‘Choo-Choo’: All Aboard Joanna Newsom’s Train to Rovenshere!
This is an exciting time, indeed, and it’s not just because Joanna Newsom played a kids’ show with visiting puppeteers. The new songs are coming in steadily — five first played a year ago, and now two this week. The latest song is titled “Rovenshere”, and tells of a train ride to “the Land of Rovenshere”. So it was fitting that Joanna Newsom and Robin Pecknold ended the performance with a few notes on wooden train whistles. So, dust off your toybox and sing along!
Hard at work
JN has clearly been busy creating some incredible new music. To give a nod to that, I thought I’d start off with all the other hardworking folks we encounter in “Rovenshere”. Specifically, the railway positions that are called out by name at a few points.
Earlier in the song, we hear the first list:
Depot Agent, Switchman, Trackman, Dispatcher, Bridge Tender, Rodman, Hostler, Grader, Platelayer
And then a little bit later, we hear the second list:
Porter, Pointsman, Boilerman, Gandy Dancer, Flagman, Brakeman, Yardmaster, Steward, Signalman
Then, further on, we hear:
cries the Brakeman.
And when they disembark, they bid —
Farewell to the Engineer
Of course I could be missing a few other moments in the song, but the lists certainly stand out as a repeated section, almost rhythmic like a train chugging along and reminding you of all the people that help make it go.
Railroad Job Dictionary
So what are all of these jobs? For some answers, we’ll turn to trusty resources like Union Pacific and other places.
- Boilerman — Keeps the boiler’s fire running, by shoveling coal and other such labor.
- Brakeman — Inspects the train, assists the conductor, operates the brakes and assists in switching.
- Bridge Tender — Operate and maintain bridges to ensure the safe passage of water traffic and trains.
- Depot Agent — Oversees operations connected with railroad building adjacent to tracks, where passengers and freight may be located.
- Dispatcher — Schedules and monitors all train movements, responsible for traffic control and for communicating routine and unforeseen phenomena which may affect the flow of rail traffic.
- Engineer — Responsible for operating the locomotive.
- Flagman — Surveyor’s assistant, one who signals with a flag.
- Gandy Dancer — (also called Section Hands, Section Crew, Section Gang) Group of workers responsible for assisting in yard operations.
- Grader — Grades and shapes the continuous, level, raised bed on which tracks and ties are laid.
- Hostler — Moves trains in and out of service areas within the yard.
- Platelayer — Track maintenance staff
- Pointsman — (also called Switchman) Attends the switch, switching trains from one track to another.
- Porter — One employed to carry baggage for and assist patrons at rail terminals; a car attendant who waits on passengers and makes up berths.
- Rodman — Surveyor’s assistant, one who holds the leveling rod.
- Signalman — (also called Switchman) A worker responsible for operating signals and switches.
- Steward — One who manages the provisioning of food and attends passengers.
- Switchman — Attends the switch in a railroad yard, switching trains from one track to another.
- Trackman — A person employed in laying and maintaining railway track.
- Yardmaster — Oversees switching and yard operations where trains are “made up” or prepared for their next service, and schedules maintenance of trains.
Early Thoughts
For now, Newsom has only performed “Rovenshere” once. I wish I had better hearing, but after a few listens, I’ve come to terms with the limits of my abilities. I’m hopeful for an eventual official set of lyrics, and in the meantime will need to caveat that anything I’m hearing could be wrong or misinterpreted. And the punctuation, line breaks, etc. are all guesses. So where I can, I’ll try to be cautious about drawing too many far-fetched conclusions. There’s a point in the song where I hear the line “aching bones and failing sight”… she could add bad hearing to that list!
That said, if you don’t mind being out on thin ice now and then, let’s meander out a bit.
Voices
There appear to be a few voices throughout the song. There could be many!
There is a primary “I” speaker, the one who says “You go on, and I will stay here” and “Wish that I could see you there, in the Land of Rovenshere”. From some of the lines, it seems like they’re a parental figure, maybe a motherly figure. There are points where they seem to muse about things and other points where they’re in dialogue with others. I’m making an assumption — and it could be very wrong — that the primary speaker from the section that JN sings (first half of the song) is different from the voice in the part that JN speaks (second half of the song). It’s a big assumption, so bear that in mind.
