupefied, monastic, not productive in any way, shape or form. And those joys are there and they are unflagging and they are ever-growing. And still there are these things that you will never be able to feel OK about–unbearably awful, sad, ugly, unfair things.'” "Towards the end of high school, when she was eighteen, Newsom went down alone to a wild spot along the river. After asking their assistance, she arranged some stones into a circle, and then sat down within the ring. She stayed in the circle for three days, fasting, facing the river. Her best friend and some pals camped a few miles away, bringing her water and small portions of rice while she slept. She had assigned herself things to do but abandoned them all. She just sat there and watched the river, and, even more, she listened to it. “'I was a completely different person before I went to the river, and a completely different person after,' Newsom says. When she first got back the girl was a total wreck. She would start crying when she woke up and not quit until she slept. She stopped going to school. She’d pick up the local paper, and read a headline like 'Man Dies in Car Crash,' and then the crash would be in her mind, and the man’s bloody crumbled body, and his pain and dread and fearful exit from this world. 'None of the calluses or borders or walls we put up to protect ourselves from going absolutely insane while experiencing life – none of those stood anymore. They had been worn completely away. I was like infantile and dysfunctional, a weepy, drunk mess.'” So yes--you find more and more that her songs don't just contain literary symbolism and abstractness, but they're her way of putting into words some of those close and visual memories she has of life and relationships, things that she has stored on her own heart. |
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| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Found this in an article: "It was the last song she wrote, and the one where, perhaps foolishly, she attempted to weave together all the various threads and 'ghost characters' in her tale. 'It was an attempt to encapsulate everything, and to find some measure of grace.' In her 2004 Arthur interview, Newsom described her patchwork method of writing songs: 'I have little objects and every once in a while I take them out of my pockets, lay them all in a row and I like the way they look next to each other, so that’s a song!' Here the row of items goes on for pages. Most revealing, perhaps, is Newsom’s admission that the last few verses of the song—where the long-suffering female protagonist promises to do right by her darling—are the only place in the whole album where she just made stuff up, where the song steps away from poetic autobiography. 'I was hoping for a good resolution, but I felt helpless and foundering at the end. And so I reached for this fiction, because I didn’t know how to end the song in full truth. Otherwise, it would go on forever.'" |
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| Joanna Newsom – Emily Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Either way, the stanzas are talking about the relativity of perspective--the song is partially about her loss of Emily, and the distance makes all the difference to the nature of their relationship. I read this yesterday in an article by someone who interviewed her: "Newsom’s dad is also an amateur starhound, and she remembers him teaching her, over and over again, how to find the dirt red bullet of Arcturus by following the ladle of the Big Dipper. In the song, Newsom maps these overlapping relationships—father to daughters, and Emily’s studies to her dad’s hobby—with the figure of the asterism, a technical term that describes star clusters whose borders overlap or exist within larger constellations—the Dipper, for example, is an asterism of Ursa Major, the Big Bear." |
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| Joanna Newsom – Cassiopeia Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| In the first part she seems somewhat internally resistant, and the second part suddenly contrasts that with beauty and yearning. She also talks about both snores and dreams, in a way that seems to blend negative and positive feelings. | |
| Joanna Newsom – En Gallop Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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I know it's disgraceful of me to post thrice in a row, but I had a thought... Have you noticed all the economic references in the song? I don't know enough about the theory of all this to know if it means anything, but I thought it was of interest and could afftect the meaning of this song in some way. Phrases like these, for instance: "I walk from a higher education / (for now, for hire)", "And you laws of property / you free economy / you unending afterthoughts", and others like that got me thinking. And if you found significance in that, alongside the previous interpretations or in place of them, you might then be interested in things like these: The mention of "Palaces and stormclouds"--especially in its reference to established wealth and power; and even its fragility and danger in a social context, "the way it will all come together / (in quietness, in time)"--you could take a Marxist conclusion from this about the inevitability of the economic cycle, the comment "never draw so close to the heat / that you forget that you must eat"--making reference to our need for things like food, and also the processes of production and economy that go with this, as well as the idea of a political or philosphical illusion that makes one 'forget' and act foolishly, and "the rought, straggly sage, and the smoke"--at a stretch, this could be a particular historical figure or philosopher to whose thoughts she refers; or just the general idea of heeding ancient wisdom --so these phrases are all kind of fascinating too. Also, even the beginning could be seen as a social comment regarding freedom and government. I really don't know if that's relevant, but if you're educated enough for that to give you some ideas and piece it all together, I think you should post and teach us your thoughts :-) |
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| Joanna Newsom – Emily Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Dat's okay. You don't have to beat them: join them, and through their telescope stand awestruck watching Joanna's music soar... :-) |
