Margaret vs. Pauline

This song is actually from "In Watermelon Sugar" by Richard Brautigan. Margaret and Pauline are two of the main characters in the story, and in her tour diary Neko said that this a book she loved. Just thought that might help :)

In a radio interview with Neko, she said it was about how fate plays favourites - Margaret can't help but flounder, because Pauline is fated to be adored. Pauline sounds like a perfect princess, with a cool and collected heart and wavy cinnamon-coloured hair, while Margaret is oafish and clumsy - 'thrashing in a lake' and she lost three fingers at the cannery. And because it's fate, Margaret can never get ahead - she'll never be as clean as that cool side of satin Pauline.

I don't think of Margaret & Pauline as two separate people - they are two ways to be & to feel and you would be mistaken to think you can only relate to one of the two.

I'm Pauline when I'm calm and cool and feeling beautiful. Like an "ice princess" who is not burdened by emotion.

I'm Margaret when I'm fierce and in love and desperate and confused. When I'm ruled by my heart rather than my head.

I wouldn't want to be just one of the two. I think a balance of bravery & love & wanting with mild & collected & satisfied is perfect. Now I just need to get there. :)

I appreciate hearing that Neko Case based this song on a book. Makes me want to read "In Watermelon Sugar". Just came here to point out one thing about the lyrics:

"One left a sweater sitting on the train And the other lost three fingers at the cannery"

I love that she doesn't specify which girl was which. It would be easy to assume Margaret lost the fingers and Pauline lost the sweater. But what if it's actually the other way around? Margaret is so jealous of Pauline, and so dramatic, that she might actually envy Pauline's injury. People will pay attention to Pauline now that she's been hurt. She might even not have to work for a while, or get a lighter duty at work because she lost the fingers. Everything's so easy for Pauline. And dramatic Margaret might actually feel that losing the sweater is one more slight life has handed her, not realizing the gravity of her tiny loss compared to Pauline's big one. Just a thought.

I love the lines:

One left a sweater sitting on the train And the other lost three fingers at the cannery

As these are both tradgedies to the respective girls. I can just see some girls from my school flipping out about loosing a sweater, and if three of their fingers were chopped off.

Great deep song with multiple interpretations possible. Here's my thought: I think Margaret killed Pauline.

It seems likely to me that she draws a bit on Louise Erdrich's novel, Tracks. Margaret and Pauline are two of the main characters. Margaret isn't a girl though - she's an older Chippewa woman trying to survive on a reservation in North Dakota. Pauline is a half-Chippewa, half white Canadian girl who becomes very white in respect to her religion and culture. Pauline sort of sets herself against some of the people on the reservation and seeks to convert them to Christianity. It's a real culture battle, and Pauline comes off as a very horrible, self-made martyr. I am not sure this story is what Neko is after, though. Pauline's real enemy in the story is Fleur, who is sort of the Chippewa's defender and keeper of the old Chippewa ways. Fleur is also supposedly in league with a lake monster/man who gives her power over the winds. Other than the names of the characters and the lake monster reference, I think the song mostly has nothing to do with the novel in any specificity. Thief's comment seems to be a fair interpretation.

This song, like all the others on the cd are based on eastern european folklore.

I think Pauline is dead, and Margaret, who "has to go on living", envies her.

Here's my interpretation:

"they smooth her hair with cinnamon waves and they placed an ingot in her breast to burn, cool and collected"

The morticians beautified Pauline for her funeral

"but she’ll never be as clean as the cool side of satin, pauline"

Margaret's jealous of Pauline, who's dead in a coffin (cool side of satin) and in eternal peace

"Everything's so easy for Pauline"

once again, everything's easier when you're dead