¤ milky moon ¤

Not to be confused with that Egyptian/Chinese restaurant, Cleopatra's Noodles

There is also another line about which I have some doubts but which so far hasn't caused any discussions: which plays along the monument

Can it be which flays along the monument ?

I actually hadn't even known this verb before, but after looking its definition in the dictionary I think the line makes more sense this way. What do you think? Is it possible? Can this verb be used with the preposition "along"?

I hear plays honestly.

thanks Alex for your great research!

Whenever I hear, "what lies under the city is gone", I can't help but think, "what lies under the settee is gone".

^story of my life

Hi all! I've come to this lovely site over time, so first I want to say thank you for making here such a valuable resource re: all things Joanna. It feels like this new song has been flowing in my veins ever since I heard it (or perhaps before I heard it, which is the way I feel about most of Joanna's music)... anyway, thank you all for deciphering, decoding, transcribing, etc. This song is a treasure hunt!

So I was thinking about potter's fields, and Washington Square Park, and thence googled things, which led to two possibly pertinent details from Mr. Wikipedia... as another user posted, Washington Square Park used to be a potter's field, and on wikipedia, it says, "To this day, the remains of more than 20,000 bodies rest under Washington Square." So 20,000 (attending your footfalls) might be an arbitrary number signifying "a lot", but also is specific to the recorded history of that geographical location.

The other thing is from the same wikipage, but I can't tell anymore if I'm hearing what she might actually be singing, or matching my perception to my conjecture. "The land here was divided by a narrow marshy valley through which Minetta Creek (or Brook) ran. In the early 17th century, a Native American village known as Sapokanikan or "Tobacco Field" was nearby." So... could she be saying Sapokanikan? Map o' Sapokanikan? Now that I've seen that word, it's all I can hear - anyone else, or have I just gone 'round the bend?

Thanks, Alex. I'm starting to think that Sapokanikan is what she's saying, just because so many lines in the song emanate from the monuments within that geographical niche. And that the Dutch were the first European settlers of the area, claiming and re-naming the land thus obscuring the original civilization ( the name "Sapokanikan" gets sanded and bevelled right off the map, replaced with New Amsterdam, then New York) chimes with the image of the Dutch Master (Van Gogh! Thank you for finding that!) burying the bones beneath a patch of grass.

So it is Florry Walker, then? Have we actually got this song fully transcribed? Well, except the reround the rerounders bit...

I'm pretty sure it's "plays". It's idiomatic that way, it just sounds right.

Feeling unsatisfied with the Rembrandt/Segers explanation (in the song Joanna seems to have it the other way round: "Tobias and the angel disguise what the scholars surmise was a mother and kid" and with those paintings Tobias and the angel were replaced by a mother and kid) I looked a bit further and found this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/sep/17/arts.artsnews

Some parts of the article:

It was painted over by an inferior artist, its subjects transformed from a lady and her daughter to an angel and a little boy. It was even lost in a garage in Bayswater and sensationally rediscovered with a stash of other Old Masters after the war.
But now, the top layer of the canvas - which depicted Tobias and the angel Raphael, a scene from the apocryphal Book of Tobit - has been removed.

And what lies beneath is a Titian, a unique double portrait of a mother and daughter whose subjects remain an intriguing mystery. Christie's yesterday announced it was auctioning Portrait of a Lady and Her Daughter in December for an estimated £5m.

Two years after that, Tobias and the Angel, as it still was, regarded as being by a follower of Titian, was X-rayed, and the existence of a second painting revealed beneath. But it was only in 1983 that the restoration - removal of the entire top layer of paint - was undertaken.

And here you can see a picture of the Portrait of a Lady and Her Daughter: http://www.economist.com/node/5249495
and here the Tobias and Angel it first was: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/p ... html/1.stm

Two thoughts on the lyrics:

1. "and drums upon a plastic bag" -- I think she's saying "and drums upon a plastic pad"
2. "Well, I swear Tobias and the angel disguise" -- This sounds more like "While elsewhere Tobias and the angel disguise" to me