The Moon is distant from the Sea / And yet, with Amber Hands / She leads Him / docile as a Boy / Along appointed Sands.” / Emily Dickinson
In the realm of culture, outsideness is a most powerful factor in understanding. It is only in the eyes of another culture that foreign culture reveals itself fully and profoundly.” / Mikhail Bakhtin
All that gives rise to an inscription in general, whether it is literal or not and even if what it distributes in space is alien to the order of the voice: cinematography, choreography, of course, but also pictorial, musical, sculptural ‘writing’.” / Jacques Derrida
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If you’ve read the open call for Moons, Castles, Trees | AI Chronotopes and explored the Cinnamon Horses analysis below, but you’re unsure about the connection or hesitant to submit, let’s try and clear the fog and ignite your inspiration.
The link between Nick Cave’s Cinnamon Horses and the open call is a creative invitation to translate poetic, sensory imagery into visual art.
The song’s vivid scenes cinnamon horses in turpentine trees, strolling through castle ruins, dancing under a strawberry moon are links to imagined realities.
The analysis below is an attempt to reveal some of their depth: a blend of nostalgia and sensory memory, with chemical compounds like cinnamaldehyde and turpentine’s α-Pinene triggering raw emotions.
These motifs, echoing from Neil Young to David Lynch, are your springboard to explore what “moons, castles, trees” mean in your world. You can explore these themes through AI, painting, photography, or even poetry inscribed into images.
You can reinterpret these themes freely.
Use the free Chronotopes Image Pack to remix glitchy visuals or craft something entirely new.
Anyalsis of Cinnamon Horses by Nick Cave
The neologism ‘Cinnamon Horses’ occurs three times in the lyrics:
And the cinnamon horses / In the turpentine trees (verse 1)
And the cinnamon horses / Stroll through the castle ruins (verse 2)
And the cinnamon horses / Dance beneath a strawberry moon (verse 4)
Grammatical analysis
Grammatical analysis of sentence 1 (the most interesting):
‘And’: conjunction
‘The cinnamon horses‘: subject, noun phrase
‘In the turpentine trees’: adverbial (locative prepositional phrase) or subject complement
(are or were): Elided copular verb?
Symbolism and etymology
Cinnamon-colored horses, which evoke sensations of touch, smell, place, spirituality, and nostalgia, and whose name has roots in Ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Phoenician, move from the alliterative turpentine trees to dancing among castle ruins, and finally to dancing beneath a strawberry moon.
I initially thought “strawberry moon” was a neologism, but it turns out to be the traditional name for the first full moon in June, with origins in Old English.
Verb-less haiku
It’s as if the lines “And the cinnamon horses / In the turpentine trees” could be read as a simple verb-less, haiku-style poem in itself – reminiscent of Ezra Pound’s iconic “THE apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough” single-line poem.
Also see the chiastic: The Artificiality of Art | the Art of Artificiality
The nouns
Looking at the text’s nouns from beginning to end, we get the following sequence:
friends
life
things
love
cinnamon (used adjectivally but part of compound noun below)
horses
turpentine (used adjectivally but part of compound noun below)
trees
castle (used adjectivally but part of compound noun below)
ruins
someone
dozen (used numerically but refers to quantity of the next noun)
vampires
moon
nothing (used abstractly like a noun)
everything (used abstractly like a noun)
Mostly short, everyday words, except for the cinnamon horses and the strawberry moons, and a lot of ‘s’ sounds—especially the kind Nick Cave draws out in words like friends, things, horses, trees, ruins, dozen, and vampires.
Nothing and everything
Semantically, we have cinnamon horses and a strawberry moon suspended, in a way, between a nothing and an everything.
Might it be about Christmas?
The simplest interpretation could be a strong memory of cinnamon-flavored gingerbread cookies (in the shape of horses), blended with the pine smell of a newly cut Christmas tree.
Tree as a recurrent motif
Blind fish being used as musical scales
Sharks puffed for fish and whales
I long to be by the sea where a blossom falls from a cherry tree
That’s what jazz is to me
From the B-side of ‘Red Right Hand’ titled ‘That’s What Jazz Is to Me’ (1994).
Re-interpretation
I said that one thing fades, and another waits
That time slips sideways through rusted gates
and a dozen pale angels
Trace circles in the orchard gloom
You whispered,
You whispered,
You whispered that
Beneath a cinnamon sky.