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| Joanna Newsom – Monkey & Bear Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Maybe they're both right. An understanding could be constructed in a few different ways, and the two would work together. Gets you thinking at least. | |
| Joanna Newsom – This Side of the Blue Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I agree that it's difficult not to be able to untangle some of the meanings. It makes conversation with everyone's perspectives so interesting and valuable, though. | |
| Joanna Newsom – Inflammatory Writ Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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I think that this is by far the most self-explanatory of all Joanna's songs... but I'll go through what I read in it anyway, just because that's the nature of this site :-) It's pretty much about writers' block: she calls herself the poetaster (though really she is far from it!), and this song is about the frustration of trying to create something magnificent with writing, and struggling to do so. When she says "Your text that would incite a light 'Be lit'", I think it's a reference to Genesis 1:3 "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." Joanna's referring to just how powerful words can be (those words certainly were!), and how she seeks words that could explode and illuminate something equally unique and amazing into her audience; the reference is also fitting, since that was the first ever instance of creation, and her creativity seeks to fall into the same line. It seems, however, a uniquely divine feat to be able to create something out of nothing... it can be very hard, and that is the struggle central to the song. "And what's it mean when suddenly we're spent? Ambition came and reared its head, and went." - this very simply talks about the desire to write, the ambition, and the fact that it can be fleeting. I know what it's like to have something I want to write about, but have the inspiration just stop when I get to it; when she says "Even mollusks have weddings,/ Though solemn and leaden/ But you dirge for the dead and take no jam on your bread/ Just a supper of salt and a waltz through your empty bed", she's lamenting the fact that EVERYTHING seems to be involved in some kind of celebration and procreation, at some level, but when it comes to her writing there is absolutely nothing: not even half-good work. The process seems more lacking in life and energy than does a mollusk... pretty depressing. The next verse describes the first piece of action in the song, how she'd tried to write and had finally caught the wave of it, but that hadn't lasted long either... when morning came, there was less to show for it than she'd anticipated. "While outside, the wild boars root/ Without bending a bough underfoot/ O it breaks my heart; I don't know how they do't" - it's not like she's not thinking and feeling so many profound things, things she wishes to express... but, like the boars, they run around her mind and her experience but leave no footprints on her page, which remains terribly blank. It's one thing to be a clever and creative thinker, but projecting that into words is another thing altogether: it can be terribly stuck. Okay, I'll admit that the last verse I have a bit less of a handle on... I'm not American so I'm less sure of the imagery and ideas. But I think it's practically saying that, so dejected with the failed attempt at excellent writing, she gives up. The song mocks that a little I think, as a warning against doing so but also an expression of how hard it is not to. The 'master' is the untouchable ideal that we've turned great novels into. I love this line: "... across the great plains, keening lovely & awful,/ Ululate the last Great American Novels/ An unlawful lot, left to stutter and freeze, floodlit" - the word 'ululate' means to howl or wail, like a strong wind almost, and for the novels to "stutter and freeze, floodlit" means for them to be so exposed and pulled to pieces by our scrutinous perusal and study: maybe we have put these classics on such a pedestal that to reach they now seem distant and unattainable - we put ourselves in a box we can't live up to. So we let the apostrophic (and imaginary) master intimidate us into running from the proper creative process, and the things unique to our generation's progress: focused too clearly upon the imagined end to formulate the means or have a realistic expectation. With the last line, it can be read two ways. I think the way it is intended is "The fact that they didn't run brings them undying credit", which pretty much says "Just do it!"; but it could also say "They didn't run towards their undying credit", meaning that though the process was slow and involved, not something they could gain with a rush of inspiration and a quick pen, they ploughed their way through patiently and did come to reach pieces of writing that will always remain classics. As perfectionists, idealists, or just impatient people, we can forget that writing something good involves a process sometimes not unlike slowly moulding a formless piece of clay into something of worth, or making a painting layer by layer... regardless of whether the 'Muse' shows up at first or not. Anyway, I think this interpretation stretches the sentence too far and isn't what Joanna intended, but all the same it's interesting. My only comment is that Joanna, if suffering from this crippling disability at the time, evidently found a very creative and productive exit from it... this song is great :-) |
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| Joanna Newsom – Monkey & Bear Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I like that. I'm thinking the caterpillar to butterfly thing, and the way lots of animals shed their old skin to move into some thing new: sometimes it's just high time to move on from the things that were once good but become outdating. Also kind of getting links to the stories of Pegasus and of the Phoenix, though these are not directly related to the song... it's interesting. | |