I say “motherly” in a self-aware way, because I want to be careful not to fall into a gender-normative trap here. There’s a feminine aspect to the speaker, which is not to say fathers can’t be caring, but I’m also aware of Joanna Newsom’s history of strong female voices, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the primary speaker continues that pattern. Another point of reference which is highly heteronormative I know, is that the speaker at one point says:
By my side, the love of mine stands,
golden spike in his hands,
hammering time into place.
We see the gendered pronoun “his”, but again it’s not a given that the speaker isn’t a man who loves a man. Those caveats aside, I still thought it’d be helpful to point out a few observations and very much respect that I’m making assumptions here. To play it safe, I’ll refer to this figure as “the speaker” from here out.
Next, we have the “my dear” and “honey” — a childlike figure in the song. I can’t be certain, but I believe some of the sections towards the beginning alternate between the speaker and this “you”. Something about the inflection and curiosity. I’ll refer to this figure as “the child” for simplicity’s sake.
Then, we have the voices of the train and station workers. I think I hear someone asking “How do you do?”, I believe the Brakeman announces at one point, “Arise and awaken”. And let’s not forget the choral chant of “All Aboard!”.
Other voices are more difficult to pin down. There may be some kind of third-person narrator who makes observations about the scenes, or it may be the speaker observing. And what of the lists of workers’ titles? It’s hard to say, but I could see that coming from the child rattling off the roles, the speaker pointing them out, or even the workers introducing themselves almost like a roll call.
Finally, we have the spoken section at the end. Based on the context of the words I’m picking up on, I’d speculate that the speaker there is someone on the train, prepping the passengers as they get underway. The way they give the order for “Full Steam!” and lovingly nerd out about the train stats — “42-Tons and, Lord! feel her run” — makes me believe it’s one of the personnel we haven’t heard called by name: the train Conductor. At the risk of assuming too much, I’ll refer to this figure as “the Conductor”.
Places
From what I can tell, we encounter a few locations in the song. There is, no doubt, the “Land of Rovenshere”. There is also a “here”/home, ostensibly the home of the speaker. At one point, we are at “the border”, which appears to be the location of a train station depot where people depart on the journey to Rovenshere. And toward the end, we hear something like —
But don’t you worry about me,
[…]
on the coastline
in a home of my own Ma and Pa’s design.
Which I believe implies a 4th location, where the Conductor lives.
In the song, we hear of a journey to Rovenshere, but the speaker does not go. We learn, as well, that the Conductor has visited Rovenshere in the past:
In the past, I was there — it was allowed of me.
That permission gives us pause. It would seem that the Conductor is no longer allowed to visit Rovenshere, for one reason or another. Perhaps the train’s passengers (the “children”) are the only ones allowed?
It’s worth saying that “Rovenshere” is — from what I can tell — a name Joanna Newsom invented, and not a reference to a specific place on a map or in prior fiction, poetry, and the like. That said, I was curious if we could “situate” the place a bit by looking around us. We see some terminology for railroad workers, but there’s a mix of American terms and British ones. And what of the flora and fauna? We hear a few lines that touch on those:
Wild strawberries grow
among the herds of buffalo.
—
The flock leaves steady nests
like tossed confetti drifts
across the continents,
evidence of the geese and the gulls.
—
through the buffalo grass
—
I have gathered sweet apples cast from the trees
and cherries, plums, tangerines.
Heard the trunks creak in the breeze,
heard the drunk bees
knocking petals from the lemon trees
and the meadow peas,
and the nettle and anemones.
Buffalo (or bison) are found on several continents. And buffalo grass is native to the U.S., but now found all over. The other plants are widespread. Suffice it to say I don’t think we can draw any conclusions here. Except that JN knows her plants!
Structure
Musically, rhythmically, and even vocally, we see a few repeated passages, somewhat like musical phrases. The beginning passage…
Soft cheek upon the sill.
[…]
and suspended in the air
of the Land of Rovenshere.
is echoed later with different words…
Soft cheek upon the sill
[…]
Wish that I could see you there,
in the Land of Rovenshere.
The sound of these sections is light, flowing, slow. A mix of mournful and thoughtful.
Contrasted with the next three passages, which have an energetic, almost frenetic, tempo, with notes that jump in alternation between high and low.
