"Gypsy"

[byrdsmaniac]

The term "gypsy" comes up in a lot of rock songs from the 1960's, '70's, and 80's. It's used in some rather strange ways; almost as if it's a code word in the music industry, and often as if almost suggesting that its definition is "someone passing for human".
I understand, of course, that rock bands are always on the move, like gypsies, so they call themselves that, but there seems to be something more to it.
The first song that everyone will think of about gypsies is Stevie Nick's "Gypsy", of course. So let's have a look:

GYPSY
(Stevie Nicks)
So I’m back, to the velvet underground*
Back to the floor, that I love
To a room with some lace and paper flowers
Back to the gypsy that I was
To the gypsy... that I was

And it all comes down to you
Well, you know that it does
Well, lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice
Ah, and it lights up the night
And you see your gypsy
You see your gypsy

To the gypsy that remains faces freedom with a little fear
I have no fear, I have only love
And if I was a child
And the child was enough
Enough for me to love
Enough to love

She is dancing away from me now
She was just a wish
She was just a wish
And a memory is all that is left for you now
You see your gypsy
You see your gypsy
Lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice
And it all comes down to you
(etcetera) (end)

* The Velvet Underground was the name of a rock band in New York City. (The Andy Warhol scene)
It might mean something else as well. (And I don't mean the S&M book, or sexual references.)

Then you have Black Sabbath's Gypsy:

GYPSY
(Black Sabbath)

"Watching the universe at the end of another day
Fatalistic ships from a distant shore
In the back of my mind I could see she was standing there
Like the feeling you have
When you've been there before

She was a gypsy woman
She was as cold as the day
She said I'd got it coming
And then she took me away

She took me through the shadows of her sunken dream
I thought it's over me,she wasn't all she seemed
She took my hand and then she started to speak
She told me she'd had the call
With eyes of fire that were burning my soul
She looked into her crystal ball
She read my fortune then she read my mind
She didn't like my thoughts at all
She showed me shadows,a spectre of life
My soul just wanted to scream
She stared so deeply into my eyes
That's when I fell into a dream
When I awoke in bed she lay beside me
And she read me with her eyes,she said
So you wanna be a gypsy,come on now
Gypsy woman you're the devil in drag
You are the queen of all hell
You took my body,now you're wasting my soul
You've got me under your spell
And as the sun shines on another day
You're gonna take my mind as well,it's over
So you wanna be a gypsy,come on now."
(end)

The Moody Blues' "Gypsy"

GYPSY
(J. Hayward)

"A gypsy of a strange and distant time
Travelling in panic all direction blind
Aching for the warmth of a burning sun
Freezing in the emptiness of where he'd come from
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Left without a hope of coming home

Speeding through a shadow of a million years
Darkness is the only sound to reach his ears
Frightening him with the visions of eternity
Screaming for a future that can never be
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Left without a hope of coming home

A gypsy of a strange and distant time
Travelling in panic all direction blind
Aching for the warmth of a burning sun
Freezing in the emptiness of where he'd come from
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Left without a hope of coming home
(end)

And, of course, Bob Dylan uses the term in "Farewell Angelina":

"The jacks and queens have forsaked the courtyard
Fifty-two gypsies now file past the guards
In the space where the deuce and the ace once ran wild
Farewell Angelina; the sky is folding
I'll see you in a while."


Van Morrison:
GYPSY

"No matter where you wander
And no matter where you roam
Any place you hang your hat
You know that that is home, check it out first

Sway to sounds of two guitars
Around the campfire bright
Then mellow out like old violins
In the morning light

La da di di di di di
La da di di di di di daaa (etc.)
Gypsy! (end)

As you can see, there seem to be a few dozen ways the term is used by musicians.
I know the gypsies are nomadic people from eastern Europe and central Asia, but in the world of rock and roll
they seem to be more than that.

