Deciphering The Beatles ..............Three................Cry Baby Cry

[gryphon]

Cry Baby Cry


Lyrics


Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.

The king of Marigold was in the kitchen
Cooking breakfast for the queen
The queen was in the parlour
Playing piano for the children of the king.

Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry.

The king was in the garden
Picking flowers for a friend who came to play
The queen was in the playroom
Painting pictures for the childrens holiday.

Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry.

The duchess of Kircaldy always smiling
And arriving late for tea
The duke was having problems
With a message at the local bird and bee.

Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry.

At twelve o'clock a meeting round the table
For a seance in the dark
With voices out of nowhere
Put on specially by the children for a lark.

Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry cry cry cry baby
Make your mother sigh.

She's old enough to know better
Cry baby cry
cry cry cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry.

· This is much more challenging to make much of………………………The keys lie in the fact that John enjoyed his literature as a child and in particular Alice In Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass………………..
· The whole feel of this is like a pseudo children’s story……………….In addition we have the timing 1968……………At that time England and London were at the centre of the psychedelic scene and there was a trend in story telling children like story songs ( Check out A Teenage Opera by Mark Writz !)……………..John was always aware of what was going on around him and the trends……………
· John as journalistic writer and often took his cues for songs from the media around him ( Good morning Good morning was inspired by a TV Kelloggs cornflake ad on the TV !) It seems that there is a similar reference here………………………..

The king was in the garden
Picking flowers for a friend who came to play
The queen was in the playroom
Painting pictures for the childrens holiday.

Demos of the song indicate that Lennon wrote the song in late 1967. The original lyrics were "Cry baby cry, make your mother buy." Lennon described to biographer Hunter Davies how he got the words from an advertisement...........................Wikipedia

· The lyrics were inspired by nursery rhymes and the songs Donovan was writing: Donovan's songs were "fairy tale" like. Donovan states, "I think the eventual imagery was suggested by my own songs of fairy tales. We had become very close in exchanging musical vibes." The song was based in part by two nursery rhymes, "Sing A Song Of Sixpence" and "Cry, baby, cry...stick a finger in your eye...etc...................................." Song Facts”
·
· There seems to be one or two veiled references to situations or people
The King Of Marigold…………………Guess work here but Marigolds are a type of rubber glove sold in the UK for washing up , it could be that John uses role reversal psychology here in 1968 John was a macho working class male…………….The thought of a man with Marigolds on working at the sink might just amuse him for an image and a lyric ………………
John’s domestic situation was well known for putting his wife or girlfriend of the time as the housewife and he the man of the house Yoko challenged these views and maybe we see a reaction to that here………….

The king of Marigold was in the kitchen
Cooking breakfast for the queen
The queen was in the parlour
Playing piano for the children of the king.




· Again John’s domestic situation might explain this part, In his days at Kenwood John would spend a lot of time in the kitchen sitting on a large sofa looking at the garden and dreaming ( This is where he had written “Nowhere man”…………..Seems possible that with the above inspirations he could start to turn this into nursery rhymes about the situation in front of him and his life at 1968

· The king was in the garden
Picking flowers for a friend who came to play
The queen was in the playroom
Painting pictures for the childrens holiday.


· The painting pictures part: Remember Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds was the title of one of Julian’s paintings maybe a similar idea here ?

· The duchess of Kircaldy always smiling
And arriving late for tea
The duke was having problems
With a message at the local bird and bee

·
In the song, John mentions the "Duchess of Kircaldy." Kircaldy is in Fife, Scotland and when he was young, Kircaldy was a stop that John always made when in route to visit his relations in Durness. The Beatles also performed in Kircaldy in their early years.................................”Song Facts”


The last part is word play…………..English pubs are often named after two things the x and y ………John’s sexual humour again…………….The Birds and The Bees is how byou begin in England to address the facts of life ! It is pictured that men often have to talk to their children about this and get pretty embarrassed in a typical English way ………….

· At twelve o'clock a meeting round the table
For a seance in the dark
With voices out of nowhere
Put on specially by the children for a lark.


· I have no knowledge of John’s interest in the supernatural so I think there is something here I don’t know much about ! Maybe it’s an in joke..............the only thing we do know is that John had around this time got into transcendental meditation was it some link with things spiritual?

· Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry.



Close in structure to nursery rhymes so draw your own conclusion.

[CRAZY-HORSE]

thanks again Gryphon,
i myself, always thought of this as a nursey rhyme...guess it still is, with Lennon plucking everyday observations of his own life into it.

[SteveO]

Well done Mr.Gryphon as usual ! Keep them coming please !