Saturday, October 11, 2008

Bathtubs for Jeremy (Unfortunately Without Rod Stewart) Complete With Prostitutes

Anglo-Iranian electronica maestra Leila's rendition of a British sitar song about a British wood named Norwegian featuring, presumably, an Italian man. From Blood Looms and Blooms (great album, great title).

Mp3 Leila feat. Luca Santucci / Norwegian Wood (Beatles Cover)

Great story around the song (from Wikipedia). Maybe Lennon and McCartney can compete with Rod in the sleaze challenge:

The lyrics of the song sketch an encounter between the singer and an unnamed girl. They drink wine in her room and talk into the night. However, at 2 A.M. the unnamed girl ceases their flirtation, which the speaker may have been hoping to end in consummation, declaring "it's time for bed", leaving him to crawl off to "sleep in the bath" alone.
"Norwegian Wood" refers to the cheap pinewood that often finished the interiors of working class British flats. The last verse states that the singer lights a fire, the implication being that the singer in fact sets fire to the girl's flat, presumably as revenge for not sleeping with the singer.
McCartney himself states the final line of the song indicates that the singer burned the home of the girl. As he explained:
Peter Asher [brother of McCartney's then-girlfriend Jane Asher] had just done his room out in wood, and a lot of people were decorating their places in wood. Norwegian wood. It was pine, really, just cheap pine. But it's not as good a title, is it, "Cheap Pine"? It was a little parody, really, on those kind of girls who, when you'd get back to their flat, there would be a lot of Norwegian wood. It was completely imaginary from my point of view, but not from John's. It was based on an affair he had. She made him sleep in the bath and then, finally, in the last verse, I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as a revenge. She led him on and said, "You'd better sleep in the bath." And in our world, that meant the guy having some sort of revenge, so it meant burning the place down....
This exchange took place in a press conference in Los Angeles:
Reporter: I'd like to direct this question to messrs. Lennon and McCartney. In a recent article, Time magazine put down pop music. And they referred to "Day Tripper" as being about a prostitute...
Paul: Oh yeah.
Reporter: ...and "Norwegian Wood" as being about a lesbian.
Paul: Oh yeah.
Reporter: I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it, and what your feeling is about the Time magazine criticism of the music that is being written today.
Paul: We were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all.
And, as for the Beatles, Ringo is still the sexiest.

1 comment:

time warner cable said...

you know why ringo's the sexiest, right? he = us.

christgau:

"[On stage, Ringo] looked calm and even complacent, brimming with quiet happiness, as if after eight years he still couldn't quite believe his own good fortune--a seat right up on stage, the best industry freebie of all. That's why we love him, after all, and why unlike the others he remains immune to the vagaries of our affection. Ringo is our representative on the Beatles."