There is something I wanna show you.
[…]
Do you want to find it with me?
A similar phrase appears in several verses across the song.
We hear the rhythmic chug of the railroad occupations appear twice, along with a few other repeated sections. Overall, if you give a letter to each of the musical phrases, the song might look something like this:
A (Soft cheek upon the sill.)
B (There is something I wanna show you.)
C (still working on this one!)
B (There’s an ocean over there, honey,)
D (Depot Agent,…)
B (Lately I’ve been listenin’.)
E (Overhead, the smudge heavily rises,)
B (I need to be of service to you,)
D (Porter, Pointsman,…)
B (I plan to be there at the station.)
E (By my side, the love of mine stands,)
F (All Aboard, All Aboard the Train!)
G (Lay the beds and draw the blinds.)
F (All Aboard, All Aboard the Train!)
G (I believe you’ll be alright.)
A (Soft cheek upon the sill.)
H (Well, I hope you’re listening very carefully, children,)
At the Depot
With that framing, I want to be brave and put a few guesses out there even though I know there will be mistakes. I’m drawn to the description of the trains, bookended by the occupations. So we’ll start there. I hear something like:
Depot Agent, Switchman, Trackman, Dispatcher, Bridge Tender, Rodman, Hostler, Grader, Platelayer
Lately I’ve been listenin’.
Tell you this, I know where they’re goin’.
Rollin’ in the distance,
I hear the pistons and whistle a-blowing.Overhead, the smudge heavily rises,
scud spreads and disguises
the grease and coal.The flock leaves steady nests
like tossed confetti drifts
across the continents,
evidence of the geese and the gulls.I need to be of service to you,
chaperone a lonesome frontier.
How do you do?
I welcome you to the border, my dear.Porter, Pointsman, Boilerman, Gandy Dancer, Flagman, Brakeman, Yardmaster, Steward, Signalman
We see evidence, but not the trains themselves. We hear them — the “pistons and whistle a-blowing”. We see the dark “smudge” (of smoke? of something else?) and vapory “scud” of the steam.
Similarly, if I’m not wrong on the nests, we have signs of the birds but not the birds themselves. This time we don’t see the “goose eggs” themselves, but we do see where they once were. I’d be remiss not to point out the symmetry between “the grease and coal” and “the geese and the gulls”
The Departure
We then see the speaker, their partner, and the child at the depot, and their poignant separation.
I plan to be there at the station.
Once you’re safely boarded, my dear,
it’s a separate conversation.
You go on, and I will stay here.By my side, the love of mine stands,
golden spike in his hands,
hammering time into place.
I see your faces against the glass.
Angels and acrobats
advancing at the gate.All Aboard, All Aboard the Train!
All Aboard, All Aboard the Train!
All Aboard, All Aboard the Train!
All Aboard the Train.Lay the beds and draw the blinds.
Spare my heart into the night.
Ain’t it heavy? Ain’t it light?
What we carry for our time
is yours and mine.
We are gone in a blink of an eye.
The shore it shines at the end of the line.All Aboard, All Aboard the Train!
All Aboard, All Aboard the Train!
All Aboard, All Aboard the Train!
All Aboard the Train.I believe you’ll be alright.
At the depot, we hold tight.
Where you scale the mountainside,
ever there, we abide.And we will wait, we will write,
but who will raise the hue and cry
for what was taken in the night?
Aching bones and failing sight
went sailing by in the blink of an eye.
The rails, the ties, and the vacant sky.“Arise and awaken,”
cries the Brakeman.
We see the speaker navigating the good-bye. They stand next to “the love of mine”. If I hear it correctly, I picture a polysemic image —
- A gandy dancer building the tracks by driving spikes into the wooden ties that sit underneath the steel tracks. Of course the golden spike is ceremonial, and calls to mind the Transcontinental Railroad ceremony. (My current profile photo depicts me admiring the one on display in Sacramento!)
- A man fussing with his gold tie clip.
(With more performances to listen to, I think she’s singing “time into place” instead of “ties into place”. So scratch that thought. Of course it’s a powerful paradox to imagine someone trying to pin down time.)
