[PetrZimin]

Ok, so, a few things before I dive (heh heh, see wot I did thar?) into this song.

1. This was the first Joanna song I ever heard, way back in like 2007 or something.

2. Ebby’s interpretation back on @ was really instrumental in my own understanding of the song, so, thanks for that Ebby! Some of these ideas are heavily influenced by yours, and some are probably just plain old yours that I forgot were yours and started thinking were mine.

3. This is going to be super tl;dr, so I’ve spoilered it. Warning: I get super nerdy and start talking about imagery.

Allons-y!

I'll tell it as I best know how
And that's the way it was told to me
I must have been a thief or a whore
Then surely was thrown overboard,
Where, they say
I came this way from the deep blue sea

The exposition: she’s a woman marked by difference and transgression (“a thief or a whore”), violence (“thrown overboard”), with mysterious ties to the sea. I love the first two lines because, on the one hand, it’s like Colleen herself is recounting her life story to you, but on the other hand, it could be anybody speaking these lines. This could be a legend which is just passed through the community, from one generation to the next.

It picked me up and tossed me round
I lost my shoes and tore my gown
I forgot my name and drowned
Then woke up with the surf a pounding
It seemed I had been run aground

Well they took me in and shod my feet
And taught me prayers for chastity
And said my name would be Colleen
And I was blessed among all women
To have forgotten everything

So, okay, she’s borne from violence, naked and amnesiac on the seashore, with strange memories of having been “run aground”. This is the first rebirth scene- having once “drowned”, she’s taken in by a mysterious collective of people who “civilize” Colleen and give her a new sense of self. I always imagine these people to be nuns, what with the prayers and the blessings.

So, a few things that will come in handy later: 1) the name given to her, Colleen, derives from the Irish “Cailin”, which means, generically, “girl/woman”. This is of archetypal significance and will be used for some symbolic irony in a bit. 2) “blessed among all women”, like the Virgin Mary- once again, setting Colleen apart from other women. 3) “Blessed… to have forgotten everything”. The nuns view Colleen as a blank slate, on the one hand totally ignorant/ uncorrupted by the evils of the Earthly Kingdom (especially given her presumed status as an erstwhile thief/whore); on the other hand, perfect for conversion and acculturation to the chaste ways of Christian womanhood. 4) “Shod my feet”- this is the emblematic example of Colleen’s “civilizing”, and, again, will be used to create symbolic tension later.

And as the weeks and months ensued
I tried to make myself of use
I tilled and planted, but could not produce
Not root, nor leaf, nor flower, nor bean
Lord! It seemed I over-watered everything.

And I hate the sight of that empty air
Like stepping for a missing stair
And falling forth forever blindly:
Cannot grab hold of anything!
No, not I, most blessed among Colleens

I dream some nights of a funny sea
As soft as a newly born baby
It cries for me so pitifully!
And I dive for my child with a wildness in me
And am so sweetly there received.

So Colleen is living in a priory (I presume), trying to make herself useful. And yet! Colleen has difficulties adjusting to her new life, and these difficulties provide key insights into 1) who she was before, and 2) how she has been affected by the change in her identity.

1) She overwaters everything she plants.
2) She’s uncomfortable in the “empty air” and feels like she’s “falling forth forever blindly: cannot grab hold of anything”. This has double significance: on the literal level, she feels unsupported in the empty air, as though there’s nothing to keep her tied to the ground. On the figurative level, she’s unanchored from the space she now occupies. Not in the sense that she’s free; more in the sense that she’s quite literally alienated from the element with which she now finds herself inundated, “empty air”.
3) She has recurring dreams of the sea. This part is interesting- in the dreams, the sea assumes the role of a lost baby, and she assumes the role of the baby’s mother- she “dives” (again, a word that carries much weight, but we don’t find out why until later) for her baby and finally finds satisfaction once reunited with it.
But wait! There appears to have been a shift in the narrative elements. “And am so sweetly there received”- the baby seems to have shifted back from its symbolic form (the human baby) to the entity that form signifies, the sea. Hence “sweetly there received”- this implies territory/space rather than physical presence. There’s a sort of reversal of images here- the baby is no longer in her arms; subverting the image we’re led to expect, she is now submerged within that form the baby is meant to represent, the sea.

