¤ milky moon ¤

At the Unforumzed forum in the Joanna Newsom section "You and Me, Bess" is song of the week and one of the posters there said this song is a sort of re-imagining of the story of Dick Turpin, which makes a lot of sense to me when I think of it...

I've just come back from walking on what remains of Hounslow Heath (or rather, its westward extension) ... it's surprising to think that wild places like that can still exist within a few miles of the London boundary - yet it's just as odd to think that, lonly a couple of hundred years ago, travel from London to where I live was rendered perilous because of badlands like this, and villains like Dick Turpin.

By the way - the last wild wolf in England was purportedly shot at Perry Oaks, a tiny hamlet which still existed - albeit reduced to a couple of stubborn householders - right up until Terminal 5 was built to extend Heathrow Airport (which itself is located on top of the lost village of Heath Row). I understand that the Airport Authority did all they could to get the last families to move from Perry Oaks, but they refused to move out, even when a sewerage works was built beside them!

does anyone remember this tv show ?

I’ve recently been listening to/obsessing over HOOM again and have come up with a theory about You and Me, Bess that I’d like to get your response to. Lyrically, YAMB is one of the most oblique songs on the album for me. While I love the sound of the brass section and harmonies as well as the narrative and imagery, I’ve never been able to figure out how it fits in to the overall narrative of the album. That is to say, how it fits into the “break down of the relationship” framework that makes very clear sense to me in relation to the other songs on the album.

I’ve previously heard some theories that “Bess” represents a male figure (like her lover) who has betrayed her in some way. In songs like HOOM and Go Long, there are references to various kinds of betrayal that seem to pertain in some way to her relationship with her lover. But in the case of YAMB, This interpretation never quite made sense to me, because obviously Bess is female and presented more as a platonic friend or partner in crime of some kind.

I was struck with a moment of insight when I began to think about it in relation to No Provenance, the other song from HOOM that conspicuously deals with a horse. I find it surprising that I hadn’t really placed importance on this thematic repetition prior to this moment. For an artist who is so careful about her lyrical imagery there is no way that it is simply an accident. There must be a connection between the two “horse” songs.

So in order to understand YAMB we must first understand No Provenance. Here is my understanding:

The short version is that No Provenance is essentially about a fear of losing oneself or one’s desires in another while at the same time reveling in the passion for this person.

And now the long version:

While many people seem to be puzzled by the meaning of No Provenance, this song makes perfect sense to me if the horse is understood to represent a part of the narrator’s self that she is repressing or denying. The entire song takes place within a dream (one pathway to our unconscious desires) in two senses: first, she literally describes falling asleep in the first stanza; secondly, the song dwells on the dream-like bliss she experiences with her lover. This latter sense is reinforced by the fairytale imagery she draws on to impart the almost otherworldly and magical connection she feels when she is with him (ex. references to the fairytales of Rip Van Winkle and Rumplestiltskin). Yet, these same references also imply the ultimately unsustainable or unreal quality of this fantasy love that in some way goes against the “natural law.”

For much of the song the narrator is luxuriating in this love relationship. I think that the song is very important to the emotional gravity of the album because this expression of dizzying heights of happiness that accompany her escape into her lover’s arms helps to explain the depth of the torments to come. We have to be given a sense of what the narrator is losing in this break up and no other songs express the intensity of their togetherness like this one. Though there are clear moments of tenderness and devotion expressed in the first four songs, none of them quite capture these moments of rapture in love as does No Provenance. I love how she executes the double edged nature of the lines “in your arms” with her inflection – her voice is so sensual and tender at moments, but at others it carries an ominous undertone that suggests a tragic love (where the arms that are a space of safety and comfort suddenly feel like a prison, akin to the “steady old gate” that contains the little horse). As in Easy and GIPC, we are reminded here again that her attachment is so strong that she is willing to lose herself in her partner to maintain the fantasy she is living (“woke to find me gone”). I see this song as the final moment of relative peace and innocence of the relationship before its structures come tumbling down.

And this is where the horse appears to interrupt this magical union. The little black horse is simply an unconscious signal that all is not well, that the narrator is not succeeding in repressing her own desires and replacing them with those of her lover. What these desires are specifically doesn’t really matter (for a stronger commitment? Settling down? A future child?), but up to this point she has brushed off these concerns for the sake of passion. At this point in the album this repressed desire is still unconscious (and so only appears in the guise of a dream-like state) and amounts to no more than a nagging feeling (poor old “nag”) that something isn’t quite right. The horse has “no provenance,” comes out of nowhere, and so can’t yet be accounted for or explained.

The horse here is so weak that it is easy to deny it, to keep it contained by the sturdy fences of her lover’s arms. The final stanza is written with a retrospective knowingness and a hint of resentment, yet nonetheless she still desires to be lead back to the farm and its moments of bliss. She effectively represses the unconscious desire.

It is not until a traumatic event occurs (referenced in Baby Birch and On a Good Day) that she becomes conscious of this desire that she harbours that is incompatible with the reality of her existing relationship and what her lover desires. So we get a horse song, followed by two songs about a “lost” child (I don’t care to get into the debate about the nature of that loss here), and then another horse song! Don’t tell me it’s not the SAME horse!

