Do lyrics make sense?

[Quarknosis]

Let me start by saying I've always gone for tunes over lyrics and a lot of the music I listen to is instrumental. I also know that you often need to know something to get the lyrics. Nevertheless, a couple of classics have been taxing me of late.

Let's start with 'Norweigian Wood'. This is pretty clearly a boy meets girl song, it starts with the fairly unambiguous line

I once had a girl
Or should I say
She once had me

It's the sixties, free love, it's pretty clear what's going on even if there is a bit of ambiguity about who made the first move.
Then the chronology appears to move backwards.

She showed me her room
Isn't it good?

And then we get

Norwegian wood

What's that got to do with the price of fish? There's no reference to Scandanavia or forests anywhere. Maybe he's referring to pine furniture, but that seems doubtful. We're told

She asked me to stay
And she told me to sit anywhere
But I looked around
And I noticed there wasn't a chair.

I suspect John was just short of a couple of iambs and stuck Norwegian Wood in.
Anyway, back to the beginning of the song. It all now falls apart. They're sitting their, John on the rug, waiting ('biding my time', what for) and drinking wine then, in the middle of the night (2 o'clock), after a lot of chat, so they appear to have been getting on, she makes the move

And the she said
"It's time for bed"

. She seems a little apprehensive because she changes the subject

She told me she worked in the morning
And started to laugh

but, contrary to what we are told at the beginning of the song, John rejects her advances

I told her I didn't
And crawled off to sleep in the bath

Nearly as baffling as the title. But that's it, John wakes up, she's gone and he light's a fire. May be he used Norwegian wood for that?

And then there's that other 60s waltz, 'Delilah', you know it. But what does

I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind

mean? I know it sound dramatic, but what were they doing? Indonesian Shadow puppets? Watching blue movies projected on the curtains?

Oh I give up. I'll just stick with the tunes.

[CN211276]

Let me start by saying I've always gone for tunes over lyrics and a lot of the music I listen to is instrumental. I also know that you often need to know something to get the lyrics. Nevertheless, a couple of classics have been taxing me of late.

Let's start with 'Norweigian Wood'. This is pretty clearly a boy meets girl song, it starts with the fairly unambiguous line

I once had a girl
Or should I say
She once had me

It's the sixties, free love, it's pretty clear what's going on even if there is a bit of ambiguity about who made the first move.
Then the chronology appears to move backwards.

She showed me her room
Isn't it good?

And then we get

Norwegian wood

What's that got to do with the price of fish? There's no reference to Scandanavia or forests anywhere. Maybe he's referring to pine furniture, but that seems doubtful. We're told

She asked me to stay
And she told me to sit anywhere
But I looked around
And I noticed there wasn't a chair.

I suspect John was just short of a couple of iambs and stuck Norwegian Wood in.
Anyway, back to the beginning of the song. It all now falls apart. They're sitting their, John on the rug, waiting ('biding my time', what for) and drinking wine then, in the middle of the night (2 o'clock), after a lot of chat, so they appear to have been getting on, she makes the move

And the she said
"It's time for bed"

. She seems a little apprehensive because she changes the subject

She told me she worked in the morning
And started to laugh

but, contrary to what we are told at the beginning of the song, John rejects her advances

I told her I didn't
And crawled off to sleep in the bath

Nearly as baffling as the title. But that's it, John wakes up, she's gone and he light's a fire. May be he used Norwegian wood for that?

And then there's that other 60s waltz, 'Delilah', you know it. But what does

I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind

mean? I know it sound dramatic, but what were they doing? Indonesian Shadow puppets? Watching blue movies projected on the curtains?

Oh I give up. I'll just stick with the tunes.

My understanding is that Lennon was writing about an affair, or one night stand, (not with Yoko) and the song was worded in a way which was less likely to make his wife Cynthia suspect.

[Quarknosis]

And then there's that other 60s waltz, 'Delilah', you know it. But what does

I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind

mean? I know it sound dramatic, but what were they doing? Indonesian Shadow puppets?

Well yes in a sense. If there was a lamp behind her then a silhouette could have been seen through the blind. Thats my understanding of it anyway.

[karatestu]

You should try making sense of some Cream lyrics

[Geoff.R.G]

I would say you need to go a long way to get beyond Genesis lyrics.

[Fretless]

I find Genesis lyrics pretty good, on the whole. Most of their songs tell stories.

[CN211276]

Bowie's lyrics get you thinking. The most unfathomable lyric must be the Bewley Brothers, my interpretation is at variance to all of the others I have come across.

[Fretless]

Bowie did use a pulling-random-words-out-of-a-hat technique when he was working with Eno.

[CN211276]

Bowie did use a pulling-random-words-out-of-a-hat technique when he was working with Eno.

and before as he showed in the Cracked Actor documentary.

[ArloFlynn]

Norweigian Wood (This bird has flown)

I would say CN was correct

According to Lennon, he wanted to write about his affair(s) and did so in a ‘smoke screen’ style, so his 1st wife wouldn’t suspect (Smart Bastards just can’t help telling the world can they, really smart Bastards keep shtum!) He had a few, by all accounts, hence (this Bird has flown)