I can't help but think of the "Band On the Run".
I can't help but think of the clue-like lyrics of Bowie's "Station To Station"
I can't help but think of Pink Floyd's "On the Run".
This fellow Paul was never in one place, was he.
Like a gypsy, moving all the time.
And the Sgt. Pepper wagon that John had placed on an island: a gypsy wagon? Maybe with Paul's ashes inside?
(Maybe Jojo can post a picture of it?)

So, when you hear a rock lyric about a gypsy, it seems it could be about Paul in some instances.
Like in the Stevie Nicks song above, possibly.
In her song "Sara", she writes about someone drowning in a sea of love.
Yes, it's a common metaphor, but maybe there's a connection to an actual drowning. Think "Strawberry Fields" and "Octopus's Garden"

"Drowning in the sea of love
Where everyone would love to drown
But now it's gone
It doesn't matter what for
When you build your house
Then call me home".

(And watch for that word "home" in rock songs too, btw.
It's not here they're talking about in many instances.)

So then could "Sara" have been the name of the 'female' version of Paul?
Just a thought.
And take a close look at those Black Sabbath lyrics.

[byrdsmaniac]

More examples:

"Be a gypy, get around. Get your feet up off the ground."
From "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey"


"Who's that stomping
all over my face?
Where's that silhouette
I'm trying to trace?
Who's putting sponge
in the bells I once rung
And taking my gypsy
before she's begun
To singing the meaning
of what's in my mind
Before I can take home
what's rightfully mine.
Joinin' and listenin'
and talkin' in rhymes
Stoppin' the feeling
to wait for the times."
(from Buffalo Springfield's "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing")

I won't list "Gypsies, Tramps and Theives" because, hey, sometimes a song has no deep meaning whatsoever. ;D

[Ludwig]

And, of course, there's the musical "Gypsy".

Book by Arthur Laurents
Music by Jule Styne
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Here's the song list:

Lyrics Let Me Entertain You
Lyrics Some People
Lyrics Small World
Lyrics Baby June and Her Newsboys
Lyrics Mr. Goldstone
Lyrics Little Lamb
Lyrics You'll Never Get Away From Me
Lyrics Dainty June And Her Farmboys
Lyrics If Momma Was Married
Lyrics All I Need Is The Girl
Lyrics Everything's Coming Up Roses
Lyrics Together
Lyrics You Gotta Have A Gimmick
Lyrics The Strip
Lyrics Rose's Turn

www.stlyrics.com/g/gypsy.htm

This site actually has the lyrics for all of them. Perhaps this musical, which was made into a movie in 1962, redefined "gypsies" in a sense, giving the aforementioned lyrics some background. Just thinkin' aloud.

[tkp66]

Cher had a song about gypsies right....?

oops sorry ;D

"I won't list "Gypsies, Tramps and Theives" because, hey, sometimes a song has no deep meaning whatsoever."

[byrdsmaniac]

It's OK, tkp. There's more to her than meets the eye too, but you'd never know it.

[tkp66]

byrdsmaniac said:

It's OK, tkp. There's more to her than meets the eye too, but you'd never know it.

She names my home town in that song I believe....>
the plot thickens ;D

[unrepentant]

THICKENS? LOL.......the "plot" reached the consistency of hardened cement here months ago!

[beatled]

Like a gypsy, moving all the time.
And the Sgt. Pepper wagon that John had placed on an island: a gypsy wagon? Maybe with Paul's ashes inside?
(Maybe Jojo can post a picture of it?)

I can do better, roll tape.

[byrdsmaniac]

Thank you, Jojo.