So now we come to YAMB. If my interpretation of No Provenance is accurate then YAMB is a song about self-betrayal, not the betrayal by another. The part of her that is being betrayed by “Bess” is that which is still fiercely attached to her lover in spite of the tensions in the relationship and even the aforementioned trauma. Although, “on a good day” she can “see the end from here” she is not ready to let go. The story of her adventure with Bess recounts her attempts to hide away and cover up this impending doom that unlike in No Provenance she is now painfully conscious of. Due to the events that have transpired in the interim, the horse is no long a pitiful weak little thing. It has grown strong, with a fierce appetite (“but you with your hunger, make yourself known”).

In her moment of capture the narrator insists: “I swore it was only me” – we should take her literally here. This whole stanza insists on how closely bound these two are (“as thick as thieves”) – and they are in fact two sides of the same person. The idea of feeling torn in two by a fraught romance is common enough. Here one part of her wants to deny the existence of the other, to insist that she is still committed to her love and harbours no doubts about their future together. But in spite of her desperation to maintain this illusion, this “nag” has grown bolder and not only insists on her own presence, but may have actually given away the narrator to the authorities on purpose in order to secure her own freedom.

In the final stanza there is a strange uncertainty about the identity of the figure who has already been clearly named earlier in the song and in the title – “Who do you think that you are?” “what was your name?” – Is this a clue that the figment of “Bess” is in fact only the narrator herself? In the early tracks she mentions how her desire to be with her lover has caused her to willingly forget her own name (in Easy her very existence depends on her lover speaking her name; in GIPC she wants to be held until she can’t remember her own name). In YAMB we see the consequence of this as she no longer knows herself well enough to recognize and name “Bess” as the embodiment of her sense of self-possession rising up and in need of nourishment (the appetite of Bess appears to be a subtle reference to Ursala in Monkey and Bear with her desire for “limitless minnows”).

There is also a subtle connection to No Provenance in the line about the “laws of land.” YAMB deals with guilt, but of what sort exactly I’m not sure. The nature of the court, the accusation, and the law is very abstract in the song. It may be a reference to an interrogation by her lover who suspects that she is unhappy in the relationship and wants to know if she is really okay with the present state of things. In No Provenance she implies that in spite of her attempts to keep this part of herself secret her lover is aware of her conflicting desires (“I think you saw their flares,” “and you with your ‘arrangement with fate’ nodded sadly at her lame assault”) and herein may lie his portion of guilt.

In this scenario the narrator is not being completely honest as she is hiding her knowledge of “Bess”. In spite of her mocking dismissal of the charge that she has “stolen a horse”, perhaps she had in fact overstepped the law and stolen Bess from her original gated “repressed” state on the "farm" from No Provenance. However, she didn’t plan on Bess becoming quite so strong and independent and so now resents the way that this newly free desire is disrupting her relationship. Although the law is clearly perceived to be unfair to the accused (you can't "steal" something that never really belonged to another), perhaps there is a kind of justice to be found in it afterall. The still strong identification the narrator has with her lover has to be killed in order for “Bess” to be free from captivity. In the end she is resigned to her fate and even forgives Bess (“forever I’ll listen to your glad neighing”).

At the end of the song, when Bess celebrates her freedom with her glad neighing, it means that the protagonist has begun to accept her independence from the bonds of love. Although she is clearly losing something dear, she is also regaining her sense of self-possession.

I didn't mean for this to be so long, but once I started I just couldn't stop.

What do you all think?

What a fascinating interpretation, Headless_Caboose. I personally find the two 'horse' songs the least enjoyable on HOOM, and perhaps of her entire canonical repertoire (perhaps with the addition of Colleen), so it was interesting to read your possible explanation, in the hope that I could understand and identify with them a little more. What you say does seem to make good sense, and armed with this new perspective, there's only one thing to do next (ie for the next 2 hours...).

Incidentally, your musings on the phrase "in your arms" reminded me of the closing section of Laurie Anderson's O Superman (For Massanet), where she intertwines the two contrasting meanings of the word "arms", as the comforting hug and the threatening weapon:

'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom.
Hi Mom!
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
In your automatic arms.
Your electronic arms.
In your arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
Your petrochemical arms.
Your military arms.
In your electronic arms.
(I assume the first part of this, the love - justice - force segment, is borrowed from somewhere, but I don't know what, and would be interested to know).

Thanks for your comments, Steve!

I have always liked both songs, especially No Provenance which is a album highlight for me, but I'm aware that they are generally lesser liked tracks for most listeners. I think that the cryptic nature of the lyrics is at least one reason for this. While my interpretation may be way off, it really makes sense to me at least and I would be really pleased if it offers a new way into these songs for those who couldn't identify with them before.

And even if they remain your least favourite tracks, my interpretation may help to explain their presence on the album. I've come to see them as indispensable to the overall emotional narrative. Of course, I wouldn't dispense with any of Joanna's songs ever because I love them all in their own way (except for Book of Right-On which I don't dislike but feel kinda 'meh' about).

The Laurie Anderson lyrics are fantastic! She's definitely playing a similar edge there.