We see the child and other passengers looking out the train windows while the call to board goes out. I’m assuming the lines about “lay the beds and draw the blinds” refers to sleeper cars, where the beds fold down and the child can sleep while the train travels overnight. We get the image of the train arriving in Rovenshere in the morning, with the Brakeman calling out to “arise and awaken”.
Meanwhile, the speaker and their partner are left behind, to look after the ever-distant train. The promise to “wait” and “write” feels fitting for the departure. The phrase “hold tight” evokes the idea of lingering, but also of holding onto one other for support.
The Speech
I’m still working through some of the other segments, and secretly hoping for another rendition to validate my hearing. Maybe she’ll perform it on Memorial Day when I go to the cemetery (the Hollywood one). Who knows?
Meanwhile, I’ll share my work in progress on the spoken part. As I mentioned above, my best guess we’re hearing the Conductor’s speech to the children aboard. The train has left the station and they give the order for “Full Steam!”. All the usual caveats apply…
Well, I hope you’re listening very carefully, children,
because there’s not a star in the sky
you can follow to get there.
There’s no means of navigation.
You have to convene at the station and get a ticket.
Be patient.
Seems strange, but it’s not so different
that you can’t find your way there
or breathe the air
or that you don’t want to stay there.And though you may by mistake be waylaid,
find a seat on the great machine.
Full Steam! 42-Tons
and, Lord! feel her run
through the buffalo grass huffing like lungs
along the tracks that climb in the sun
like a line of honey, slowly poured,
shining like a silken cord
winding through the hills
that go to Rovenshere at last,
where the waves crash on the shore
and bask in the light below her,
way down a wide gorge
where the tide rolls
and the white gulls
arrive, soar, and dive,
score the sky
like lowering knives,
performing the rites
of Rovenshere at last.In the past, I was there — it was allowed of me.
And so that you may know just a little bit about me,
I can tell you I have seen the white clouds
fleeing their own shadows to the sea, scattering beams.
I have gathered sweet apples cast from the trees
and cherries, plums, tangerines.
Heard the trunks creak in the breeze,
heard the drunk bees
knocking petals from the lemon trees
and the meadow peas,
and the nettle and anemones.And all lock arms, laugh and spill,
pell-mell down the hill
to — well, you know where —
but I took the stairs.
And in the village square
we hear the ringing of the dinner bell.
When all would know that all is well,
announcing with a gallant sound
all are accounted for and found.For, you see, no calamity befalls your friends or family there,
and all meant for Rovenshere.
Well, that’s the hope. That’s the prayer.
It’s not Utopia and it’s not heaven, though it may as well be.
It’s just a time and a place that I’ll never see.
But don’t you worry about me,
with my feet up on my rock candy chimney
in my gingerbread pied-à-terre up there on the coastline
in a home of my own Ma and Pa’s design.Do you see?
I do for you what they did for me,
and you can do for yours
in due course.
And if it’s just a story, that don’t make it any less true.
Oh, well if it’s a song, does that make it any less true?
Well I suggest you tell that to the company and crew
of the Rovenshere Express,
and then go collect your personal effects.
Head on back west.Or you could stay,
and I hope you do.
And that’s how we get there anyway:
Choo-Choo!
The Sounds
Let’s talk about poetry and sound for a moment. I’ve said before that I don’t spend enough time highlighting the poetic mastery that Newsom demonstrates, again and again. The Conductor’s speech contains a number of examples.
The term assonance refers to vowel sounds that repeat in close proximity. It adds an audible layer of interest, a little like Newsom’s interest in polyrhythm. By listening to the main meter of each line, we hear one “beat”, but then the assonance creates an unexpected emphasis that condenses, elongates, surprises our ears. The primary “purpose” — if you can even say that — of assonance is more about the auditory pleasure of hearing that repetition. But in JN’s hands, it does even more, lending at times an onomatopoetic effect.
Take, for instance:
fleeing their own shadows to the sea, scattering beams.
I have gathered sweet apples cast from the trees
I’ve bolded the assonant syllables. Their long “a” sound interlinks them. It also evokes a feeling of spreading out, like the action of scattering and casting, but also how shadows stretch or how we stretch our arms out to gather.
And what about this line?
through the buffalo grass huffing like lungs
The Conductor is describing the train chugging along. Just say those syllables together — “buh” — “huh” — “luh”. The short “u” sound almost sounds like a steam locomotive puffing along. Our lungs kind of have to huff a bit to say the line, too.
