It seems clear to me that Colleen is a "selkie" - a creature from Irish mythology. Selkies take the form of seals, but can shed their skins to become human women. Here's the Wikipedia page on them: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie
Since the song has a decidedly "Irish" feel to the structure, melody, and instrumentation, I think this interpretation definitely fits. Thus, Colleen is a selkie who, in shedding her skin, lost her memory of being a wondrous, mythical sea-creature. Having washed ashore naked, the humans who found her assumed the worst - that she must have been a sinful woman who fell off a ship and lost her clothes. They try to domesticate her, but she can't quite get away from her desire for water: she overwaters her plants, and feels like the air is missing something (the resistance of water). She has dreams about the ocean and a whale admonishing her for forgetting about her former underwater life and for wearing his baleen around her waist (a whalebone corset, a very uncomfortable but necessary part of being a civilized woman in Victorian times).
When she sees the picture of the Narwhal, something stirs in her memory. The salesman (Who is he? He seems to know her true identity! Maybe he is a mythical sea creature too. Are there male selkies?) recognizes that she hasn't completely forgotten her true identity as a selkie. He refuses to speak her real (selkie) name, as it would cause her to be swept away - presumably to be turned back to a selkie and be returned to the ocean. After all, it seems she has willingly embraced life on land, and learned to become a very capable wife and mother (making medicines for babies who are being weaned off of milk, managing her property, etc.). But in the last stanza, it sounds like she wishes to (or actually does) return to the ocean and selkie-ness, where she feels more free, but forgets her human life. (This happens a lot in stories of selkies, which are tragedies in which a man falls in love with a woman who is really a selkie, has a beautiful family with her, but is ultimately abandoned by her when she leaves him to return to the ocean, forgetting him and never returning.)
A beautiful song with wonderful lyrics, and an amazing re-telling of a very old Irish theme. I think the selkie story is a great metaphor for wildness vs. civilization, magic vs. practicality, which I think crop up a lot in Joanna's songs.
It seems clear to me that Colleen is a "selkie" - a creature from Irish mythology. Selkies take the form of seals, but can shed their skins to become human women. Here's the Wikipedia page on them: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie
Since the song has a decidedly "Irish" feel to the structure, melody, and instrumentation, I think this interpretation definitely fits. Thus, Colleen is a selkie who, in shedding her skin, lost her memory of being a wondrous, mythical sea-creature. Having washed ashore naked, the humans who found her assumed the worst - that she must have been a sinful woman who fell off a ship and lost her clothes. They try to domesticate her, but she can't quite get away from her desire for water: she overwaters her plants, and feels like the air is missing something (the resistance of water). She has dreams about the ocean and a whale admonishing her for forgetting about her former underwater life and for wearing his baleen around her waist (a whalebone corset, a very uncomfortable but necessary part of being a civilized woman in Victorian times).
When she sees the picture of the Narwhal, something stirs in her memory. The salesman (Who is he? He seems to know her true identity! Maybe he is a mythical sea creature too. Are there male selkies?) recognizes that she hasn't completely forgotten her true identity as a selkie. He refuses to speak her real (selkie) name, as it would cause her to be swept away - presumably to be turned back to a selkie and be returned to the ocean. After all, it seems she has willingly embraced life on land, and learned to become a very capable wife and mother (making medicines for babies who are being weaned off of milk, managing her property, etc.). But in the last stanza, it sounds like she wishes to (or actually does) return to the ocean and selkie-ness, where she feels more free, but forgets her human life. (This happens a lot in stories of selkies, which are tragedies in which a man falls in love with a woman who is really a selkie, has a beautiful family with her, but is ultimately abandoned by her when she leaves him to return to the ocean, forgetting him and never returning.)
A beautiful song with wonderful lyrics, and an amazing re-telling of a very old Irish theme. I think the selkie story is a great metaphor for wildness vs. civilization, magic vs. practicality, which I think crop up a lot in Joanna's songs.