| Joanna Newsom – En Gallop Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Just saw your second comment, on the existential question... yeah, I also agree with you on this. I love your thoughts! They illuminate a lot and make me think. It's true, often it is hard to understand the world in which we have found ourselves. We long to be able to express it all, understand it and tie it up neatly in a string... but the fact is that we can't. It fascinates me how different people respond to this 'not knowing'... I think it defines how we live in many ways. Some try to rationalise it, explain everything as best they can. Some ignore it and try to go on with life, not thinking too deeply and being intimidate by philosophy. Some decide that there is no meaning, that life is random (or some even say there IS nothing...) - but I would say that so much of who we are conflicts with this , and it can't satisfy anyone because we are so innately set on life and its meaning. Some say that it doesn't matter, that they can create their own meaning, just live in what they immediately know (I think western individualism and postmodernist thinking stems from this a lot). And some people find meaning in something bigger than themselves. I think that for me, I have become content to trust. I may not understand it all... I can't explain so many parts of my life, and I am certainly not in control. But there is peace in knowing that someone who is powerful and who loves me does know, and I can keep on walking securely in that. That's a personal thing, but yeah, I believe that it is true and it changes everything. I have totally extended this song too far though... sorry. The most important thing is the song as it stands. I think I will go listen to it again, it's beautiful :-) |
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| Joanna Newsom – En Gallop Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Ah, I do agree with you! How many millions of times through history has the artist, writer, musician, and nearly every other person, tried to express the difference between what they really have, and what they long for? We are addicted to dreams and fantasy stories. When you find some of the really important answers, life can be amazing; but the things we lose and the things we can't reach can also be painful, and that's just how it is. I think this song acknowledges the depth of desire we all have, but also makes a deliberate choice to recognise that we must keep walking upon reality... just because we must, we have no choice, and to deny it is worse than to experience it. In many ways we can't be like children anymore, looking only at our immediate feelings and living to satisfy them. We have to make tough choices, and sometimes remember the truth that lacks lyricism. This is worth the cost it takes: in the same way that diamonds are valuable because they are rare and can't be fabricated on demand, the truly incredible parts of life are so much more so because they are waited for, and because they are so distinct from everything around them. Truth is also necessary and safe... you can't put on a virtual reality set and try to cross a road; in the same way, you can't exist in absolute reality living by unsubstantiated feelings and imagination. Truth costs, but truth is also absolute beauty and freedom. I think our generation is too obsessed with instant pleasure to hold onto the absolutes it desperately needs: we are aching for things that are both real and valuable, and often making choices we regret on unrestrained impulse. A bit off-topic, but anyway. Basically, I do agree with you that this song plays with feelings of the conflict between what we should have, what we do have, and what we want in the deeper parts of our hearts. It's exploring the tension of that, and also the hole left by desire. I am really curious about this German tradition of Idealism of which you speak... |
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| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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It's the Pitchfork interview: http://74.52.66.98:9014/article/feature/39700/Interview_Interview_Joanna_Newsom. And I don't know when she's going to Germany, but she's coming to Australia this month YAY! |
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| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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I think that to put a visual arts term onto her words and music, Joanna is a bit of an impressionist... she writes things that are neither abstract stream-of-consciousness, nor literal description, but things that capture parts of the things she sees, feels and thinks more in terms of their texture and their colour, the intuitive side of representation. Sometimes that is the intended communicated experience... it matters less to her that people actually know exactly what she went through and what she was feeling, because that's what her best friends are for, not random members of the public :-) But I would say this song relates to a real relationship she had and the things she felt in it... maybe with a boy, maybe with a friend. Or maybe it relates to something totally different, or just that the general feeling of everything else she was dealing with connected strongly to the feeling of these themes. It's not necessarily realism or strict allegory: we can't understand her entire intention, because many of the connections are to things in her own experience, not universally recognisable symbolism and all that. I think sometimes the connections aren't conscious at all, they're just ideas she plays with because they fascinate her. Sometimes it helps to try to work out as much of the meaning as you can, but not to speculate on the things you can't know: often with Joanna's work, I guess any literal understanding should serve the aesthetic value, not the other way around. Because in the end, we can only come away with an impression... and the work is a unique sight in its own right... intricate and amazing. Feels funny talking so personally about someone we don't even know though. Anyway, it's a brilliant and multifaceted song, and I quite love this artist's work! |