In this next example, we hear a long “i” sound:
along the tracks that climb in the sun
like a line of honey, slowly poured,
shining like a silken cord
winding through the hills
That long “i” draws the words out, like rays or a long cord.
Or in this case, the “ou” sound that reminds us of a bell tolling:
announcing with a gallant sound
all are accounted for and found.
Some of these examples are just assonance, while others are also internal rhyme. As a reminder, internal rhyme is when a writer rhymes the words or syllables that aren’t just at the end of a line. Again, it’s playing with our innate attraction to the sound of poetry.
So the examples of “line” — “shining” — “winding” and “announcing” — “sound” — “accounted” — “found” have rhyming syllables.
At another point, we see this delightful scene:
pell-mell down the hill
to — well, you know where —
but I took the stairs.
And in the village square
we hear the ringing of the dinner bell.
Here, the “pell-mell” and “well” are internal rhymes, and sort of prep our ears to appreciate the end rhyme with “bell” just a few lines later.
Or this one:
knocking petals from the lemon trees
and the meadow peas,
and the nettle and anemones.
Or my favorite so far:
my gingerbread pied-à-terre
Who but Joanna Newsom would think to rhyme “gingerbread” with “pied-à-terre”?
The House
That gingerbread house sure looks enticing, and it’s not just the icing hanging off the eaves or the warm glow inside. I want to spend a minute talking about the layering of allusion and imagery.
As a reminder, in the spoken section toward the end, by an unknown speaker who I’m assuming (big assumption!) is the Conductor, we hear something along the lines of:
But don’t you worry about me,
with my feet up on my rock candy chimney
in my gingerbread pied-à-terre up there on the coastline
in a home of my own Ma and Pa’s design.
From the French, the phrase “pied-à-terre” means “foot on earth”. Given JN’s love of horses, I would bet she knows the equestrian origins of the phrase. It’s a shortening of “mettre pied à terre” (in English — “dismount”) and refers to cavalry soldiers dismounting at the end of the day and spending the night in temporary housing. The phrase was later used in France to refer to properties where owners occasionally visit, and eventually became an expression in English to mean the same thing.
If the speaker really works as a train employee, then they don’t normally have their feet on the ground, and their workaday home would be on the Rovenshere Express. So I love the layers of meaning there… the Conductor’s weekend home, the Conductor dismounting the train and putting their feet back on the earth. Dismount their horse — an iron one — who they speak to as if it were a beloved animal or trusty steed. “Lord! feel her run […]”.
We can all picture a gingerbread house with peppermint stick columns and gumdrop doorknobs, so it’s not a stretch to imagine one with a chimney made of rock candy instead of stone.
If you talk about trains, and talk about mythical lands of milk and honey (or in this case “sweet apples […], and cherries, plums, tangerines” where “no calamity befalls your friends or family”), and name-check Thomas More’s Utopia… and if you’re as sharp as Joanna Newsom, then you don’t just throw around the word “rock candy” without knowing the allusion to the Harry McClintock’s train hobo song about a magical land of plenty. “The Big Rock Candy Mountains”, which has been covered by many artists over the years and also revised at times to make it more friendly for children. McClintock, known by the hobo name “Haywire Mac”, worked as a brakeman on trains, and ethnomusicologist Sam Eskin recorded the song for the collection Library of Congress’s “Railroad Songs and Ballads”. In the their discussion before he performs it, Mac explains:
The song originally, I wrote it when I was a kid. It was the fairy stories. At that time, the ambition of every real hobo was to snare some kid to do his beggin’ for him, among other things. And I used to tell the kids fairy stories about the lemonade springs and the big rock candy mountains and so forth.
And there was some foundation. In fact, now, for instance in Soda Springs, Idaho, there were at that time — and I guess still are — springs there that are so strongly… the water is so strong with soda that all you need is a glass of water out of one of those springs, and sprinkle a little lemon juice in it, and you have a very fine glass of soda water.
If you’re familiar with the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?, then you may recognize that same recording from the opening of the film.