Again, some subnotes about this section:

A) The mother-baby image is really powerful- I’ll explore it in greater depth a little later on. Suffice it to say that this image really informs the dialectic of images at play in the song.

B) “dive for my child with a wildness in me”- this wildness will be explored more fully later. But that she becomes most conscious of it in her dreams is significant.

C) The general theme of this section- the casting off of images and artifices (the symbolic roles of Mother and Baby discarded in order for a more visceral experience of “reception”/homecoming to take place) introduces one of the song’s main themes- the tension between outward appearance/ presentation and inner essence. This song is about a cathartic casting off of masks in order to attain redemption.

But last night came a different dream
A grey and sloping-shouldered thing
Said "what's cinched 'round your waist, Colleen
Is that my very own baleen
No! Have you forgotten everything?"

But “last night”- bringing us to a chronological fixed point in the song; this moment and everything happening afterwards are “the present”- Colleen has a different dream. She encounters a strange creature who accuses her of wearing its “baleen”, horrified that she may have “forgotten everything”. Okay, at this point the other shoe drops- Colleen used to be a whale, y’all!

I love how Joanna never even spells it out for you. I myself never got that until Ebby explained it, and I was like “duh!”. Instead, she only suggests at it. The whale that appears in the dream is described really strikingly (“grey and sloping shouldered thing”- great use of defamiliarization). Clearly, it feels a sense of recognition/affinity for Colleen, which ties into the idea of the two having a common element. It comments on the fact that Colleen is now wearing its baleen (a filter-feeder system inside the mouths of whales; harvested by whalers) in her corset.

Again, a few notes. This section is actually pretty heavy on ideological commentary:

1) The reference to the corset highlights the way in which Colleen has been trapped- both as a human being, and as a woman- within the prison of her own garments.

2) The whale’s horrified reaction to Colleen’s whalebone corset speaks volumes. The abuse and commodification of whales in Europe, from Ancient times up until the present I think, is a well-documented fact. Clearly, the relationship between humans and whales is one of war- and Colleen appears to have taken sides.

3) The image of Colleen- woman on the outside, whale on the inside- wearing bones harvested from a dead whale has so much grotesque irony. Again, the reversal of interior/whale : exterior/human, to now exterior/ dead whale parts : interior/ whale-human hybrid, is just so extraordinarily humorous, gross and painful, all at once. Joanna is such a master of thematic/imagistic nuance, I can’t even tell you.

4) It’s significant that this recognition comes about in Colleen’s dreams. This introduces the second main theme of the song- that our subconscious fears and desires are the best indicator of our true essence. The subconscious- dreams, “the repressed”, etc- is the key to finding who we truly are.

Also, to add some social dimension to this. This plays with some of George Bataille’s theory of heterology- that those elements of society which are “excessive” (not useful) are “repressed”, much in the manner of the human subconscious- fetishized and marginalized. But it’s those elements that have been repressed that allow us to analyze society in terms of its true motives and modes of operation.

In a society that prizes “civilization” and human virtues such as chastity and frugality, Colleen herself is the deconstructive element. On the one hand, she personifies the liminal territory between their sharply divided binary of human/ civilized and animal/wild. On the other hand, she also begs the question- isn’t everyone, on some level, an animal? Where does the line between human and animal exist, and what does this imply for the ethics of human/animal contact?

This morning, 'round the cape at dawn
Some travellers sailed into town
With scraps for sale and the saddest songs
And a book of pictures, leather-bound
That showed a whale with a tusk a meter long

I asked the man who showed it me
"What is the name of that strange beast?"
He said its name translated roughly to
He-Who-Easily-Can-Curve-Himself-Against-The-Sky.

So okay, more plot. A bunch of strangers have arrived in town selling all sorts of sundries. The idea that they also sell “the saddest songs” sort of makes me think that these people are gypsies- again, marginal/liminal figures within society. Colleen is transfixed by the image of a tusked whale. She asks the man who showed it to her what it is (again, the theme of ignorance- she, herself, a whale, doesn’t know what it is)- he identifies it as a narwhal.

