May 5, 2009
next up: i am the walrus
5/5/09
playing with blacklight (from Spencer's Gifts) just before bed
SCENE - In a darkened bedroom, Daddo (Ian) is entering the "song phase" of the nightly Putting Lucy to Bed opus. He has already sung "Blackbird", and now chooses "Norwegian Wood" to end the evening.
DADDO: (sings) "I - once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me. She - showed me her room, isn't it good, Norwegian wood."
LUCY: What's Norwegian wood?
DADDO: It's wood, from - you know, Norway. (starts singing quickly again) "She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere, so I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair-"
LUCY: There was no chair?
DADDO: (sings) "I - sat on the rug, biding my time, drinking her wine-"
LUCY: Why was he biting his time?
DADDO: No, it's "biding my time." With a "d".
LUCY: What's "biding"?
DADDO: Well, it's like, he was just sitting there, waiting for something to happen. When you "bide your time", you... you know when you're sitting criss-cross-applesauce at school and waiting for the teacher? That's "biding your time".
LUCY: (not convinced) Huh.
DADDO: (sings) "We - talked until two, and then she said, 'it's time for bed'."
LUCY: (in "that makes sense" tone) Yeah.
DADDO: "She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh-"
LUCY: Why was she laughing? Was there something funny?
DADDO: No, it's just that - sometimes people laugh when - I'm going to keep singing, OK?
LUCY: Hm.
DADDO: "I told her I didn't and crawled off to sleep in the bath-"
LUCY: Why did he sleep in the bath? That sounds very uncomfortable.
DADDO: (pause) Yeah, fair enough. I always thought it sounded uncomfortable too. Maybe it was one of those gigantic English clawfoot tubs-
LUCY: But why-
DADDO: Because she took the only bed, so he had to sleep in the bath.
LUCY: Huh.
DADDO: "And - when I awoke, I was alone-"
LUCY: Because she had gone to work. She said so.
DADDO: (stifling laughter) "This bird had flown-"
LUCY: What is a bird doing there?
DADDO: No. Oh my god. Sometimes the Beatles called their girl friends "birds". Like a nickname. And since she had gone to work, John said "this bird had flown."
LUCY: Okay.
DADDO: "So - I lit a fire - isn't it good, Norwegian wood."
LUCY: He lit a fire in the bathtub?
DADDO: What? No! He got out of the bathtub, realized he was alone, then he lit a fire in her fireplace.
LUCY: I don't think she had a fireplace.
DADDO: Sure she did. That's how he lit a fire. In the woodstove.
LUCY: With Norwegian wood.
DADDO: Yes, he - well, wait a minute, I think her furniture was Norwegian wood, but not the firewood.
LUCY: Daddo, I can't wait to sing this with you.
DADDO: Oh, sweetie, I can't wait to sing this with you either.
Posted by Ian Williams at May 5, 2009 11:07 PMLOL!!!! Such a pretty song.... I love hearing Lucy deconstruct it. :-)
sweet.
Love it. I'm up way too damn early and that made me smile.
I have to say, I always assumed that he broke up the furniture and threw it in the fireplace. It didn't occur to me for a long time that it's a really nasty end to the narrative, and also spoke volumes about what I thought adult relationships were.
she didn't HAVE any furniture, so he couldn't burn it. . .:D
My bro-n-law used to sing Rod Stewart's "Wake up Maggie" as the bedtime song of choice to my beloved nephews---fortunately, they were WAY too young to ask "WTF?" He stopped singing long before they're deconstructive powers were in place--lucky for him!!!
I always thought it was gorgeously ambiguous. But according to Sir Paul:
***
I came in and he had this first stanza, which was brilliant: 'I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.' That was all he had, no title, no nothing. I said, 'Oh yes, well, ha, we're there.' And it wrote itself. Once you've got the great idea, they do tend to write themselves, providing you know how to write songs. So I picked it up at the second verse, it's a story. It's him trying to pull a bird, it was about an affair. John told Playboy that he hadn't the faintest idea where the title came from but I do. Peter Asher had his room done out in wood, a lot of people were decorating their places in wood. Norwegian wood. It was pine really, cheap pine. But it's not as good a title, Cheap Pine, baby...
So she makes him sleep in the bath and then finally in the last verse I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as revenge, so we did it very tongue in cheek. She led him on, then said, 'You'd better sleep in the bath'. In our world the guy had to have some sort of revenge. It could have meant I lit a fire to keep myself warm, and wasn't the décor of her house wonderful? But it didn't, it meant I burned the fucking place down as an act of revenge, and then we left it there and went into the instrumental.
***
http://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/norwegian-wood-this-bird-has-flown/
Let me preface this by saying that I don't listen to lyrics much and am mostly guided by the music of a song. I sort of gave Norwegian Wood the definition in the way Beavis and Butthead might. I am glad that I am wrong and am happy to know the history behind the song.
Thank you for this ray of sunshine in my otherwise blah day..this made me laugh out loud in Harvard's oldest and most respected library, Widener. The dirty looks were clearly worth it!
Awww!
Instantly shot into Top Five Xtcian Entries.
I always thought it had something to do with 4:20--a much smaller fire. I still like my version better.