Black Horse & The Cherry Tree, an in depth analysis

Okay, so I've liked this song for a while. I mean, it's catchy and just watch how she does it! The one-man band has come a long way since the days of harmonica stands and accordions, huh. But it was just this morning that I thought to myself, "Self, that simply cannot be a song about a horse who wants to marry a woman. You've heard it wrong and now you sound like the people who sing 'Excuse me while I kiss this guy' in Purple Haze. I mean, horses can't talk, for one, so a marriage proposal would have to take an unbelievable number of precise hoof-beats, probably in Morse Code. I suppose a cavalry horse might know Morse Code so we'll go with that for now. But still, there must be some taboo in the horse community against interspecies dating. The horse that killed that guy in Seattle or whatever was probably known as a human-fucking pervert to all the other ponies."

So I finally just googled the lyrics, and guess what I found out. It is not a song about a horse who wants to marry a woman. No, it's a song about a woman with A) internal organs capable of independent thought, desire, and movement, and B) the ability to live without vital internal organs. Oh, and also a horse wants to marry her. So, from the lyrics, this is the storyline produced by what I can only imagine was a drug-fueled song writing session, with a few details provided by my twisted imagination.

The story, as (apparently)told by a talking human heart:

Well my heart knows me better than I know myself
So I'm gonna let it do all the talking.
I came across a place in the middle of nowhere
With a big black horse and a cherry tree.

A woman is walking along in the middle of nowhere when she comes upon a cherry tree, with a big black horse tethered to it, perhaps the famine and pestilence member of the four horses of the apocalypse.

I felt a little fear upon my back
He said "Don't look back, just keep on walking."
When the big black horse said, "Look this way"
Said, "Hey, lady, will you marry me?"

Suddenly, the woman is afraid, but not of the horse. No, she feels a presence behind her - probably that biblical rider coming back from taking a leak in the woods - and the horse tells her not to look back, just leave. Yes, the horse is talking, but if it's a biblical horse I guess it's okay. I mean, there's an apocalyptic horseman shaking it behind a tree here and you're worrying about why the horse can talk? Get with the program. So the horse tells her to basically run for her life. Oh, but first, could you do me a favor? Now, does the horse ask her to perhaps untie him to he can get away from his master, a shadowy figure bent on the destruction of the human race? No, he proposes marriage.

But I said no, no, no, no-no-no
I said no, no, you're not the one for me
No, no, no, no-no-no
I said no, no, you're not the one for me

And she turns him down, explaining that it's nothing personal, he's just not the one for her. Me, I'd be all running away screaming like a little girl, but she seemed to be concerned about letting the horse down gently. That was sweet.

And my heart hit a problem, in the early hours,
So I stopped it dead for a beat or two.
But I cut some chord, and I shouldn't have done it,
And it won't forgive me after all these years

Later that night - or maybe some other night, the song isn't really clear on that point - this woman wakes up with some sort of angina chest pain heart problem thing going on. So she, with her super-human powers, just shuts her heart off for a beat or two. Because really, rebooting is what the old people should think to do when they wake up mid-coronary in their beds, not reaching for the nitro pills. But, it would seem that this woman's heart was merely playing a song, and she screwed up the opening chord. So her heart got all uppity and pissy and for years just became a grumpy Gus.

So I sent it to a place in the middle of nowhere
With a big black horse and a cherry tree.
Now it won't come back, 'cause it's oh so happy
And now I've got a hole for the world to see

So finally she just sent it away, got tired of the grouchy thing always complaining about it's failed musical career, and it left. And she survived, which really shouldn't surprise you after all the other stuff. The heart went to find the horse, which was apparently still hanging out by the cherry tree, which implies a very unmotivated horseman. I mean, sure he can scare strangers by walking up behind them, but he can't even muster the ambition to untie his horse and go spread the pestilence and famine he was hired to spread! So the heart, probably bouncing along like some gruesome sing-along ball, finds its way to the horse and becomes happy once again. And, since it's happy with the horse, it now refuses to come back. So now this woman has the horrible embarrassment of a big gaping chest wound the whole world can see. I'm not sure why she's walking around bare-chested, or maybe the wind just pushes her shirt in the hole and people give her funny looks on the sidewalk. Me, I'd try to patch my heart-escape-hole with some duct tape and a sports bra or something, but she doesn't seem to have thought of that.

And it said no, no, no, no-no-no
Said no, no, you're not the one for me
No, no, no, no-no-no-no
Said no, no, you're not the one for me

She just mopes around and begs her heart to please come back again but it says no, she's just not the one for it. That's right, her heart throws her own words to the horse right back in her face, so you know the horse and it have bonded over their mutual disdain for her. Poor lady. She's got a big gaping hole in her solar plexus, her heart left her for another horse, and she has to play every single instrument all by herself.

Big black horse and a cherry tree
I can't quite get there 'cause my heart's forsaken me

And to top it all off, now she can't go to the place in the middle of nowhere with the horse, the tree, and her bloody beating heart, because apparently you have to have a heart to get there and hers has disowned her! Talk about a rough life!

*These are the thoughts and images of a crazy woman. I'm on a diet and I can actually hear my stomach threatening to run off and find KT Tunstall's heart. I can only assume it wants to go to eat the cherries. Mmmmm, cherries.