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| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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I like hearing people's ideas. There's so much depth in that, and certainly so many elements that were possibly intended in the song... and ('specially in the current ways of thinking) so many elements of personal meaning that come through these lyrics as well. Yeah, I also think she leaves and comes back to him, and she totally plays with the concepts of death and rebirth... also unending cycles of these. I love how you link the war to their relationship too... there's definitely substance in the quote you gave :-) |
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| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Her music certainly is beautifully 'unrestrained', and I think this is part of what comes out for you and connects really personally. Thanks for sharing that :-) | |
| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Wow. It posted three times. Oops... too bad you can't delete on this site. Sorry to the general public, whose curiosity and time have been exploited with a small quantity of worthlessness, and especially to those for whom mess is a disturbing and confusing issue. In this case it cannot be erased; it must be lived with. I wish you all the best with that :-) | |
| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Hey manastin... you say some of the lyrics open up doors to parts of your childhood and yourself that impact you greatly. That's really cool... in this particular song, what is your favourite line, or couple of lines? | |
| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Hey manastin... you say some of the lyrics open up doors to parts of your childhood and yourself that impact you greatly. That's really cool. In this particular song, what is your favourite line, or couple of lines? | |
| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Hey manastin... you say some of the lyrics open up doors to parts of your childhood and yourself that impact you greatly. That's really cool. In this particular song, what is your favourite line, or couple of lines? | |
| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Intellectual? As in, creatively intelligent and of very high, even 'professional' standard? I would say she is that. It's just that she's our contemporary, not a classic poet. Hopefully her work is discovered and lapped up centuries from now... it's brilliant. | |
| Joanna Newsom – En Gallop Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Yeah, I really wouldn't do that. But as an artist, truly she's amazing... LOVE THIS MUSICIAN!! |
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| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I AM SO INCREDIBLY EXCITED... :-) | |
| Joanna Newsom – Emily Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Sorry, the second last paragraph of what I said doesn't make sense: one of the lines should begin "As the speaker she is trying...", not "The the speaker..." :-) |
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| Joanna Newsom – Emily Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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I think valrus (who seems to be rather intelligent and insightful) hit the nail on the head with "Sometimes we forget even if we promise not to"... I believe that this idea works, and is probably the only meaning that maintains textual integrity. It's clearly not an unintended error, so don't let it bother you: you can tell because it's such a central part of the song that, firstly, she would have checked her definitions whilst writing; and secondly, if it were a mistake it would most likely have been picked up in the publishing process. Joanna Newsom is incredibly clever: she pays attention to detail and scrutinises her work laboriously. The simplicity of these two stanzas and the way they stand apart structurally/conceptually is also perfectly inclined towards a deliberate play with ideas: assuming that valrus' suggestion is correct, we have here an example of Joanna taking her concept, and wrapping it up neatly into a couple of lines of condensed metaphor. This is very characteristic of her poetry, and is therefore not surprising enough to be assumed a mistake. The idea itself also fits really well in its context, and I think is very clever, very deep, and brilliantly penned. The the speaker she is trying to hold onto her memory of her sister's closeness, but it slips away into the mists of memory and the distance caused by Joanna not having access to the depths of her sister's world. This is part of the "sky that is gaping and yawning", and echoes the ideas of loss, distance and desire that's just out of reach, which fill the entire song. This is redeemed by the fact that "the ties that bind, they are barbed and spined and hold [them] close forever", but nonetheless the intensity of the feeling is real. Anyway, ten gold stars for you Robindra, for picking it up! Not a great deal of the audience would, I assume... I'm pretty impressed :-) |
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| Joanna Newsom – Emily Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| No really, you don't need to pretend it... I'm very sure it was intentional :-) | |
| Joanna Newsom – Only Skin Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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myeh_man: wow, thanks :-) I don't know if I agree though... I think if I had written lyrics like this I would be terrified of having someone pick it to threads... it seems pretty personal, and the poetry is in itself intricate and epic. It's especially unfortunate if it's interpreted wrongly, as is probable in some ways... I would take it personally. And there's something about writing that it's supposed to stand for itself, and it gets kind of tacky when it's described in simple language, no matter how extensive. So I think Joanna Newsom would either be indifferent, perhaps frustrated or at the most intrigued by such commentary by anonymous strangers like myself :-) Anyway, with that speculation made, I am glad you liked it. If my ideas and ramblings make your own thoughts fit together better, and make for a more 'accessible' experience at least of the surface level meaning of the song, that is a very good thing. Hey, guess what? Today I bought tickets to see her live, in January! Living in Australia, I didn't think this would happen... but suddenly just in a day some of my school friends and I discovered her tour and organised attendance. Very excited indeed! :-) |
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