Universal and Personal References in Joanna Newsom’s “Marie at the Mill”
Just recently, a surprise concert in Los Angeles unveiled some new work by the deft and talented Joanna Newsom, perhaps one of the best writers in English alive today.
Her songs are rich with rhyme, allusion, and a little mystery. So the temptation to understand them is always there! I was drawn in, and will try to share a bit of what I learned in listening to one of her new songs, “Marie at the Mill”.
The Mill
Starting off, we have the titular “Mill”. Whether it’s a wind mill or a water mill, or even the round grindstone or the mules pulling the stone round and round, this image immediately evokes a circle.
We hear that image reinforced in a few lines, like
And round, and round, and round, and round
and
again, and again, and again, all over again
So the song gives a sense of cycles, which is not a new theme for Newsom to explore, as I’ve outlined in a few other articles. Similar to Divers, we hear the echoes of reincarnation and rebirth:
for, if you weren’t born at the right time,
my dear,
just keep trying and trying
and trying again
Movement
Somewhat reminiscent of Newsom’s song about Lola Montez, “Have One On Me”, I hear a lot of movement in “Marie at the Mill”. We hear “crossed the Atlantic from Boston to Nantes”, “Held court in Newport”, and “sought education on stage on the Champs-Élysées”. A journey has unfolded, to be sure.
We also see some elements of performance in that line “sought education on stage” and — if my ears haven’t failed me (because we don’t yet have the official lyrics) —
called me the heir of Melba
Dame Nellie Melba, born Helen Porter Mitchell, was an opera singer from Melbourne (hence the adopted name), who lived a colorful life, and even had a dessert named after her! A French chef invented the Peach Melba after seeing her perform in Wagner’s Lohengrin (an opera based on the grail myth and Parsifal… which gives rise to the Fisher King legend, but that’s a reference to follow on another day).
And speaking of changing names, this song also seems to put special emphasis on names.
on the hand of my dear Mr. Smith
and
I left on my own
with the clothes on my back
and my own name intact,
and my own bills to pay
To be clear, I don’t want to put too much stock into any connection between “Have One On Me” and this song… maybe the prior song simply makes me more likely to see a connection.
A Journey
Boundaries, restrictions, exclusion… as a strong feminist voice, Newsom often touches on these themes in her work, often counterpointed with freedom, escape, strength, and joy. One image in particular stood out to me as I listened. The image is of someone “consigned to the waters of [a] beach, left behind with your Pall Mall Gazette”. With the slow melody played at that point in the song, I imagine someone spending long hours walking alone, contemplating. Perhaps there was an “old Colonel [who] died” there? Perhaps that Colonel was Henry, whose “work here is done”?
That beach is called Elliot Beach, or Elliot’s Beach, or sometimes Edward Elliot’s Beach. It’s located near the mouth of the Adyar River, in modern-day Chennai, which was called Madras in colonial times.
The song says, “consigned to the waters of Elliot beach”. The waters may imply both the Bay of Bengal and the River Adyar. The land confined between them was once called Huddleston Gardens.
In 1882, the gardens were purchased by a religious group called the Theosophical Society, which preaches “There is no religion higher than truth”, that there exist ancient wisdoms underpinning all religions.
They also preach a belief in reincarnation. The Huddleston Gardens were purchased by the group’s founders, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (often shortened to H.P.B.), and Henry Steel Olcott (H.S.O.). The buildings were renovated, including the “Octagon Room”.
And just in case you thought I was way, way off on a tangent here… that same Henry served in the US Civil War, and was called Colonel Henry Steel Olcott.
In the murky lines at the end of “Marie at the Mill”, Newsom’s voice shifts into a slightly echoed sound, like someone in a trance or a seer in a seance. There’s too much to unpack here, but HP Blavatsky is the character among the Theosophist founders who’s most associated with paranormal communication. In writing her work Isis Unveiled (“I threw off the veil of the world”?), she said she had help from beyond. She tried to explain to her sister in this way:
I have begun to feel a very strange duality. Several times a day I feel that beside me there is someone else, quite separable from me, present in my body. I never lose the consciousness of my personality ; what I feel is as if I were keeping silent and the other one — the lodger who is in me — were speaking with my tongue.
