Per the FAQ on Keane's website, Keane's drummer Richard Hughes, stated the following:
"We've been asked whether "Somewhere Only We Know" is about a specific place, and Tim has been saying that, for him, or us as individuals, it might be about a geographical space, or a feeling; it can mean something individual to each person, and they can interpret it to a memory of theirs... It's perhaps more of a theme rather than a specific message... Feelings that may be universal, without necessarily being totally specific to us, or a place, or a time..."
With the nostalgic sentiment and the overall tone of the song, I think Keane is attempting to express a Portuguese term known as 'saudade', which does not have a direct English translation but roughly means "that which we remember because it is gone."
Born with the moon in Cancer
Choose her a name she'll answer too
Call her green and the winters can not fade her
Call her green for the children who have made her little, green
Be a gypsy dancer
He went to California
Hearing that everything's warmer there
So you write him a letter, say, "her eyes are blue"
He sends you a poem and she's lost to you
Little, green, he's a non-comformer
Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the night's when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes and sometimes
There'll be sorrow
Child with a child pretending
Weary of lies you're sending home
So you sign all the papers in the family name
You're sad and you're sorry but you're not ashamed, little green
Have a happy ending
Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the night's when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there'll be sorrow
Choose her a name she'll answer too
Call her green and the winters can not fade her
Call her green for the children who have made her little, green
Be a gypsy dancer
He went to California
Hearing that everything's warmer there
So you write him a letter, say, "her eyes are blue"
He sends you a poem and she's lost to you
Little, green, he's a non-comformer
Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the night's when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes and sometimes
There'll be sorrow
Child with a child pretending
Weary of lies you're sending home
So you sign all the papers in the family name
You're sad and you're sorry but you're not ashamed, little green
Have a happy ending
Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the night's when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there'll be sorrow
Lyrics submitted by wingedsorceress, edited by princejoni, Counterclockwerk
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"Call her green so the winters cannot fade her
Call her green for the children who've made her"
Joni's trying to protect her daughter but she IS alone and that was not an accepting time for single unwed mothers. Joni *did* marry Chuck Mitchell, who was not the baby's father but Joni thought if she married Chuck (I think that's his name) he'd accept and raise her child. He did not really want to raise Kelly.
Green is a name for Kelly (i.e., Kelly Green, a color). Green also means naive. This lyric is so clever and so damn sad.
I read that Kelly and Joni did reconnect later in life, but I don't think the reconnection was successful for either one. This is a very sad song.
Joni is not ashamed because SHE is willing to grow up and be a mother but the father is NOT and he WON'T marry Joni and step up to the plate for their baby. Joni's "Sad and sorry" but she's "Not ashamed". Why should she be? She has done everything in her power to keep her child (including marrying a man who suggested he would accept Joni and her daughter as a package deal but he only really wanted Joni and not the child of another man.
Very, Very sad song, and also speaks to Joni's unselfishness. She wants her daughter to have a family with two parents and who perhaps can (at that time) provide better than Joni, alone is able to do for Kelly.
I love Joni Mitchell. I think she will be go down in history as a genius.
You can google the image for the daughter and see them both together.
jonimitchell.com/Library/…