In Inuit, “He-Who-Easily-Can-Curve-Himself-Against-The-Sky” means “narwhal”. The image is really striking, and calls to mind the power and majesty of whales. To me, it recalls various primordial serpents of world mythology, from Leviathan to Jormugand to Tiamat.

Also, the sudden introduction of Inuit lore sort of complicates the geographical setting of the song. I initially always imagined it was set in Medieval England/ Ireland (more on this later), what with all the abbey imagery. Thinking about it, though, I think that the colonial US, particularly the east coast (which apparently had a strong whaling tradition of its own) is also a viable option, what with the highly puritanical society described in the song. Probably not so many nuns though.

I guess this also calls to mind how different societies can be bound together by common practices. In this case, the practice of whale-hunting and whale culture/lore binds together the Inuit and the Anglo/American.

And I am without words
He said "My lady looks perturbed
the light is in your eyes, Colleen."
I said, "Whatever can you mean?"
He leaned in and said
"you ain’t forgotten everything."

"You dare to speak a lady's name?"
He said, "My lady is mistaken.
I would not speak your name in this place
For if I were to try then the wind
I swear, would rise, to tear you clean from me without a trace."

The climax! Colleen learns the disturbing truth about her mysterious, watery origins. The man with the book recognizes Colleen, and hints at the truth of her origins. “The light is in your eyes, Colleen”- he senses that she’s close to realizing the truth. Colleen is all flustered and defensive, and uses some of her social capital to try and put this dirty peddler in his place “You dare to speak a lady’s name?” she threatens. And, oh, the glorious climax! The glorious revelation!

This next part is a little bit tricky, and I think could be dealing with two different (but complementary) meanings. Obviously, both deal with the power of names, which, iirc, was a pretty big deal in druid lore (again, the tie to ancient Ireland). The two possible meanings: 1) To call Colleen’s true name would transport her back to her whale form, back in the ocean. 2) Colleen was actually of high caste in whale society (hence this peddler’s great respect for her; note his use of the honorific “my lady”); to use her real name would be to invoke her great majesty. The invocation of such a name by a mere commoner would cause a great rupture of energy (sort of like in the myth of Zeus and Semele) and Colleen would sort of be projected away (“torn clean without a trace”) by sheer dint of the force of her own name’s potency.

This part also calls into question the identity of the peddler, and the nature of his relationship with Colleen. Is he, like her, a whale who’s become human? Is he a human who, by dint of his dealings with whales, can recognize them even when in human form? Is he a druid/shaman? This would explain his seemingly-magical awareness of Colleen’s true nature, as well as his awareness of the power of names.

"Have you come, then, to rescue me?"
He laughed and said, "from what, 'colleen'?"
You dried and dressed most willingly.
You corseted, and caught the dread disease
By which one comes to know such peace."

Okay, the exchange turns sort of hostile. Colleen is all shivery and scared, realizing at this point how out of place she is in the human world. “Have you come, then, to rescue me?”- she realizes that she needs saving. Or maybe this line is sort of a challenge? In any case, the peddler’s reply is devastating.

He mocks her, and condemns both her name and the symbolic weight (and all the ideological/material baggage that this entails) that it carries. Note the quote marks around this particular iteration of Colleen’s name. He’s mocking her, calling her both by her name, but also emphasizing that name’s signification of “Woman/ Girl”- he’s using “Colleen” as a pejorative. She’s Colleen, the name she has been given, but she’s also just “woman/girl- stranger”- the identity she has chosen. Very “well this is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Again, a very painful reversal, as well as a reminder of the power of names. A moment ago, he wouldn’t use her true name out of fear/respect for its power. Now he uses her assumed name to mock the identity that she’s apparently swallowed wholesale.

More accusations follow, still heavily tinged with irony and sarcasm. Why should he save Colleen? After all she came there willingly. This sort of clears up the question of how Colleen came to be in this situation to begin with. Apparently, she wanted it! He mentions her use of the corset- I discussed the grotesque irony implied by this a while ago. Clearly, the peddler recognizes this irony as well, because he’s totally calling Colleen out on it! Ah, and then the killer line:

“You corseted, and caught the dread disease/
By which one comes to know such peace."