For instance, I know that I have never been in the places which are described by my “other me,” but this other one — the second me — does not lie when he tells about places and things unknown to me, because he has actually seen them and known them well. [emphasis added]
Among the hard-to-make-out phrases at the end of the song, I hear distinctly:
there’s a lodger in me, larger than me
Finding Marie
Let me tell you about a person named “Marie” who took part in the Theosophical Society. Her full name was Marie Barnard Smith Russak Hotchener. So many names!
Mrs. Russak joined the Theosophical Society in 1898. Over the years, she “rose through the ranks from within”. Eventually, in 1906, she met Col. Olcott in Europe and traveled with him to India. The next year, in 1907, Olcott died, and Marie was there to witness it:
She would be there for his death in 1907, and she was one of the few who reported to witness a famed visitation by the Masters on his deathbed
Which seems to be described in the song:
and it was not luck, what they did by his side
when the old Colonel died
As the Colonel passed away, the “visitation by the Masters” was a transfer of leadership for the Theosophical Society, from Olcott to a woman named Annie Besant. Marie would become her secretary, helping her draft letters, papers, and history. You can imagine the Masters saying something like this:
Henry, your work here is done,
Annie will carry it on.
Marie, write it all down,
‘til the keynote is found.
What “keynote” is Newsom referring to? Is it musical? It was a philosophical concept that Besant shared about human nature, history, and our role in it. You see, Annie Besant was a champion against colonialism (particularly British colonialists), and became a vocal advocate for India’s independence. Scholar Joanne Stafford Mortimer described her this way:
At the 1917 meeting of the Indian National Congress held in Calcutta, Annie Besant, a woman and a European, was elected president. Who was she? Why had such an honour been bestowed on this seventy-year-old woman? What had she done to deserve such an accolade? During the previous three years she had added new dimensions to India’s fight for independence — dimensions which captured the attention of an ever-widening in India and of the British Raj.
As an example of how Besant added those “new dimensions” to the dialogue, here’s an excerpt about India’s place in the world:
Every person, every race, every nation, has its own particular keynote which it brings to the general chord of life and of humanity. Life is not a monotone but a many-stringed harmony, and to this harmony is contributed a distinctive note by each people that becomes a marked nationality. Thus Rome struck the note of civic greatness, devotion to the State as the ideal of the citizen, conquest for the glory of the State as the national duty; Greece struck the note of intellectual greatness, enriching the art and the literature of the world with priceless treasures, and impressing even on her conquerors the stamp of her intellectual royalty. And India, rising high above them both, struck the note of spiritual greatness, of pure devotion to a spiritual ideal, of worship that asked only to become what it adored, of the gathering of spiritual knowledge. The three nations may stand as types of humanity physical, humanity psychical, humanity spiritual, and while the two that represented the transitory body and the transitory mind have perished, leaving only their history, the one that represented and represents the immortal spirit remains, for, as Sri Krishna says, the spirit is “unborn, constant, eternal and ancient, nor does it perish in the perishing body”. [emphasis added]
The keynote! There are so many resonances between these words and Joanna Newsom’s work. And the harp is a many-stringed instrument!
Names
Let’s return to Marie. How did she get the name Russak?
Marie married Frank Russak in 1899 and “New York newspapers described an elaborate society wedding at Newport, Rhode Island.” In the song, Newsom sings “held court in Newport”, which I take as referring to this.
