Re: Jane Siberry

[gatech.edu!mit-eddie!gaffa.mit.edu!jsd@cs.utexas.edu (Jon Drukman)]

In article <1989Nov6.201453.23803@agate.berkeley.edu> adams%bosco.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Jeffrey P. Adams) writes:
>Speaking of twisted lyrics on NBH, can anyone help me decipher
>the pseudo-title track, Dancing Class?  What's this business
>with Berlin (& the German girl) and being 200 years old, and
>what do politics and dancing have to do with each other?

I don't know where you got "politics" from since they're not in that
song anywhere that I can see.  (I am looking at the lyrics sheet right
now.) I guess the reference to "200 years old" means that Jane has
learned all she can learn about dancing (200 years worth of
experience, I guess) and that's why this is her last class.  Either
that or Jane is making a reference to a Skinny Puppy song called "200
Years" but I don't think so since it won't have been released for
another three years after NBH, but that's Our Jane for you. 

The German girl is someone that Jane meets in the class, and she says
that she really likes how the German girl looks/moves and she wants to
follow her.  A more literal minded voice comes in and says "Follow
her?  Berlin is far away..."

>And does everyone agree that "Mimi on the Beach" is a more-or- 
>less religious call-to-repentance focusing on pride?  With the
>"great Leveler" a reference to Christ?

Hell No!  It's just a stream of consciousness trip to the beach!  The
great leveler is the force that is going to flatten out all the
waves...   But, if we were to get literary about it (which a quick
glance at the end of the spoken bit tells me is necessary), the Great
Leveler is death.  This is why Jane asks "The great leveler or the
great escape??"

Where did you get these weird ideas from?  As Jane would say, the
arrangement's not quite... quite there. 
+---------------------- Is there any ESCAPE from NOISE? ----------------------+
|  |   |\       | jsd@gaffa.mit.edu | "I like George Bush, but this `kinder,  |
| \|on |/rukman | jsd@umass.bitnet  | gentler' crap is killing us." - D.Trump |
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