Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2016 March 15

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 15

Who is the girl in "Norwegian Wood"??

"I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me??"

In this song, whose most famous version is by The Beatles. I want to know who the girl is. Until recently, I thought she was the narrator's significant other. But I just learned something that shows that this cannot be true.

In the 1990's, this song was covered by Alanis Morissette. If the girl were a significant other, this cover of the song would have started with the lyrics "I once had a guy, or should I say, he once had me??" But this is not so; Alanis's version preserves the Beatles' original lyrics, so the girl can't be a significant other. Who is this girl?? Georgia guy (talk) 16:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Norwegian_Wood_(This_Bird_Has_Flown)#Composition --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:57, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with the assumption that failing to change the gender means the original didn't refer to a significant other. There's lots of "elevator music" where they've taken a man singing a love song to a woman and rerecorded it with a female singer, without bothering to change the gender. I suppose they could be interpreted as now being lesbian songs, but more likely they are just too lazy to change it (it might not be that simple to change, if it affects the rhyming). And, in the case of iconic songs, it just seems wrong to mess with the lyrics. Take Danny Boy, originally a love song to a man, sung by a woman. Would you change that to "Daniela Girl" when sung by a man ? (One record did suggest "Eily Dear" as the version sung by a man, but it never really caught on.) StuRat (talk) 17:19, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Though it's often sung by women, "Danny Boy" is reported in some circles to be a father bidding farewell to his son. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:00, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

The OP's assumption seems to be that anyone who covers a song must understand exactly what the songwriter intended the lyrics to mean. It seems an unwarranted assumption that Alanis Morissette has a deep insight into the meaning of the lyrics, and that her failure to change the lyrics implies something about what John Lennon meant when he wrote them. Mnudelman (talk) 20:32, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

The term "bird" was commonly used by Brits of that era to refer to a woman, analogous to the long-standing American term "chick". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:01, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Here are the Clancys singing a song that certainly sounds like it was intended to be sung by a woman. But this was not so unusual until very recent times when people became more "gay aware" and might read things into things. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:24, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

I wonder why you think the girl is a "significant other"? I cannot produce reliable sources to support my claim, but, I believe many people think it's a song about casual sex. People have interpreted "norwegian wood" as a code for "knowing she would" - as in... knowing this 'bird' would have sex with him. The lyrics make more sense in that context - "I once had a girl"... to 'have' in the biblical sense, viz. to have sex with. I cannot support these notions with any evidence, but I believe most hippies familiar with English slang and nuance from that era would interpret the song in that way.

I am disappointed that the OP said, of Morisette's cover, "If the girl were a significant other, this cover of the song would have started with the lyrics "I once had a guy". Why on Earth do you think a female can't have a female significant other? 81.108.18.234 (talk) 21:36, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Or that a singer can't sing a song that tells a true story about the writer unless it's also true of the singer? —Tamfang (talk) 03:28, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Or that a singer can't sing a song in the voice of a particular character unless the character's gender is also their own? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 185.74.232.130 (talk) 14:49, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

It's pretty clear from the lyrics that the two are only known casually to one another. The singer "once" had a girl, she "showed" him her room (i.e. he'd never been there before - and likely wouldn't be again after (ambiguously) setting it on fire), and so on. Whether there was a sexual component is less clear, though I will note that he did have to crawl off to sleep in the bath. Matt Deres (talk) 15:35, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

It's discussed here, pp.121-128, where it's described as "the pivotal song in Lennon's effort to use surrealistic imagery in pop lyrics". So, not to be taken too literally. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:09, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

I've added brackets to the song title, as the article explains the song's origin pretty well. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:26, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Sherlock Holmes and Sidney Paget

I noticed a contradiction between the Finnish articles fi:Sherlock Holmes and fi:Sidney Paget. The former claims Paget drew his visualisation of Holmes using his own brother as a model. The latter claims Paget drew Holmes based purely on his own imagination, not using anyone as a model. I've left a talk page message on the Finnish article about Holmes, but I still want to ask here. Which is right? Did Paget use his own brother as a model or did he not? JIP | Talk 22:53, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

The English article Sidney Paget#The Strand illustrations says, with a citation:

Despite the commonly held belief that Paget based Holmes' appearance on that of Walter, his brother Henry Marriott (H.M.) Paget denied this was the case. "The assertion that the artist's brother Walter, or any other person, served as model for the portrait of Sherlock Holmes is incorrect."

Loraof (talk) 23:20, 15 March 2016 (UTC)