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preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead ¤ milky moon ¤ • View topic - see the goose...
I don't know what the song is about, but it does have echoes of certain ideas from Have One On Me. In particular, in regards to that quote from the man himself, I think about how much of Have One On Me deals with the idea of home, and Joanna not wanting to leave her home. I don't really know the specifics of their relationship, but I do know that he was living in Texas while they were together.
I think it's interesting to contrast his statement that "Baby's Breath" (which has so much lyrical content about what sounds like the decline of a relationship) is about "what happens when you finally choose where you're going to settle down and get your own plot of land" with some of the songs from Have One On Me, particularly "Occident" and "In California."
To leave your home and your family For some distortion of property Well, darling, I can't go But you may stay here with me
It's too late to be grateful It's too late to be late again It's too late to be hateful
Well, I don't think it will ever be confirmed one way or another, but clearly a number of people do think it is about abortion. That's how this thread first started afterall. If you don't share this view then the comparison with Baby's Breath could be made along different lines. But, for me the lyrics strengthen the case that Baby Birch is abortion related if we presume that these two song speak to one another. It speaks of the protagonist and his girl rushing to an alter to make a difficult sacrifice (which he later takes responsibility for - "it was agreed it was me tearing out the baby's breath"). And while mistaking a flower for a weed could be a metaphor for many things his choice of flower - baby's breath - is more than suggestive.
Different listeners are free to interpret the songs as they choose. But so far, based on what has been written on this forum, I find the abortion reading most convincing. And this, mainly because the other two interpretations have not adequately addressed some major passages in the lyrics.
What he's said about that song seems to me to support the other major view of Baby Birch - that the potential of the ended relationship is symbolised by an unborn child. Callahan just seems to be using the same metaphor. "Baby's Breath is about what happens when you finally choose where you're going to settle down and get your own plot of land" chimes very strongly with a lot of Joanna's lyrics where her being in California is related to the end of a relationship - the theme pops up all over the place - as has been mentioned above. I'd maintain that they're both talking about the end of a relationship rather than an abortion.
Another thing to consider is that Joanna is such a private person. She tries to avoid giving too much about herself away. So why would she write as extensively as she putatively does about something so deeply personal, even in a cryptic way? An artist isn't trying to deceive their audience when they write, they're trying to communicate with them. They want the audience to understand what they're saying - so it would be something of a break with character for her to make a declaration like this where it can be heard by anyone.
Well, when you consider the songs on Ys, we can only speculate what three of them are about (Only Skin, Sawdust & Diamonds and Monkey & Bear - almost certainly about relationships, but we don't know which ones, we don't understand the chronologies, etc.), it's obvious what one of them's about (Emily is about her sister leaving home) and the other we would be totally in the dark about if she hadn't come out and told us (Cosmia is about her friend dying). Given that "My sister's just left home" is the sort of thing you might tell someone on a bus while relationship problems and the death of a friend are far more intimate, it doesn't really strike me that she would write a song as apparently obvious as Baby Birch about something so personal. If we go with the abortion interpretation, the meaning of the song's not really very thoroughly concealed. She does write about personal things, but as you said, in a very cryptic way, and even far less intimate personal knowledge is shrouded in much more metaphor than Baby Birch. I'll admit that she could have felt that a blatant and hard-hitting song was necessary for the subject, but even then I don't thnk there's sufficient evidence to assume that the abortion imagery is anything other than metaphorical. What Bill Callahan's said just reaffirms that for me.
I think its presumptuous to assume which subjects Joanna would or would not write about. I prefer to stick to the work itself when interpreting although the comments that artists make about their work can at times be revealing.
Callahan presents one way of approaching the song - as being about "settling down" which can be interpreted broadly - and I'm sure that dimensions of the song touch on this theme. However, I also think most good songs have multiple dimensions that can coexist. The meaning of the song should be primarily understood through the lyrics that are presented to us. He does not need to tell us precisely what the song is about because he has already done so by putting work into the song itself.
This is the reason that I don't find the "possible future" interpretation of Baby Birch convincing. Because Joanna does put so much thought into the words she chooses. If the song was meant to convey a lost future I don't think she would have chosen such a direct address to that future by personalizing it (even naming it - baby birch) and speaking to it directly. I also don't think she would have chosen language that so explicitly brings up images of violence and birth ("slick as a knife" "skinned it quick" "kicking and mewling, upended, unspooling, unsung and blue"). She deals with relationships breaking down in a number of other songs and the language that conveys the protagonists feelings in these songs is very specific to the nature of the relationship she's trying to address. There has to be a good reason why this particular song apart from the rest utilizes such physical, bodily imagery.
If it was an imagined future that is being taken away she probably would have used very different language oriented towards imaging that future and what it would have been like. But as it is she addresses Baby Birch in the present tense as something that actually exists (or did).
As for the miscarriage idea, this is a bit more plausible, however as others have already pointed out, it is the question of intentionality that undermines this reading. A miscarriage is bit more like a tragedy befalling someone. It is beyond their control, while in this song the protagonist repeatedly takes an active stance.
i don't want to enter into the debate as i'm afraid my english is too poor so i certainly not embrace all the signification of the song, but in my mind it's not really about abortion but most about the idea of a baby and more precisely about the idea of building something with someone, i take the thing that her and i have the same age and i know what it feeld, with discussing with 30girls too, this baby pressure, this craving and in the same time have this boheme life, even if joanna is pretty rich and famous and i don't, it's not necessarly easier for her, and there is this cruelty quotes into the songs that refer to an anger to the man who doesn't want to build more than the sadness of the loss. But hey, even if i translated the song, it's my french interpretation so...
I have a lot of respect for that opinion and see it as possibly true, but I can't shake my interpretation. HOOM as a whole is still very mysterious to me though, in a i-feel-like-i-should-understand-this-song-but-i-don't sort of way. I'm still planning a whole album in-depth analysis sometime. Maybe I'll get a better grasp on it then.
Joanna does what a lot of artists do, takes a set of real life experiences(or imagined) and plots them out till they speak to her and offer a direction. Then with that direction(voice) in mind she puts it all in a kaleidoscope, and scatters the facts(hides them), writes that out and then edits until word choice is perfect and all the dreck is culled away. So yes we are dealing with a set of facts, but they may not look at all like the actual set of facts anymore, it could be another persons abortion that got the couple to talking and created a real rift between them...or any of the things mentioned above, that an artist eye view has been placed over.
dwain
The thing i like best about deciphering Joanna's songs...i'm always wrong.