Colleen has sacrificed so much- her home, her family, her power, her identity and sense of self- and for what? The “dread disease” of humanity, “by which one comes to know such peace”- the peace experienced by Colleen now, which is not peace at all. The peddler ironically points out that the reward to which Colleen had cast her eye, the “peace” of humanity, is not peace at all. In fact, it is exactly what has been tormenting Colleen since her rebirth- uncertainty, instability, doubt, discomfort.

The greatest irony of all- in this regard, Colleen is not special at all! Everybody feels this way. It makes no more difference whether you were born a human or just became one yesterday, you’ll still feel the same sense of perpetual unease felt by everybody else, that sense of perpetual unease that is apparently the human condition.

Well it's true that I came to know such things
As the laws which govern property
And herbs to feed the babes that wean,
And the welting weight for every season
But still I don't know any goddamned "Colleen".

The breakthrough! Colleen realizes that, despite understanding every external part of what it means to be human (laws, medicine, agricultural conventions), she still has no idea of who she is. Ironically, this is exactly what it means to be human! We have our identities assigned to us externally by a cruel, authoritarian society, knowing all the while that this conflicts with who we really are- but who are we really? There is no resolution, just the weighty tension between what we are told about ourselves and the profound sense of unease conjured up by these strictures.

Colleen got what she was asking for. All said, she’s just the girl her name makes her out to be. After all, who’s to say we aren’t all displaced whales, or tigers, or birds? What matters is the here and now, the “dread disease” of humanity that we’ve been inflicted by, and that will probably stay with us until we die. After all, we asked for it. This is the price we’ve paid to sit at the top of the food chain. We may kill, buy and sell animals, but here we are, animals alienated from ourselves.

Then dive down there with the lights to lead
That seem to shine from everything
Down to the bottom of the deep blue sea
Down where your heart beats so slow
And you never in your life have felt so free
Will you come down there with me
Down were our bodies start to seem
Like artefacts of some strange dream
Which afterwards you can't decipher
And so, soon, have forgotten everything.

The Coda. Well, lyrically, this reads sort of like a Coda to me. Again, like the beginning, we aren’t really sure who’s speaking. Is it the peddler, in reply to Colleen? Is it Colleen herself? The uninvolved, unnamed person who has narrated this entire story, and who is now ending it on a prescriptive note? I love the ambiguity!

As in form, so in theme: the message of this last section is ambiguous as well. I get three main possibilities of what Joanna’s trying to say here: 1) The first possibility is that Colleen will dive into the sea with the peddler, where their bodies will transform back into those of whales, and the whole “strange dream” of life on land will be forgotten. 2) The second possibility is that Colleen will drown herself, and re-attain her “whale form” and its attendant peace/power only through the conversion into pure spirit brought on by the destruction of her physical body. 3) The last possibility is that Colleen can only ever “dive down” in her dreams- she becomes a whale in her dreams, again recalling the dream wherein she is separated from her Child/ the Sea, only to recover it and find long-desired relief. But this is only possible in dreams- she awakens to have forgotten it anew, left with only fragments of the memory of who she used to be. Again, it is only when one embraces the unconscious, the repressed, (appropriately, the animal instinct) that one is truly present to oneself.

Now, some final reflections. The song works wonderfully as a fairytale- in fact, in some ways, it’s sort of what could have happened to the Little Mermaid if, having washed ashore, she’d been discovered by nuns instead of the Prince- but it works just as well as a metaphor for the human condition. In a sense, we’re all Colleen- which is why her name is so generic, yet emblematic- just former animals trying to reconcile our ideas of who we used to be/ who we really are, with the uncomfortable reality of the lives we have to deal with in the immediate present. Can we escape? Do we have the right to?

In a sense, the song works to me as a response to Bjork’s Oceania. Oceania is the primordial ocean-mother calling to her children; Colleen is the diasporic ocean-child lamenting her separation from the mother that is both the Sea and her own self.