What’s fascinating about this recounting, though, is the connection between the hobo song about paradise, and its intended use as a lure for children. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions about that as it relates to “Rovenshere”, but I find the history of there (young Mac busy Tom-Sawyering other kids into begging for him) both pragmatic and sinister.
Nor do I imagine that the reference to gingerbread houses was meant to imply a sinister subtext to the Conductor. But the history there is entwined with hoodwinking children, too! Tori Avey explains it well:
Gingerbread houses originated in Germany during the 16th century. The elaborate cookie-walled houses, decorated with foil in addition to gold leaf, became associated with Christmas tradition. Their popularity rose when the Brothers Grimm wrote the story of Hansel and Gretel, in which the main characters stumble upon a house made entirely of treats deep in the forest. It is unclear whether or not gingerbread houses were a result of the popular fairy tale, or vice versa.
Hansel and Gretel — the stuff of children’s books and even operas…
Again, another tale of luring unsuspecting children with candy and sweets. It does make you wonder the kind of stories we tell kids! Luckily, the dark cannibal tale hasn’t stopped children and parents alike from enjoying the challenge of sticking cookies together with frosting.
As I’ve mentioned before, Joanna Newsom is deft with her use of polysemy. The Conductor could be referring to a house literally made of gingerbread like in fairytales, or could be referring to something else… or both. The many interpretations are part of the joy for her listeners.
What other kinds of “gingerbread pied[s]-à-terre up there on the coastline” could there be? Back in the 1860s and 1870s, after the Civil War and during the gold rush (and other mining booms) in the American West, a highly flourished and decorated architectural style cropped up that became known as “gingerbread”. Intricate woodcutting was mostly limited to knives for a long time, and eventually fine saws were invented to help cut out patterns. But it wasn’t until the 1800s when scroll saws became more widespread and less labor-intensive — first through foot-pedals like a sewing machine, then through steam and other power sources. The London Mechanics Institution presented an awared to the first known patent holder for a mechanized scroll saw in 1829, saying of the invention —
[Mr. M’Duff’s tool] consists of a very fine and delicate straight saw blade, fixed vertically in a suitable frame, which receives a reciprocating rectilinear motion from the rotary action of the lathe.
At any rate, the combination of increased wealth, easier access to tools that made detailed cutting easier, and the fashions of Victorian England permeating tastes all contributed to the building of ornate homes with gingerbread work. In particular, it was common to see them in several wealthy seaside towns on the East Coast of the U.S. — Cape May still has many surviving examples. A local walking tour describes it this way:
The nation’s first resort by the sea […] began as a whaling and fishing village, but its pristine beaches and cross winds eventually beckoned city folks from both the North and the South. They came first by stagecoach and steamer, and eventually by rail to cool off and play in Cape May.
Lumber was in endless supply. From the whaling and shipbuilding days, there emerged a community of carpenters who became ever more creative with the invention of scroll and steam-powered saws with which they made the gingerbread touches on buildings all over town. They carved gable trim, balusters and arches; made sawtooth siding, pierced cornice brackets, and cut lacey balustrades.
The Hill
I want to revisit a section we’ve already seen for just a few minutes more. Toward the end of the song, we hear:
And all lock arms, laugh and spill,
pell-mell down the hill
to — well, you know where —
but I took the stairs.
First off, the implication of the word “Rovenshere” is just delightful. She doesn’t say it, but the words “you know where” stand in. And we get that juxtaposition of the children “spill[ing]” down the hill with the narrator deciding to be sensible.
Secondly, the slant rhymes between “spill”, “hill”, “pell”, “mell”, and “well” add some jaunt while in her singing, Joanna Newsom reinforces the downward feeling by descending the musical scale. You can feel the action of the scene by hearing it.
Newsom has mentioned before that she writes with intention, every word chosen for a reason. “Rovenshere” was written for the children, something of a fairy tale or a nursery rhyme, but not quite. I can’t help but think of the history of children’s literature. And when you think of children, literature, and going down a hill… there are two people who come instantly to mind. You might even say one of them takes a spill. Of course I’m talking about Jack and Jill.
I’ll let you look into the various interpretations, variations, and origin stories out there. And Shakespeare’s allusions to the rhyme. For now, I’ll just share this early edition of the rhyme, published in the late 1700s in a collection of Mother Goose rhymes.