Their wedding announcement in the New York Times described Frank as “of the firm Russak Brothers, bankers and brokers, and is himself an accomplished amateur musician.” They moved together to Paris in 1901, but soon divorced. I hear in that same stanza:
I wed Mr. Russak […] and producer of amateur music
Frank died in a shipwreck in 1918 (I’m guessing “he sank off to the sea”), and left part of his wealth to Marie. That inheritance, “what he deeded to me was enough to begin”. The next lines sound more like a wealthy heiress than a impoverished religious devotee:
my carnelian snuff bottle
carved as a peach
and a small sterling wagon,
well, that was part of a set
But how did she get the name Smith?
We remember she sings something to the effect of…
I crossed the Atlantic from Boston to Nantes
on the hand of my dear Mr. Smith.
Then came his heart of perdition
and sin
like a cold winter wind
come to blow me away
Marie married Justin Harvey Smith (a publisher) in Boston in 1892, but they soon divorced. I assume this is the reference above, about Mr. Smith and Boston, and the eventual separation. After their divorce, she returned to using her maiden name (“my own name intact”), and toured with John Philip Sousa, the famous composer of military parade music (perhaps there’s a path to follow here with the opening trumpets and the sometimes-marchlike pace and melody of the song?). In fact, Sousa’s ties to the US Marine Corps resonate in the phrases “the brave and the few”, the marching image of “they prance” (if I hear that word correctly), and “ruled a king” — Sousa was known as “The March King”. I’ll be honest here — these are pretty speculative, and I could be hearing incorrectly.
In 1895, Marie departed for Paris to study Opera, and toured around the continent.
In California
Marie began her life as Mary Barnard. She was born in Four Corners, Butte County, CA. It’s just a little northwest of Grass Valley and Nevada City — in the scheme of things (on a Californian scale), pretty close. She studied music, and went on to teach and perform, primarily opera. Imagine the pomp and pageantry! It must have been an interesting path from there to the Theosophical Society.
Years later, after her time in India, Marie returned to California, this time in the vicinity of Los Angeles. She was part of setting up a group of Theosophist adherents, called the Krotona Colony around 1912. While they eventually moved in 1924 to Ojai, California, they started out in the LA neighborhood of Hollywood. Marie didn’t have any formal training, but she helped design some of the buildings for the Colony’s campus.
And how did she get the name Hotchener?
In 1916, she married a fellow Theosophist, Henry Hotchener (another Henry!) who helped build up the Krotona Colony. While he later worked in the motion picture industry, he was first a real estate developer. If I hear it correctly, it seems like Newsom references this in the lines:
and when my work here is through,
Henry, will you buy me a room? [or maybe “roof?”]
Theatrics
When Marie was touring Europe as an opera singer, she took yet another name, calling herself “Marie Barna”. It was her stage name, and likely the one she was using in 1899 when Richard Wagner’s widow, Madame Cosima Wagner, invited her to perform at the famous Bayreuth Festival Theater (the “Festspielhaus”, designed specifically to perform Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungen, a cyclical opera… obviously more to explore there!). I suspect when the lyrics are printed, we’ll see something to the effect of:
but it was my joy to be called to Bayreuth
Speaking of identifying lyrics, there’s a part towards the end of the song that goes quite quickly, and I’m not sure I can catch all the words. But some stood out, and didn’t make much sense until I found Marie. Please take this with a grain of salt — I could hear wrong!
Despite the lies, we are grist in the mill.
On a lift, I am Helios still, Sun-Wielder,
Brünnhilde,
spun in shields,
running round, and round, and round,
and round, and round, and round,
and round
We hear of Brünnhilde, the heroine of the Ring Cycle, who was entrapped in a wall of shields (and if the word is “spun”, that conjures up images of a spider’s web). A quick description of the Norse myth tells the story:
According to the Völsunga saga, Brunhild is both the daughter of King Budli and a valkyrie in the service of Odin. In this second role, she was ordered to decide a fight between two kings: Hjalmgunnar and Agnar. The valkyrie knew that the All-Father himself preferred the older king, Hjalmgunnar, yet she decided the battle for Agnar. For this infraction, Odin condemned Brynhildr to live the life of a mortal woman, imprisoned her in a remote castle behind a wall of shields on top of mount Hindarfjall in the Alps, and cursed her to sleep until any man would rescue and marry her.