The chemistry of cinnamon
Some types of cinnamon, particularly cheaper varieties, have a certain metallic taste akin to blood, which can be experienced during nosebleeds, for example, due to oxidized iron and the cinnamaldehyde compound. So not everyone may find the associations entirely pleasant.
In addition, there are overlaps between the active compounds in cinnamon and turpentine.
Turpentine: α-Pinene, β-Pinene, Limonene, Camphene, Myrcene, Terpinolene, Linalool
Cinnamon: Cinnamaldehyde, Eugenol, Limonene, α-Pinene, Linalool, β-Caryophyllene, Myrcene, Terpinolene
The smells of many of these compounds travel directly to our amygdala and hippocampus (bypassing the thalamus) – often leading to very powerful sensations, compared to vision or hearing, creating powerful emotions and a sense of instantaneous unfiltered recall of memories decades old.
Intertextuality
‘Cinnamon horses’ is a reference to Neil Young’s ‘Cinnamon Girl’ from 1969 (Wikipedia lists more than 20 cover versions, among others by: The Who, The Smashing Pumpkins, Kashmir, Radiohead, Foo Fighters).
Here the sentence structure and meaning are simpler:
“I wanna live with a cinnamon girl / I could be happy the rest of my life / with a cinnamon girl”
Lana del Rey’s ‘Cinnamon Girl’ 2019) starts with a sentence fragment:
“Cinnamon in my teeth / from your kiss”
Sycamore Tress in Twin Peaks
“And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way.”
Possibly a nod to “Sycamore Trees,” composed by Angelo Badalamenti for David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (with lyrics by David Lynch).
“Sycamore Trees” appears in the series’ final episode, titled “Beyond Life and Death,” which aired in 1991. The rendition by Jimmy (July 17, 1925 – June 12, 2014) is, to my ears, very reminiscent of Nina Simone’s contralto.
Badalamenti has worked with Nina Simone, in addition to Shirley Bassey, with whom I also feel a certain likeness.
I got idea man
You take me for a walk
Under the sycamore trees
The dark trees that blow, baby
In the dark trees that blow
And I’ll see you
And you’ll see me
And I’ll see you in the branches that blow
In the breeze
I’ll see you in the trees
I’ll see you in the trees
Under the sycamore trees
‘Cinnamon’ and ‘sycamore’ are phonetically similar: /ˈsɪn.ə.mən/ versus /ˈsɪk.ə.mɔː(r)/. Both begin with s, followed by an ‘i’ vowel followed by a ‘schwa’ – three syllables, with the stress on the first syllable.
More jazz references: Cinnamon versus Sinnerman (Nina Simone)?
Taking it even further, ‘cinnamon’ (/ˈsɪn.ə.mən/) is very close to the iconic ‘Sinnerman’ by Nina Simon. I hear the compound word pronounced as “SIN-na man” or “SIN-uh man” r-free(ˈsɪn.ɚ.mæn/) with Gospel-influenced emotional and rhythmic drive
Simone’s ‘Sinnerman’ is played at the ending of David Lynch’s ‘Inland Empire’ from 2006.
Lee Morse ‘In the Sing Song Sycamore Tree’ (1928)
Angelo Badalementi’s ‘Sycamore Trees’, in turn draws from Lee Morse (And her Blue Grass Boys) ‘In the Sing Song Sycamore Tree’) released in 1928 by Columbia Records, one side of a 10-inch 78 RPM record. Lee Morse also has a distinctive contralto voice. It also connects to ‘Down by the Sycamore Tree’ by Stan Getz (1954).
What is a chronotope?
The term ‘chronotope’, from Greek χρόνος (‘time’) and τόπος (‘space’), was coined by Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin in 1937.
It refers to how time and space are artistically intertwined in narrative and image-making.
“Art & literature are shot through with chronotopic values of varying degree and scope. Each motif, each separate aspect of artistic work bears value” ‘Forms of Time and Chronotope in the novel’, Mikhail Bakhtin.
“In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot, and history. This intersection of axes and fusion of indicators characterizes the artistic chronotope’ Mikhail Bakhtin.
“Nothing passes without leaving a trace. All foregone will be accounted for. What comes to light is only what was hidden inside. What is gone, but requires external conditions and time to grow in order to open and reveal itself. That is the dominant in man, and the chronotope of Existence!” Ukhtomsky.