Wise words for the young: “The more you think of dying, the better you will live.” Wow.
Not saying that’s the message of “Rovenshere”, just to be clear!
I already spent a little time on the term pied-à-terre, but the French lessons aren’t over yet, sorry! There’s an expression in French that’s of interest here — pêle-mêle, which is the origin of the English phrase. The etymology is a little vague, but probably came from a variant of mesle-mesle (basically “mix mix”).
And then there’s another French phrase I want to teach you: paille-maille. “Paille” means ball, and “maille” means mallet. (The French borrowed their name from the Italian pallamaglio, but let’s not get doubly sidetracked). You might recognize this game, which preceded a better-known present-day pastime.
You guessed it — you’re looking at the ancestor of croquet, and the relative of golf. The English adapted the French name, and as you’ve probably guessed by now… it was called “pell-mell”.
And once again, whether it’s intentional or not, my mind goes to that other giant of children’s literature…Alice.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a little nod to some intertextuality here. You may recall in Newsom’s “Marie at the Mill” that we hear about Annie Besant, the second leader of the Theosophists:
Henry, your work here is done,
Annie will carry it on.
Interestingly, Besant first encountered the Theosophy Society while on a job assignment:
In 1889, the Pall Mall Gazette asked Besant to review H P Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine, a task that proved a revelatory experience for the young activist, and led to her wholehearted acceptance of, and training in, Theosophical Doctrine.
You may have already connected the dots there, because Newsom sings: “left behind with your Pall Mall Gazette”. But those dots are connected to “Rovenshere” in a roundabout way, too… the French term paille-maille was translated into English in a number of ways. One was “pell-mell”, and another was “pall-mall”.
Unlike croquet played on a lawn, Pall Mall was played on a gravelly, sandy surface. Samuel Pepys described it in his famous Diary:
I walked in the Park, discoursing with the keeper of the Pell Mell, who was sweeping of it; who told me of what the earth is mixed that do floor the Mall, and that over all there is cockle-shells powdered, and spread to keep it fast […]
In some cases, the long alleys set up for the game eventually became streets. As you can see in the Pepys Diary, they were referred to as a “Mall”. And yes, that’s where we get the term “mall” still in use today.
pell-mell down the hill
to — well, you know where
The Sill
We open the song with someone’s “soft cheek” resting on a windowsill, presumably the child’s cheek. Whether that sill is a window of a house, or the window of a train, may change between when we first see the image and when we see it later, towards the end of the sung section.
As usual, I could be off on some of the lyrics here (and certainly the line formatting), but I’ll share my best guess at the moment.
Soft cheek upon the sill.
Soft light of morning will
greet your arrival,
see to your survival.
See it spread below you there —
the sediment of Rovenshere.
Wild strawberries grow
among the herds of buffalo.
Enough to go around and round,
our love is in the very ground
and suspended in the air
of the Land of Rovenshere.
What stands out to me here is that striking image — the “wild strawberries” thriving in a field that has huge, trampling “herds of buffalo” roaming around. I take it as both imagery (perhaps a lush scene from Rovenshere, like we see elsewhere) and as metaphorical reflection. You may interpret it differently, but for me it feels like the speaker is reassuring themselves or the child that the child will be ok. Coming right after a line about “your survival”, we see that despite the risks of plodding hooves, we still find delicate life forms surviving, flowering, and bearing fruit.
Then, before the speech we return to the same melody and the image of the “soft cheek” on the windowsill:
Soft cheek upon the sill.
Brakes squeak — high and shrill —
wake you up in wonderment.
See the change you underwent.
Disembark, and listen well
to the boardwalk and the carousel,
and the cool, green avenues
where they’re playing horseshoes.
Hear the uncountable crowd of birds
surmount the shore,
landing with a caterwaul.At the end of all their toil,
it is theirs and yours, my dear.
Now, farewell to the Engineer.
Wish I could see you there,
in the Land of Rovenshere.
Here, the sill mostly likely refers to the train cabin, especially given the brakes we hear. The scene is ripe with sounds, especially that “caterwaul” (an onomatopoetic word describing a cat’s wail) of the seabirds. The most intriguing part is the “change you underwent”, which I’m going to wait to speculate upon.
Thanks for reading! I’ll pause here for now, and will lay more track as time permits.
