Van Morrison - Madame George

And you think you found the bag
You're getting weaker and your knees begin to sag
In the corner playing dominoes in drag
The one and only Madame George

Thanks to Dr. Morbius and Petra for reminding me of this beautiful song.


Van Morrison....

He stood me up once. I had tickets to one of his shows. I was there. Others were there. Van was nowhere to be seen.

Alas, I was a fan then and I am still a fan.

A native of Northern Ireland and born in 1945, Van Morrison first made it big as the lead singer of the band, Them. Gloria was one of their big hits.

I remember the song, Brown Eyed Girl, which was the first hit of his solo career, after leaving Them. I loved that song. I was in high school at the time, but also worked for a commercial radio station. I found the record in a batch of trashed 45's and managed to get it on the air. It eventually make it big, as did Van Morrison.

His music got more complex and classier after that early hit. Madame George is from the Astral Weeks album, one of his best.

From Wikipedia:

The main theme of the song is about leaving the past behind. The character of Madame George is considered by many to be a drag queen, although Morrison himself denied this in a Rolling Stone interview. He later claimed that the character was based on six or seven different people: "It's like a movie, a sketch, or a short story. In fact, most of the songs on Astral Weeks are like short stories. In terms of what they mean, they're as baffling to me as to anyone else. I haven't got a clue what that song is about or who Madame George might have been." The rock journalist Lester Bangs wrote in 1979 that the song "is the album's whirlpool. Possibly one of the most compassionate pieces of music ever made, it asks us, no, arranges that we see the plight of what I'll be brutal and call a lovelorn drag queen with such intense empathy that when the singer hurts him, we do too." Bangs also remarks that "Morrison has said in at least one interview that the song has nothing to do with any kind of transvestite – at least as far as he knows, he is quick to add – but that's bullshit." In April 2007 Tom Nolan wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal suggesting that Madame George was none other than Georgie Hyde-Lees, wife of Irish poet and mystic W. B. Yeats who acted as Yeats' muse through automatic writing and inducing trances. He cites the ever present interest in Yeats by Morrison, and the words in the song: "That's when you fall into a trance/Sitting on a sofa playing games of chance/With your folded arms in history books you glance/ Into the eyes of Madame George."

The video, below, is not a bad cover of the original.



You can hear Van sing the song by going to the link, below.

The Lyrics:

Down on Cyprus Avenue
With a childlike vision leaping into view
Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe
Ford & Fitzroy, Madame George
Marching with the soldier boy behind
He's much older with hat on drinking wine
And that smell of sweet perfume comes drifting through
The cool night air like Shalimar
And outside they're making all the stops
The kids out in the street collecting bottle-tops
Gone for cigarettes and matches in the shops
Happy taken Madame George
That's when you fall
Whoa, that's when you fall
Yeah, that's when you fall
When you fall into a trance
A sitting on a sofa playing games of chance
With your folded arms and history books you glance
Into the eyes of Madame George
And you think you found the bag
You're getting weaker and your knees begin to sag
In the corner playing dominoes in drag
The one and only Madame George
And then from outside the frosty window raps
She jumps up and says Lord have mercy I think it's the cops
And immediately drops everything she gots
Down into the street below
And you know you gotta go
On that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row
Throwing pennies at the bridges down below
And the rain, hail, sleet, and snow
Say goodbye to Madame George
Dry your eye for Madame George
Wonder why for Madame George
And as you leave, the room is filled with music, laughing, music,
dancing, music all around the room
And all the little boys come around, walking away from it all
So cold
And as you're about to leave
She jumps up and says Hey love, you forgot your gloves
And the gloves to love to love the gloves...
To say goodbye to Madame George
Dry your eye for Madame George
Wonder why for Madame George
Dry your eyes for Madame George
Say goodbye in the wind and the rain on the back street
In the backstreet, in the back street
Say goodbye to Madame George
In the backstreet, in the back street, in the back street
Down home, down home in the back street
Gotta go
Say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
Dry your eye your eye your eye your eye your eye...
Say goodbye to Madame George
And the loves to love to love the love
Say goodbye
Oooooo
Mmmmmmm
Say goodbye goodbye goodbye goodbye to Madame George
Dry your eye for Madame George
Wonder why for Madame George
The love's to love the love's to love the love's to love...
Say goodbye, goodbye
Get on the train
Get on the train, the train, the train...
This is the train, this is the train...
Whoa, say goodbye, goodbye....
Get on the train, get on the train...

[Lyrics from www.songmeanings.net]