Just a comment here, for what it's worth:

"GYPSY
(Stevie Nicks)
So I’m back, to the velvet underground
Back to the floor, that I love
To a room with some lace and paper flowers
Back to the gypsy that I was
To the gypsy... that I was"

Where is she?
In a room with lace and paper flowers, yes, but where?
What is this velvet underground?
What is this floor that she loves?
Most people would say she's at a night club dance floor, but my first thought when I hear that term is how the ocean floor would feel if you were standing on it, and you were smooshing your toes into the muck.
Of course, that probably isn't it, but what if it were?
I bring this up because today I received in the mail the February 2006 edition of FATE magazine, and one of the articles is about underwater UFO bases.
Now for me, this is nothing new or surprising.
I've been reading and hearing about underground UFO bases for literally decades. But when I hear songs like "Octopuses' Garden", my thoughts aren't limited to, "oh, that's where Paul's body was found", and the like.
The song, if taken literally, makes it sound as if there's a party going on down there.
And there may well be.
For some reason the US Navy has been testing and deploying a new form of sonar that deafens whales, and actually creates brain damage in them, for the last 8 years! They (the navy) know that it does this, but they're going ahead with it anyway to protect us from "terrorists".
As for the whales, they're not too pleased with it, I gather, and last weekend they sent a representative up the Thames river to Parliament to send a message to the blue meanies and little piggies, but he was turned away and sent packing. The message was sent none-the-less.
Am I anthropromorphizing a little bit here? Yes.
To suggest that members of Parliament have any human qualities is to grant them undeserved status,
and the same can certainly be said for some of our (and I choke when I say this) "leadership" here in the good ol' US of A.
Remember these words?

"What have they done to the Earth?
What have they done to [shadow=red,left,300]our fair sister?[/shadow]
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down
I hear a very gentle sound
With your ear down to the ground
We want the world and we want it...
We want the world and we want it...
Now"

And these?:

"You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy."

"When the Music's Over" sounded a bit pretentious when it came out in the 1960s.
Now the words almost sound understated. They were certainly prescient.
Or did Morrison speak from the perspective of having already been on the scene? "When the music's over"?
Whose perspective is represented?

And "Masters of War", "Talking World War Three Blues", "This Wheel's on Fire" -
certainly Dylan obsessed about the threat of nuclear disaster.

Time travelers? Gypsies? Angellic messengers?

Coming full circle:

"So I’m back, to the velvet underground
Back to the floor, that I love
To a room with some lace and paper flowers
Back to the gypsy that I was
To the gypsy... that I was".

[byrdsmaniac]

ludwig said:

And, of course, there's the musical "Gypsy".

www.stlyrics.com/g/gypsy.htm

This site actually has the lyrics for all of them. Perhaps this musical, which was made into a movie in 1962, redefined "gypsies" in a sense, giving the aforementioned lyrics some background. Just thinkin' aloud.

Ludwig, It's been many years since I've seen Gypsy.
I remember "Gotta Have A Gimmick", but not much else.
It might be worth looking at the lyrics and names of musicals.
"Hello Dolly" - Didn't Carol Channing always sound like a man? ;D
"Barefoot In the Park" - how and where the bodies were found.
"Oklahoma!" - Hey! Who knew?

OK, I'm being silly, but when I have time I'll tell you about what happened when I started wondering if there were PID type clues in music before the Beatles, and whether today's artists are doing the same type of thing. For now, all I can say is, "Isn't Life Strange?"
How about in your time, Ludwig? How far back does this go?!

[byrdsmaniac]

In the example of oddly appropriately named Broadway plays above, I said I was kidding, and I was.
But if I had kept on going with "Man of LaMancha", "Hair", "Jesus Christ Superstar", "The Music Man" etc., at what point would I have to say, "Hey, wait a minute. Something is fishy here. Maybe there really is some sort of link with Broadway play titles and the Paul Is Dead mystery."?
Now I'm not saying there is, because where would "Phantom of the Opera" fit in?
Oops, bad example.
OK, where would "Cats" fit in? Or "Sweet Charity" or "Annie" or many other examples I could use fit in?
It would have to be a pretty strange coincidence if someone were to find that Broadway play titles were actually PID clues. The odds against such a thing would have to be astronomical. It would be pretty freaky, wouldn't it?
Well get ready to be freaked out, because while I can't speak to the issues of Broadway plays, I think many of you reading this will find things just as strange happening in your own personal "magical mystery tours" soon. (I'm just guessing.)
But here's what happened to me two days ago.
I was grabbing my Pink Floyd and MMT CD's to take to work to listen for PID clues, when it occurred to me that it would be nice to mellow out with a bit of Norah Jones and even some old Nat King Cole, so I grabbed those CDs as well, and ran out the door. Made the bus in seconds flat.
So, later on, as I was hearing "Dark Side of the Moon" for what must have been the 5000th time in my life, I chanced to look at the listings for the Nat King Cole's Greatest Hits CD, and I was struck with how appropriate some of the song titles were for what we've uncovered about the PID mystery here.
Take a look:

