Colleen

Argh this song is so frustrating because it's one of my favourite Newsom songs, but it's so hard to work out exactly what it's about.

So there's obviously these two opposed lives at work, that in which the narrator is some kind of sea creature, linked intricately with nature and that in which she is one who lives among humans living by their constructs.

I think this song is about the calls of nature, perhaps on mothers, but also more broadly applied to humans in general. The lyrics seem to say that you cannot tame natural spirits, or the instincts given to us by them.

When 'Colleen' is first 'run-aground' we hear her story as she was told it by other peoples that she had encountered. Therefore in the first few verses the sea is powerful and violent, threatening and dangerous as this is what the sea represents to them. Colleen doesn't remember it being violent however, as she has forgotten everything by this point.

Next, the people take her in and give her a name, say she is 'blessed' for having forgotten. This is a recurring theme in a lot of art, that those who have no memory are innocent and pure, like a baby who has no memory of sin etc. An example of this is Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope- the basis for the film Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind. I agree with above posters that the name Colleen is significant for being the gaelic for girl, I didn't know that before I read it here. This whole verse deals with societal construct and artificial imposition. By naming her, they're labelling her and taming her wildness.

Next, Colleen tries to grow things; this is where the theme of reproduction is first introduced. She can't do it because she works under different rules, the rules of the wild, the rules of the sea. She tells us her frustration in that amazing verse about the missing stair- God I love it :)

Then, it's as if we're told the reason for her failiure, the sea is not threatening at all but something like a child. In the dream Colleen dives for the child with a 'wildness' and her frustration is relieved in satisfaction. I think this represents the natural instincts of motherhood and how they should be preferred over the artificial treatment of a child such as the administering of 'bitter herbs'.

In the new dream, however, it seems like a whale (gray and sloping-shouldered thing) has found her wearing its baleen. The whale is dismayed that Colleen has forgotton the ways of the sea and used the natural baleen as a item of clothing- a symbol of civilisation.

The travellers from the sea seem to know who colleen is. Perhaps this is because they have a stronger connection with nature than the townspeople. When Colleen sees the whale in the book she recognises it from her dream. The second name of the story is given: 'He-Who-Easily-Can-Curve-Himself-Against-The-Sky'. This is significant. This name is far less of an arficial construct than Colleen- it reads more like a description. In fact it describes one who is at one with nature (easily curves against the sky). This non-name goes back to an ancient tradition in which the true names of spirits in nature were not known to or spoken by human beings as the power that the name held was too strong. Instead names were descriptions of natural artifacts. This could be why the traveller refuses to speak Colleen's real name as she is in fact a part of nature.

This all seems to have a profound affect on Colleen. Perhaps it's echoing the Madeleine incident in Proust's 'À la recherche du temps perdu'. In the novel, the Madeleine sparks an involuntary memory and the sensation is described as 'awakening'. This seems very similar with what has happened to Colleen, she looks 'perturbed' because she is remembering her true self reinforced by the traveller saying that she 'ain't forgotten everything'.

She is told that the peace she has found is more like a 'dread disease'. It's a complacenct regime that Colleen, who is wild at heart cannot live under, which is why she cannot grow plants or make sense of the world around her. Colleen finally realises this when she kind of angrily sings 'I don't know any goddamned Colleen'.

And so she returns to the sea where she is wild again. She is no longer self-aware now, merely sentient, like an animal, or somebody who is in a dream. Memory and societal norm is now unimportant to her and she has 'never felt so free'. She forgets 'Colleen' and simply exists under the water.

As a final observation, though this may be completely off, does it seems to anyone else like there are massive parallels between this tale and The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson? I mean there are far more differences than similarities, but it seems as if the story wasn't far from Newsom's mind when she wrote Colleen.

Anyway, though it's kind of fumbled, that's my interpretation of this song.