Woodcat, oh once a girl
but not since the incident
Lives in the darkness making friends with the animals
Eyes burning yellow
I miss your sweet kisses
I miss having coffee in bed watching TV
The ghost of an image
it's just fleeting glimpses
You're there then you're gone
through the roots and the nettles
I miss your hard edges
I miss your bone marrow
I miss having coffee in bed watching TV
And we all had a lovely time
I'll look for a man
to turn me into a hare
Just like they did
when you did what you did
And the court came around
and the verdict flew out
And the rats ran about
and the change trickled down
And they left your brown body
gentle and shivering
Back in the clearing
with the deer in the evening
And I'll come and find you;
small sleek and silent
And we'll live like lovers
in an old wooden rhyme
And we're in for a lovely time
Come close up to me,
fire in an open hearth
Raised in a vessel
of our only action
Some satisfaction,
some sweet satisfaction
From all of this everything,
spun 'round the middle
And they said it was a lovely time
but not since the incident
Lives in the darkness making friends with the animals
Eyes burning yellow
I miss your sweet kisses
I miss having coffee in bed watching TV
it's just fleeting glimpses
You're there then you're gone
through the roots and the nettles
I miss your hard edges
I miss your bone marrow
I miss having coffee in bed watching TV
to turn me into a hare
Just like they did
when you did what you did
And the court came around
and the verdict flew out
And the rats ran about
and the change trickled down
gentle and shivering
Back in the clearing
with the deer in the evening
And I'll come and find you;
small sleek and silent
And we'll live like lovers
in an old wooden rhyme
fire in an open hearth
Raised in a vessel
of our only action
Some satisfaction,
some sweet satisfaction
From all of this everything,
spun 'round the middle
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Favorite off of the album. I love it, and the fantasy imagery is really nice "man into a hair. Such a gentle and lovely tune.
i think it is relating how someone can change in a relationship, therefore it breaks down. sort of like magic/ really sudden and unexplicable?
obviously he's missing his lover, yet she's moved on.
I think it's about a girl who's been turned into a hare because of some unnamed crime, and he wants to find someone to change him into a hare as well, so he can be with her in the forest.
At least metaphorically, but maybe even literally.
The lyrics are pretty clear that she's been turned into a cat. A wood cat, in fact.
The lyrics are pretty clear that she's been turned into a cat. A wood cat, in fact.
see my comment bellow
see my comment bellow
i really want to know what symbolism lies behind the phrase "turn me into a hare..." the rest of the song makes some sort of sense. sort of. it all seems to be about missing a relationship, about regrets and what-ifs and longing for things to return to the way they were. but how would being turned into a hare change anything? what is it to be turned into a hare?
maybe the answer lies in mythology. or maybe it's a reference to a magician's trick, pulling a rabbit out of a hat or transforming something into a rabbit.
and also, what is the reference to woodcat?
maybe the man wants to be a hare so that he can forever be chased by his woodcat.
I think woodcat is another name for hare. This is what I found:
It was considered unlucky in Scotland to have a hare on your boat and the name of the hare could not be spoken at sea. It was not an unknown practice for a dead rabbit to mysteriously appear on a rival’s boat. One anonymous Middle English poem which Seamus Heaney has translated advises anyone who meets a hare to praise it. The poet rehearses the names of the hare:
the quick-scut, the dew-flirt, the grass-biter, the goibert the home-late, the do-the-dirt
the starer, the wood-cat the purblnd, the furze cat, the skulker, the bleary-eyed the wall-eyed, the glance-aside the stag sprouting a suede horn the creature living in the crn the creature bearing all men's scorn, the creature no one dares to name.
The negative superstitions associated with the hare may have appeared after the advent of Christianity, since hares, maybe more than other animals are associated, in Europe, with the most common shapeshifting disguise of witches.
It seems to me like this girl he loves has a bad reputation. She's got "hard edges", "yellow burning eyes", and she's done something wrong ("the incident"). She "lives in the darkness". This guy loves her in spite of it, and wants to join her. He's willing to become a hare like her if it means they get to be together (even though it doesn't sound like that's a good thing).
A great metaphor for the ways we lower ourselves in the name of love and allow our morality/values to change.
@anban To assume this I think this says more about your attitudes towards women than it does about the meaning of this song!
@anban To assume this I think this says more about your attitudes towards women than it does about the meaning of this song!
@amanda1027, that's a fair reaction. Perhaps!
@amanda1027, that's a fair reaction. Perhaps!
I think it had more to do with my attitudes about love than women. I had a dark outlook on that at this point in my life.
I think it had more to do with my attitudes about love than women. I had a dark outlook on that at this point in my life.
Just want to say, I wrote this 7 years ago--needless to say, my interpretation is different now. Thanks for your comment. Saw your interpretation and love the perspective. Amazing song.
Just want to say, I wrote this 7 years ago--needless to say, my interpretation is different now. Thanks for your comment. Saw your interpretation and love the perspective. Amazing song.
i love tunng stuff its so nice, with the acoustic guitars
The imagery in this song reminds me of Alice in Wonderland. Especially the parts in Alice where the Knave of Hearts is on trial and when Alice shrinks and is swimming with all the animals in a lake of her own tears. Lovely, fantastic, fairy tale song.
There is a darkness to many of Tunng's songs of this era. What sounds at first hearing like a sweet fairytale of a song about a girl transforming into a hare contains not-so-hidden shadows. "Woodcat oh once a girl, but not since the incident" gives a clue: something happened to the girl that so traumatised her that she has since been unrecognisable: she has transformed, metaphorically, or perhaps in her mind, into a hare as a result. The people (because "they" - plural - are referred to) who committed this atrocity "left your brown body, gentle and shivering, Back in the clearing with the deer in the evening." Her partner still loves her and misses their former relationship so much that he wants to "look for a man to turn me into a hare" as well, so that he can be close to her again - then he'll come and find her so that they can "live like lovers in an old wooden rhyme". The hint is that the girl was gang-raped. The court case happened and "the rats ran about and the verdict flew out" but the damage was done. And the really dark punchline? "They said it was a lovely time." (And not quoted here, but at the end of the song there is also the line "all in for a lovely time", which presumably refers to something said by her attackers at the time of "the incident".