“Sapokanikan” is the first single released from Joanna Newsom’s 2015 album Divers. Shorter than most of the songs on her last album Have One On Me, the song resembles a union of the styles she used on Have One On Me and her debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender. “Sapokanikan”, like much of Joanna’s music, relies heavily on obscure references to tell a greater tale. Newsom’s overall message is about death and being forgotten and her references, language, and imagery tie together to paint a picture of these themes. Newsom first references the famous poem “Ozymandias”, with the purpose of reminding readers that all of man’s legacies fade over time. She boldly begins her tale by singing: “The cause is Ozymandian.” Percy Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias”
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Newsom sings “Interred with other daughters, / in dirt in other potters' fields / above them, parades / mark the passing of days / through parks where pale colonnades arch in marble and steel, / where all of the twenty-thousand attending your foot fall / and the cause that they died for are lost in the idling bird calls, / and the records they left are cryptic at best, / lost in obsolescence.” The “pale colonnades arch in marble and steel” she sings of paints of picture of the Washington Square Arch, under which such a grave can be found. It is estimated that up to 20,000 bodies are buried beneath the present day Washington Square Park, the bodies lie beneath the ground where we walk today, listening to the idling bird song. The lives and motivations of all those buried beneath the park are long forgotten, just as the city built by Ozymandias is interred beneath the desert sands. By using the imagery of a burial place and 20,000 dead forgotten bodies Newsom again reminds us that she is singing of death and remembrance (or lack …show more content…
/ Will you tell the one that I love to remember and hold me? / I call and call for the doctor / but the snow swallows me whole with ol' Florry Walker / and the event lives only in print.” Australian Impressionist, Arthur Streeton, was found to have etched the name “Florry Walker” several times into his famous painting “Spring”. Upon further examination using a microscope Streeton was found to have etched out “Florry is my sweetheart”. All of the etchings were invisible to the naked eye. Little is known about the two’s romance, but Streeton insured that his love would live forever in his work. This stands as a stark contrast to the message of “Ozymandias”, suggesting that love is what endures time. The tale seems to be the most uplifting yet, but the language Newsom uses suggests otherwise. Although “Florry Walker” is being remembered through Streeton’s etching, Newsom suggests that this isn’t enough. No one knows of the event other than the two involved and those who have speculated. By now both “Florry Walker” and Streeton are dead and mostly forgotten. She closes out the song referencing a line from the Percy Shelley poem, “Ozymandias” (1818), which
Newsom sings “Interred with other daughters, / in dirt in other potters' fields / above them, parades / mark the passing of days / through parks where pale colonnades arch in marble and steel, / where all of the twenty-thousand attending your foot fall / and the cause that they died for are lost in the idling bird calls, / and the records they left are cryptic at best, / lost in obsolescence.” The “pale colonnades arch in marble and steel” she sings of paints of picture of the Washington Square Arch, under which such a grave can be found. It is estimated that up to 20,000 bodies are buried beneath the present day Washington Square Park, the bodies lie beneath the ground where we walk today, listening to the idling bird song. The lives and motivations of all those buried beneath the park are long forgotten, just as the city built by Ozymandias is interred beneath the desert sands. By using the imagery of a burial place and 20,000 dead forgotten bodies Newsom again reminds us that she is singing of death and remembrance (or lack …show more content…
/ Will you tell the one that I love to remember and hold me? / I call and call for the doctor / but the snow swallows me whole with ol' Florry Walker / and the event lives only in print.” Australian Impressionist, Arthur Streeton, was found to have etched the name “Florry Walker” several times into his famous painting “Spring”. Upon further examination using a microscope Streeton was found to have etched out “Florry is my sweetheart”. All of the etchings were invisible to the naked eye. Little is known about the two’s romance, but Streeton insured that his love would live forever in his work. This stands as a stark contrast to the message of “Ozymandias”, suggesting that love is what endures time. The tale seems to be the most uplifting yet, but the language Newsom uses suggests otherwise. Although “Florry Walker” is being remembered through Streeton’s etching, Newsom suggests that this isn’t enough. No one knows of the event other than the two involved and those who have speculated. By now both “Florry Walker” and Streeton are dead and mostly forgotten. She closes out the song referencing a line from the Percy Shelley poem, “Ozymandias” (1818), which