I'm surprised that no comments really go into the theme of sexuality in this song. Colleen is a selkie who comes from the water, and the water represents sexuality, as it often does in stories across the world.
Early in her life Colleen was wild and nameless and in touch with her instincts. But then she was thrown overboard for being a whore or a thief (of husbands? either way, for being wild), and was taught songs of chastity and domesticated. She tried to live by the rules on land but could not quite suppress her nature and overwatered everything. She longs for the sea which comes to her in dreams.
The gray and sloping shouldered thing is a whale, perhaps described so depressively because at this point in her life it is an unwelcome reminder of her ocean origins. The whale asks if the corset she is wearing is made of his own baleen from the sea (corsets can be made of steel or baleen). Perhaps he's asking, is this corset domesticating you or is it part of you? Corsets are associated with both repressive domesticity and sexuality. It seems in Colleen's case it is repressive - it is not made of baleen, it does not connect her to the sea, has she forgotten everything?
But then she meets sailors, one of whom shows her a photo of a narwhal with a long tusk (very suggestive in the context of this song) and she starts to blush. He sees she hasn't forgotten all of her instincts, and she asks if he has come to save her from the chaste civilized life.
The sailor points out that Colleen is not a victim, rather that she chose this life willingly. Colleen realizes he is right, and that at one point she needed to learn about the laws that govern and how to feed kids and other parts of adult life but in the end she is a creature from the sea, and her and the sailor go diving back in. Together they set about forgetting about their life on land, instead of their life at sea.
The version of the myth in Myrenna's comment could be interpreted as being about a woman who loses her own sexuality and identity within a marriage. The fisherman husband seeks to hide the very sexuality (seal skin) which drew him to her in the first place just because he wants to keep her by his side and is afraid it may draw her towards someone else. The selkie is of course unhappy until she recovers her true skin and this leads her back to the sea.
I think Joanna's Colleen is unmarried and lost her self to the civilized world more broadly, not specifically to a marriage. It's a universal story... we're born wild and nameless and in touch with ourselves but we learn to live in the modern world and suppress some of our nature until hopefully we find our way back to it.
I'm surprised that no comments really go into the theme of sexuality in this song. Colleen is a selkie who comes from the water, and the water represents sexuality, as it often does in stories across the world.
Early in her life Colleen was wild and nameless and in touch with her instincts. But then she was thrown overboard for being a whore or a thief (of husbands? either way, for being wild), and was taught songs of chastity and domesticated. She tried to live by the rules on land but could not quite suppress her nature and overwatered everything. She longs for the sea which comes to her in dreams.
The gray and sloping shouldered thing is a whale, perhaps described so depressively because at this point in her life it is an unwelcome reminder of her ocean origins. The whale asks if the corset she is wearing is made of his own baleen from the sea (corsets can be made of steel or baleen). Perhaps he's asking, is this corset domesticating you or is it part of you? Corsets are associated with both repressive domesticity and sexuality. It seems in Colleen's case it is repressive - it is not made of baleen, it does not connect her to the sea, has she forgotten everything?
But then she meets sailors, one of whom shows her a photo of a narwhal with a long tusk (very suggestive in the context of this song) and she starts to blush. He sees she hasn't forgotten all of her instincts, and she asks if he has come to save her from the chaste civilized life.
The sailor points out that Colleen is not a victim, rather that she chose this life willingly. Colleen realizes he is right, and that at one point she needed to learn about the laws that govern and how to feed kids and other parts of adult life but in the end she is a creature from the sea, and her and the sailor go diving back in. Together they set about forgetting about their life on land, instead of their life at sea.
The version of the myth in Myrenna's comment could be interpreted as being about a woman who loses her own sexuality and identity within a marriage. The fisherman husband seeks to hide the very sexuality (seal skin) which drew him to her in the first place just because he wants to keep her by his side and is afraid it may draw her towards someone else. The selkie is of course unhappy until she recovers her true skin and this leads her back to the sea.
I think Joanna's Colleen is unmarried and lost her self to the civilized world more broadly, not specifically to a marriage. It's a universal story... we're born wild and nameless and in touch with ourselves but we learn to live in the modern world and suppress some of our nature until hopefully we find our way back to it.