Has anybody ever cracked the mystery of this weirdest ever Suzanne song? I take it that the lyrics are along the lines of a kind of "For The Benefit of Mr. Kite" type, nonsensical whimsy, but there still seems to be enough of a story line there to suggest that the Big-Top language is a metaphore for something weird... something clandestine. The other thing that really used to nag at me was that most of the imagery in the liner notes seems to refer to this song, as though it's the keystone of the album... you've got Suzanne as the dancing girl... you've got a megaphone man... a fat man... etc. I have a feeling my wild imagination is gonna be real disapointed when somebody tells me, "Oh it's this song about When Suzanne went to the circus as a girl and a monkey stole her cotton candy and then some Fat man gave her some more for free, but told her to keep it quiet."

Patrick wrote, asking about "Fat Man & Dancing Girl", "Has anybody ever cracked the mystery of this weirdest ever Suzanne song?..."

From a 1993 interview with the Vancouver Sun:

"Fat Man and Dancing Girl, on the other hand, was inspired by Vega's grandmother.

"My grandmother was a drummer in an all-girls band on the vaudeville circuit," she explains. Her father sent her some snaps from those days.

"One of the flyers just has this great language, it's like the Billy Pearl Band and he's billed as the International Fun Boy, and the All Girl Jazz Band is part of the attractions.

"I just really loved the whole idea ... she spent most of her life on the road, and so did my grandfather. She was the drummer, and he was the trumpet player, and the two of them got married and had four children in five years. Then he left the family.""

Suzanne also talked about the song during the El Rey concert which was taped for broadcast on PBS. From the transcript of the show:

"So I know that you are standing there asking yourselves, "Who is Billy Pearl, the international fun boy?" Billy Pearl was a band leader in the 30's. And he toured the Vaudeville circuit in the Midwest. Thank you very much. [audience cheers] No, and my grandmother was his drummer, in his band. He had an all girls band, he had a series of all girls band actually, bands. And one of them was called "The Melody Maker's Lady's Orchestra" and that was the one that my grandmother was the drummer for. So, now you know.

I never new my grandmother, at all. By the time that I even knew of her existence she had been dead many years. I met my father, my natural father, for the first time ten years ago. So, I was very surprised when I met my father, because he had sent me in the mail a packet of picture, of photographs, of my grandmother. So I was shocked, because I always thought that I had chosen this lifestyle for myself and I that was being original, I was the only musician in my family that I grew up in. So I thought I had chosen it for myself and then all of the sudden, I find out that my grandmother had the same lifestyle I had, but it was fifty years earlier. She toured for most of her life. She gave up my father for adoption. And she had four children during the depression. And she would put them in an institution from time to time, while she continued with her touring. So, I never knew her. But, I felt strange looking at the photographs, because I felt some how it was the idea to be a musician must have been in my blood some how, without my realizing it, because I acting out the very same lifestyle that she had had. Of course the main difference I hope to make in my life is that I want to keep my child and my children (if I have anymore children) with me and not have to give them up so I can continue my career. But that's been a repeating pattern in my life of being separated from one parents at an early age. And in fact that's kind what, the secret heart of the song the World Before Columbus, is the fear that I would be separated from Ruby somehow. That's what's really behind that song as well."

PS - El Rey show transcript by William Andrews.

That's very interesting. Thank you. Oddly, there is a kind of similarity to the story of how "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" was written. John Lennon was inspired by an old time circus poster, and apparently Suzanne was inspired by an old time flyer. Very cool to find out that Suzanne's gran was in a jazz band. That Billy Purl toured the midwest explains the "wide flat land" lyrics. As for "Does she tell the truth? Does she hide the lie? Does she say it so no one will know?" and the whole tricky monkey sub plot... Still seems a little confusing. I guess maybe Suzanne was just trying to put a bit of a storyline into it.

There's a good discussion of this song in Suzanne's book "The Passionate Eye", in the interview with Leonard Cohen.

The weirdest song ever? Eh?

So glad someone started a thread about FM&DG, I think this song is an absolute work of art, one of my favourites ever. Thanks Patrick and Eric for the lines about this, hooray!

It's one of the *lushest* ever SV songs, it's got so many things buried in there, so many levels, so many images as Patrick mentioned. Then there's the music, which is so many levels of its own and things happening....