Some thoughts on the music: I like the folkiness of the song; it really adds to the rural-communal/ “storyteller” vibe conveyed by the lyrics. Some parts sound sort of Bollywood-ish (those little gasps followed by frenzied harp runs). And I love the way she sings it: detached- like a storyteller- yet vulnerable- like Colleen herself.

Finally: the motif of people (usually women) transforming into animals recurs in world mythology, so here are some other sources which the song may have drawn from, or which you might find interesting if
you’re into that sort of stuff.

- Selkies – Irish
http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/selkiefolk/
- The Children of Lir- Irish
http://www.ireland-information.com/a...ldrenoflir.htm
-Vasilissa The Wise- Russian
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/r...gtsarevna.html
- The White Cat- French
http://fairytales4u.com/story/whitecat.htm
- The Crane Wife – Japanese
http://wabei4.tripod.com/xlation/quilt/crane.htm
- Sedna- Inuit
http://www.worldtrans.org/creators/whale/myths0.html
- The Fox Wife- Inuit
http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Le...an-Eskimo.html


Also, this might not be appropriate to post here, but I needed to say it anyhow: if you are going to appropriate Irish myths in order to create a modern fairytale song-cycle whatever, THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT!!!

[PetrZimin]

I just realized that this will be the last SOTW in a while, unless somebody picks up the thread after me.

[theonsushv]

Also, this might not be appropriate to post here, but I needed to say it anyhow: if you are going to appropriate Irish myths in order to create a modern fairytale song-cycle whatever, THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT!!!

Hahahaha! ABSOLUTELY AGREED.

She takes folklore and folk music that has a very long history, and reworks it into something that that works within her musical language and retells the story in a very fresh way that feels at once modern and ancient. It's one of her finest songs.

There's a movie that centers around selkie folklore too: "the secret of roan inis"

[asharbiq]

Yuki, that's a wonderful interpretation! I've always loved the part about the whale confronting her about wearing the corset. It's so haunting.

I think this song is a lyrical masterwork. It's one of her best efforts, I think. I admit that when I first heard it, I felt that it sounded a little TOO Irish folk for my taste, like it was too blatant or something, but that quickly passed. It became a fast favorite and I am truly astonished by the depth of storytelling and insight she's able to glean in a short (for Joanna, anyway!) song.

[RealCHEAPsoftDOWNLOAD]

Wow, you covered everything so perfectly.

My favourite stanza is this one:

And I hate the sight of that empty air
Like stepping for a missing stair
And falling forth forever blindly:
Cannot grab hold of anything!
No, not I, most blessed among Colleens

It's amazing how well she captures the sense of literally being a fish out of water. 'Empty air / Like stepping for a missing stair' - the dry air is isolating in its emptiness and unsettling in its lack of support, and her movement through it is too rapid and uncontrolled, like 'falling forth'. It really builds a sense that there is something missing - the 'empty air', 'missing stair', there being nothing to grab hold of - something to be found and enveloped by.

This song is basically the sixth Ys song. All the unifying themes are here - transformation, decadence, death, an excess of water, and a sense of fable and legend. I guess the style (and the instrumentation it perhaps requires) is maybe too different for it to have been put on the album initially, but it definitely seems like a song she wrote in the spirit of the record. As for alternate readings, you could definitely do a very convincing feminist reading of the song, but I prefer the idea that it's less an outright rejection of femininity and more a general rejection of social repression

Also every time she yelps a fairy is born.

[adsexpist]

This was the song that sealed the deal for me. The lyrics are a masterwork, the music is incredibly composed and the players on the track... it's ridiculous how truly GREAT this song is.

[Goksiodiffeli]

Colleen is one of my favorites of Joanna's; it's the first song of hers I heard, and is the song that made me a fan. It is brilliant. My favorite moments are the the lines "He-Who-Easily-Can-Curve-Himself-Against-The-Sky. / And I am without words," and the corset confrontation - definitely haunting. Nice write up Yuki

There's a movie that centers around selkie folklore too: "the secret of roan inis"

I loved this movie! I'd forgotten all about it.

[RealCHEAPsoftDOWNLOAD]

Is there a definitive performance of this song? I've been searching and I can't seem to find one that presents the song well enough