¤ milky moon ¤

No Provenance is certainly not my favorite song on Have One On Me, but I like it quite a lot so it made me sad to see it "winning" the "Worst Song on Have One On Me" poll by so much. I think one of the reasons people don't like it as much is that the lyrics are a little harder to understand/interpret than the other songs on the album, so I thought I'd start a thread about analyzing the lyrics.

Here's the idea about the song I've come up with: No Provenance is about giving up personal agency in a relationship. This ties in with the "have one on me" concept of the album; a woman's self-sacrifice.

Here's a quote from Joanna about the title of the record: "It also refers to a kind of self-sacrifice that is a theme in a lot of the songs. It's a very feminine thing as well. It's the giving of yourself in those drinking terms, like pouring something from a bottle, and the level of the wine goes down and down and down with each glass that you pour and hand out."

The very first lines of the song tie into this idea.

Allelu, allelu
I have died happy
And lived to tell the tale to you
I have slept for forty years
And woke to find me gone
I woke safe and warm in your arms
In your arms, your arms, in your arms

This is one of many places on the album where the narrator says she has died, which I'll take to mean some huge change has occurred in her. After this change, she finds that her Self is gone, leaving her safe in the arms of a man. Who she is now is strongly tied to being with him, hence the repetition of "In your arms."

Not informed of the natural law
Squatting, lordly, on a stool, in a stall
We spun gold clear out of straw
And, when our bales of bullion were stored
You burned me like a barn
I burned safe and warm in your arms
In your arms, your arms

This verse paints a picture of the nature of their relationship. Again, she seems to be giving up something in these lines. It's not specified who's the one squatting on a stool, but I'd wager that it's him, presiding over their activities and "burning" her once they're done making gold. But again, she's complicit in this as she still feels "safe and warm" with him.


I'm afraid of the Big Return
There's a certain conversation lost
And that loss incurred
With nobody remaining
To register who had passed this way
In the night, in the middle of the night
Negating their grace and their sight
Till only I remember, or mark
How we had our talk

In this section, her old self is slowly being forgotten/erased. She's the only one who remembers, but even she is afraid of her old self returning.


We took our ride
So that there was no-one home
And the lights of Rome
Flickered and died
And, what's more, I believe that you knew it, too
I think you saw their flares
And kept me safely unawares
In your arms, your arms, in your arms

Again, she doesn't have the power in this relationship. Her partner shields her from trouble in the outside world, and she remains happily oblivious with him. The thing that's interesting to me in this verse is that she's looking at this situation from a future where she's found out about what happened, and for the first time there's a sense of uneasiness when she says "in your arms." It suggests that if she had known he was keeping this from her, she would've been unhappy about it.

I also think it hearkens back a bit to these lines from Easy: "We are tested and pained by what's beyond our bed / We are blessed and sustained by what is not said." In other words, as long as she's in his arms and they don't address any potential issues, they're dandy.


The grass was tall, and strung with burrs
I essayed that high sashay
Which in my mind, was my way
You hung behind, in yours
Anyhow, she did not neigh
I do not know
What drew our eyes to hers
That little black mare did not stir
Till I lay down in your arms

Poor old dirty little dog-size horse
Swaying and wheezing
As a matter of course
Swaying and wheezing
As a matter of pride
That poor old nag
Not four palms wide
Had waited a long time

Coated in salt
Buckled like a ship
Run foul of the fence
In the middle of the night
She'd sprung up
No provenance
Bearing the whites of her eyes

Here's where the old self reappears. The sense of uneasiness from the previous verse is here again, with the two of them walking apart through grass that's full of burrs. There's a bit of a rift now, and from that rift comes this freaky little horse thingy. I think the horse represents her former self, who has become tiny and helpless and weak from being repressed for so long. The horse doesn't move or make a sound until the narrator lays down in his arms again, once again surrendering her sovereignty. That ticks the horse off and it tries to do something about it, but it's so sickly that it can only sway and wheeze.

The narrator feels pity for it, but doesn't try to help it. She's made her choice and doesn't want to be confronted with the idea that it may have been a mistake.


And you, with your 'arrangement' with Fate
Nodded sadly at her lame assault
On that steady old gate
Her faultlessly etiolated fishbelly-face
The muzzle of a ghost

His reaction is similar, but instead of pity, he feels resignation. To him, what the horse represents is just a ghost now. He believes that what's done is done.


And, pretty Johnny Appleseed
Via satellite feed
Tell us, who was it that you then loved the most
Pretty Johnny Appleseed
Leave a trail that leads
Straight back down to the farm
Lay me down safe and warm in your arms
In your arms

In the end, she questions which one of them he loved the most: who she used to be, now battered and cowed (I'd imagine that before she "died," she was a full-size, badass wild horse. Remember that old interview where Joanna said that if she could be an animal, she'd want to be a horse who nobody owns?) or the docile, subservient person she is now. Ultimately, though, it seems that she decides that it doesn't matter. She ends on the desire to be back in his arms, even if it means totally abandoning the other side of herself.


But of course I may be totally off base with this! I would really love to hear other interpretations.

Oooooh.

OK, so much of this matched my interpretation, and overall we seem to agree. But that last part, thank you for pointing out what "who was it that you then loved the most" means. I don't know why I never thought of that -- that line always confused me. The thought that she's asking: do you really love the me I have to be to be with you, or did you love who I was? Brilliant. A doomed relationship, making herself into someone else in order to be with someone who ultimately doesn't even want it which matches perfectly with so much of the rest of the album.

This reminds me of something that I love about Joanna & HOOM. Some stupid Youtube commenter said about Go Long, in short, great, another whiny feminist song about how awful men are. I don't think it's fair to say that about Go Long at all-- though the male figure is villain-esque, the narrator feels sorry for him. She almost infantilizes him: he's a silly goose, fumbling at his nurse and his choices have made him so, so lonely. It's certainly not a whiny song. But there are aspects of that in Does Not Suffice, where the man has clearly not done right. But, overall, what I think HOOM communicates is the narrator taking much of the blame. Instead of writing songs about how a man forced her to be one way, or treated her terribly, there is so much self-awareness, acceptance, and responsibility. Though she is weakened here, she did it to herself. She gave herself up. It was not taken from her. I just really like this. It strikes me as very empowering. But I think there's a good balance. The black-hearted whore in Have One On Me, to the poor girl thrashing against her love, or waiting sadly in California. There's a lot of complexity.

I at first saw it literally as the kidnapping of a young girl,
bringing her to some desolate place to try and teach her obedience and submission. It's logical that the captive does start to develop affection for the captor, seeing him as a protective figure, or perhaps just wanting to please him as he is obviously dominant and has the power to hurt her if she does not.
I saw the horse representing her spirit, perhaps her rebellion that led to her death.
Of course, that could all fit in with your metaphorical interpretation which is probably more likely.

The one line I don't get is "Pretty Johnny Appleseed via satellite feed," just weird all around.