Some of you might remember that I'm a photograper, and I remember the first time I heard that SV had written Tom's Diner from the POV of Brian Rose, who is also a photographer. That she was "imagining what it was like to be a photographer"....I thought that this was a unusual thing to say, as I don't especially see the distinction. The reason I say this is that FM&DG is one of the best photographs I've ever seen, it just happens to be in sound instead on printed on paper. Others may disagree, its just the way I see it.

Songs don't have to be loaded with "images references" to be great photographs either, it might be something really sparse that can be imagined as a simple B&W image.

Oddly enough, the images on the 99.9 sleeve are also really lush and suit the album well, which might be why I think this, they've got all that circus theme thing happening as well. They look like medium format images, whch is probably why they look extra lush (large negatives make for very fine details.)

Anyway, have said my piece, will go away now....

Cheers,
LJ

I've recently become very intrigued with this song, too. I just saw David Lynch's movie "Mulholland Drive" and now some of the characters in the song strike me as Lynch-ian! I could just see a Megaphone Man, Fat Man and Dancing Girl in one of his movies along with all his other creepy, unexplained characters.

I was listening to some radio chat show today where some pundit used the metaphore "high wire act" to describe the way a political leader was able to juggle a lot of opposing forces.

Immediately I thought of FM&DG and this kind of shed a new light onto the meaning of the song.

I thought, "Well maybe at it's root it's about this central figure using all of her wit and agility to balance out the demands of so many divergent parties"

To me that links this song even more to "No Cheep Thrill" Where again, you've got a lot of colorful characters, and there's some kind of political game afoot.

the morning doves come and go. they know the promise of a morning. wings and feathers and beaks. a travelling movement, it seems. no stills. no grain. even if they stop for a second.

a split second. freeze it. let me slip through. frame by frame by frame. a perpetual u-turn of the senses. intervals of wonder in-between. and the black birds that used to sit on the lines left the shot. will they ever make a comeback? truth is between.

past hasn't passed at all, it's still
here, written on the skin, breaking
itself wide open again in just one grained
image, quickly exposing its dark wing
through the wink of a half-forgotten memory.

sometimes life seems to be
unfolding backwards. you try to
read the signs, what is hidden in
the cracks of time. seagulls run
away from the sea and into the city.

the film of your life is a ripple of lost
meaning. there's a riddle in its dis-continuity,
in the shadow puppets play, in each insistent
seagull's cry for home which resonates you.
"most of the show is concealed from view".

hmmm interesting Fatima,

talking about levels, well I immediately fell into an esoteric analogy for the lyrics, just me I guess ; the fat man is buddha, the dancing girl a dakini and billy pearl the blue pearl the yogins seek ; monkey in the middle, why the ego, yours truely of course, get rid of it quick ! (but the irony is... oh never mind)

Then I heard the real-real reason those words were used and I still think its artful though goodness only knows how she does it. There is a joke there about Barnum statements somewhere but I cant quite get my head round it tonight.

sweet dreams

Bullfrog wrote:"There is a joke there about Barnum statements somewhere but I cant quite get my head round it tonight."

There's a sucker born every minute!

"Fall in love with a bright idea and the way a world is revealed to you..."

Suzanne's line encourages you to beleive in daydreams and take things at face value... same as Barnum would want.

Now who wants to see the Egress?

Bullfrog wrote:"There is a joke there about Barnum statements somewhere but I cant quite get my head round it tonight."

There's a sucker born every minute!

"Fall in love with a bright idea and the way a world is revealed to you..."

Suzanne's line encourages you to beleive in daydreams and take things at face value... same as Barnum would want.

Now who wants to see the Egress?

excuse me. can you tell me where i am? what if? what if the loss is so immense, a huge black hole within you? "monkey in the middle". who you were. who you'll become. "stand on the tightrope. never dreamed i could fall". the fugue and hurt of falling. a lifeline breaking.

"a wide flat land". a nowheresville of the mind. outward all is bright. inward all is hard to grasp. and there's so many voices. your own voices. other's voices. a spiral of static. and then silence, crashing you. what's your worth? now. how to express it? lights lead somewhere, don't they?

---

chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

we are the light, fatima.
there is no black hole,
we are the light.