¤ milky moon ¤

Here's a thread for quotes of Joanna talking about "Have One On Me" that will hopefully help us gain insight into the album.

“I don’t deny there are lots of connections to my own life with the songs, but there’s also fictions, and there’s also a bunch of subplots a listener wouldn’t be privy to. But I would say that in my life, relationships aside, there’s a lot more lightness. A lot of the narratives kept gravitating towards the physical, the earthly and the simple. This is something may regret seeing later in print, but maybe this record relates more to being a woman than the last.”
“I know it’s corny to quote yourself, but there’s a line in one of the last songs on the record that says, ‘I can pass’,” she says. “And that’s partially what this record is about, marrying the process of passing like a functional human in a social world, and navigating this vehicle of your life on earth.”

(Uncut Magazine)

that's a good explanation

I love that. "I can pass" That makes so much sense to me.

I like thinking that the record as about being a woman. I've always admired Joanna's femininity and her comfort with it.

Ann wrote:I like thinking that the record as about being a woman. I've always admired Joanna's femininity and her comfort with it.

I noticed more references to this on Ys. Only Skin has direct mentions of "being a woman" and being "the happiest woman among all women", although I perhaps am being too literal. Have One On Me does have a coming of age tone.

I think a huge number of her songs are specifically about being a woman. Emily and Only Skin very much so, with Only Skin dealing with both being a woman and being cast into the female role in a m/f relationship.

On HOOM, I see a lot about being a woman in terms of motherhood in Baby Birch, and also a huge amount in Go Long; which I read on one level as about being a woman existing in a man's world (to use an effective cliché); as Joanna is a female singer / songwriter in a world where this is only just beginning to become the norm. Before, every female songwriter was lauded partly down to talent and partly down to the astonishing fact of her gender which made her stand out; Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, Bjork etc. When she says:

With the loneliness of you mighty men
With your jaws and fists
and guitars and pens
And your sugar-lips
But I've never been
To the fire-pits
With you mighty men

I believe this is one part of what she's talking about, the other being about the disparity between the male and female roles that are conventional in the relationships of our society. Furthermore if you view Go Long as a song of soul-searching introspection, of a female projection of a central character attempting to understand and cleanse themselves of the dark, aggressive, masculine force within (which I think is certainly a plausible reading, and I can go into greater detail if necessary); it's fascinating how she creates a male / female dichotomy within herself, ascribing a typical gender to each attribute whilst contrastingly deploring the fact that these roles affect us in contemporary society.

PS - Sadie are you aware that the 'Sadie' in the song is referring to Joanna's dog who died?

Weirdelves wrote: PS - Sadie are you aware that the 'Sadie' in the song is referring to Joanna's dog who died?

Oh dear, listening to that song again, it would make more sense. Would it be more or less tasteful for me to make my avatar a Labrador? It's all fixed now anyway.... (don't ask)

I loved your analysis on the matter, however, I must stress that I was just thinking of word-by-word uses of her 'being a woman'. I may have come across as naive....

Now all I can think of is Jennifer Ehle gnawing on both a bone and a telephone and Joanna burying Jennifer Ehle..... something's wrong with me.

You didn't come across as naive at all, I just find the subject really interesting.

Haha I always thought the dog in this image was Sadie, but I'm not positive: