The Ballad of Lucy Jordan

by Basins

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The Ballad of Lucy Jordan 04:54

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"The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" is a song by American poet and songwriter Shel Silverstein. It was originally recorded by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, with the name spelled "Jordon". The song describes the disillusionment and mental deterioration of a suburban housewife, who climbs to a rooftop "when the laughter grew too loud."

In 1979, the song was also recorded by the English singer Marianne Faithfull. Taken from her 1979 album Broken English, it was released as a single in October 1979 and has become one of her highest charted songs. It is featured on the soundtracks to the films Montenegro, Tarnation and Thelma & Louise. Faithfull also performed the song during a guest appearance in the episode "Donkey" from the fourth season of Absolutely Fabulous, in which God (Faithfull) sings the song in a dream to a miserable, dieting Edina. In 2016, the Faithfull version was used in the finale of American Horror Story: Hotel.

In an interview on ITV's The South Bank Show aired on 24 June 2007, Faithfull said that her interpretation was that Lucy climbs to the rooftop but gets taken away by "the man who reached and offered her his hand" in an ambulance ("long white car") to a mental hospital, and that the final lines ("At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever / As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair ...") are actually in her imagination at the hospital. Thelma and Louise has a similar fatalistic theme.

There is also a darker interpretation. Claire Dederer, writing for The Poetry Foundation, takes it as a given that Lucy Jordan commits suicide and explains her view in an insightful piece lauding Faithfull’s version of the song.

Recorded in Seattle in 2018
Basins is Shane Haworth and Tommy Sandri
Produced by Tommy Sandri

©Self Mythology 2018

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released April 13, 2018

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Basins Seattle, Washington

selfmythology.com

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