Time passed. After several weeks, the hero Sigurðr Sigmundson (Siegfried in the Nibelungenlied), heir to the clan of Völsung and slayer of the dragon Fafnir, entered the castle and awoke Brynhildr by removing her helmet and cutting off her chainmail armour. He immediately fell in love with the beautiful shield-maiden and proposed to her with the magic ring, Andvarinaut
Meanwhile, the line “on a lift, I am Helios still, Sun-Wielder” calls to mind a theatrical performance of the Sun god from Greek mythology. I don’t know if she performed this role, but Marie’s life as a performer is linked to her life as a Theosophist in this way. The Co-Freemasons (Masons who allow both women and men to join) describe the reference to the god:
It was in that pivotal year of 1910 that Marie received the name Helios, and that Bro. C.W. Leadbeater published his book, The Lives of Alcyone, which introduced the concept of “Star Names” to the public. A star name was a title bestowed to a particularly important soul, thought to re-incarnate into the group of founding Theosophists. To be given such a name was a symbol of status among the Theosophists, and Marie was fortunate enough to be identified as having one. Leadbeater identified the star name of “Helios” as belonging to Marie Russak Hotchener. This may be the reason Helios Lodge, in the orient of Los Angeles, remains one of the oldest Lodges still active in Universal Co-Masonry. It was so named and founded in 1910. Bro. Marie was known, until her death, as Lady Helios, Mother Helios, and simply Helios, by many Theosophists and Co-Masons, even signing her name as such on important documents.
So we find another name that Marie had! She had her birth name, her maiden name, her married names, her stage name, her Star Name…
I hope at this point, you’re as convinced as I am, even without the aid of written lyrics, to see the many connections between “Marie at the Mill” and Marie “Helios” Barnard Smith Barna Russak Hotchener. And I hope this exploration will help unlock new interpretations and investigations by other listeners, or at least help folks appreciate the intricate art that Joanna Newsom creates.
Aside from the themes of cycles and rebirth, which Newsom has woven into her songs before, and aside from the inspiring life and experiences of Marie… I have to ask myself “why?”. Why did she write a song about this opera singer-turned religious? When the words are unveiled, we will likely find more parallels in Marie’s life that will come to light. And other references and themes and meanings to explore.
I’ll leave you with just two more.
I mentioned that Marie studied music. The college in Oakland, California, where she studied was Mills College. So our “Marie at the Mill” was indeed at the Mills! Founded in 1852, it was initially called Young Ladies Seminary, then renamed in 1865 as Mills Seminary, and then again in 1885 to Mills College. In 2021, facing financial hardship from the pandemic, it was proposed that the school would become Mills Institute, though eventually in 2022 it merged with Northeastern and became Mills College at Northeastern University. Of course, another famous student of music at Mills was none other than Joanna Newsom.
I also mentioned that Marie designed buildings in the Krotona community in Hollywood. One of the structures there — where Marie lived, but not a building of her design — was called the Ternary Building. In its elaborate gardens, a stage was built for a performance of The Light of Asia, a play about Buddha’s enlightenment. We can imagine Marie singing there:
I had the honor to sing […]
on the Ternary lawn,
for the brave and the few
Another building — one Marie designed — is of particular interest. She and Henry built it as a real estate investment, and rented it to Charlie Chaplin, the silent film actor. They then sold it to the parents of Mary Astor (the star of The Maltese Falcon), and they later met Mary’s fiance, the actor John Barrymore. Alfred Willis writes,
Mr. Hotchener subsequently became Barrymore’s business manager, and Mrs. Hotchener his astrologer, thus bridging the gap between the world of Krotona and that of the Hollywood movie crowd.
That home is called “Moorcrest”. In addition to the other famous occupants in its past, it is also home to none other than Joanna Newsom and her husband, actor Andy Samberg. (Please be respectful, folks.)
So we come full circle…
In light of this, I want to revisit some lines from the song and posit a thought.
It was found you could sing,
you were sent to the Bay.
At Seminary you passed, and were buried —
I rose there the very next day.
For, if you weren’t born at the right time,
my dear,
just keep trying and trying
and trying again.
I want to be very clear that I’m not talking about what Joanna Newsom actually believes, but rather the genius of her craft, her writing. Wouldn’t it take a fantastic imagination to tell the story of a dead Theosophist who believes in reincarnation, whose life shares many contextual similarities (place of birth, college, etc.) with a modern-day artist’s life, and then write a song about Marie “Helios” re-rising like a phoenix or like the sun, in the form of Joanna Newsom?
I know, it’s wild to think — but if anyone could write that song, it would be Joanna Newsom.
Thanks for reading! My work here is done, at least for today. I hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I did.
Addendum: Addressing the Elephant in the Octagon Room
It’s been a few months since Newsom first played “Marie at the Mill” in L.A., and since my initial flurry of exploration into Marie and the Theosophists. Part of me has been naively hoping for official lyrics to come any day now. There have been a few parts of the song that trouble me, but there are too many lacunae, too many missing words or half-words for me to jump to conclusions about the subtleties that Newsom is trying to convey about this character, Marie.
So, for now, I think it’s right to jot down a few more words to bring some more context to light, even though I don’t fully understand — and need to wait to understand more.
The long and short of it is, there are figures in the Theosophists’ history who are highly problematic.
The co-founder Helena Blavatsky is the first. I won’t claim to be well-read on her books, but some excerpts of her writing are enough to convince me they’re antisemitic. I won’t quote them here, but Jackson Spielvogel and David Redles reference some in their article for the Museum of Tolerance. Many people, including Spielvogel and Redles, argue that Blavatsky’s writings influenced Hitler and the Nazis. There are also apologists or those who argue the opposite.
The second figure is Charles Leadbeater, who invented the concept of “star names”, gave Marie her name of “Helios”, and gave himself the name of “Sirius”. On the campus at Adyar, he lived in the “octagon room”. While I haven’t done an extensive study into the source material, what little I’ve read is enough to convince me that Leadbeater was a child abuser. In an echo of the many horrific stories coming to light about abuse from the Catholic church and other religions, and the efforts to cover up those abuses, it seems that Leadbeater had a history of abusing young boys, based on the amount of accusations and court cases. For a few years, he resigned from the Theosophical Society, but was then invited back (likely through Annie Besant’s influence).
Newsom’s song references “the boy from the beach”, which likely refers to Leadbeater’s “discovery” of Jiddu Krishnamurti, a young Indian boy who he claimed would be a great religious leader. Leadbeater spent significant time “teaching” Krishnamurti and his brother Nityananda. Their father Narayaniah (a Theosophist) was initially supportive, though eventually the Society entered into a “protracted legal battle” with him over custody of the boys, because Narayaniah was concerned for their safety. The book on the case details how their father wrote to Annie Besant:
What I personally witnessed I have brought to your notice on several occasions, and told you in no doubtful terms that Mr. Leadbeter has the lowest kind of sexual appetite, and that he has his own ways of gratifying it. What the other person has seen was, I am told, also brought to your notice, by some at least of those to whom the person had spoken. I therefore requested you on many an occasion to separate my boys from him. You were kind enough to comply with my requests, but only half and half, still giving room to Mr. Leadbeater to continue his own dirty practices.
Again, it will help to have official lyrics, but I think this ties into phrases I hear like “there is danger here in the sun. Honey, tell me, what has Sirius done?” and “lure him” and something like “I see the clock on the wall, I hear the lock on the door, but that is all”.
I hope you’ll understand that I don’t want to rush to conclusions on such a difficult topic. From what I can tell, Newsom’s song touches on the dangers of Leadbeater, possibly through some connections that Marie Russak had with Krishnamurti. I’ll stop there for now.
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