"Get Your Kicks on Route 66"
"Orange Colored Sky"
"Straighten Up and Fly Right"
"You Call It Madness (But I Call It Love)"
"Nature Boy"
"Ramblin Rose"
"Darling, Je Vous Aimes Beaucoup"
"A Blossom Fell"
"Unforgettable"

There were others, of course, that were less of a match, but I think most of you can see the possibilities.
Now for those of you too young to know, Nat King Cole was a singer popular in my parents' day. I was about 7 or 8 when all these songs were popular, so we're talking songs that are at least 50 years old now, and pre-date the Beatles by at least a few years.
But how strange! For example, the song "Je Vous Aimes Beaucoup" is about a young man who doesn't speak French very well, trying to tell his lover that he loves her.
Where have we heard that before?
And the song "Nature Boy" - a song about a boy who loved trees?
Nothing in there about that. Look at the lyrics:

"NATURE BOY"
( by Eden Ahbez)

There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he

And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return"

<instrumental interlude>

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return"
(end)

Now, uh, let's see here: A boy who wandered far and wide over land and sea; was shy, but sad of eye, and wise, who on a magic day was talking about FOOLS and kings, and uttering sage words about love.
Yep! That sounds like your typical seven year old to me, all right!
How about you?

And then there's the song about old Route 66, which I figured out previously was the route Neil Young speaks of in his PID-clue laden, "My Last Trip to Tulsa".

So, here I was at work, thinking that at any moment I might see Rod Serling standing in the corner saying, "Meet, if you will, Mr. Blue Byrdsmaniac, a telephone repair technician who's just about to pay a visit to THE TWILIGHT ZONE."
Now I know many of you already think I'm a permanent resident there, but even I have my limits, so after listening a bit to Nat King Cole, I decided to settle myself down with a bit of Norah Jones' album "Come Away with Me". Nice soothing music, right? (And a fairly recent release too.)

Hmmm. "Come away with me in the night".
Why the night? Where are we going? Is this an alien abduction?!
I started looking at the song titles and words:

"Come away with me" (on a magical mystery tour!)
"Shoot the Moon" (the Apollo space Paul sent into)
"Turn Me On" (Dead Man)
"Lonestar" (Lone Star - Paul in space again)
"I've Got to see you again" (Paul said to Sylvie)
"One Flight Down" ( Paul's escape effort being shot down)
"Nightingale" (Blackbird singing in the dead of night)
"The Long Day Is Over" (It's Been A Hard Day's Night)
"The Nearness of You" ("Well on the way; his head in the clouds....")

Grabbing a second cup of coffee to make absolutely SURE that I was awake, I looked at some lyrics:

LONESTAR
(Lee Alexander)
Lonestar where are you out tonight?
This feeling I'm trying to fight
It's dark and I think that I would give anything
For you to shine down on me

How far you are I just don't know
The distance I'm willing to go
I pick up a stone that I cast to the sky
Hoping for some kind of sign
(end)

Curious, no? Thoughts of a Paul fan?
How about the song "Don't Know Why" from the Norah Jones album:

"DON'T KNOW WHY"
(Jesse Harris)

I waited 'til I saw the sun
I don't know why I didn't come
I left you by the house of fun
I don't know why I didn't come
I don't know why I didn't come

When I saw the break of day
I wished that I could fly away
Instead of kneeling in the sand
Catching teardrops in my hand

My heart is drenched in wine
But you'll be on my mind
Forever

Out across the endless sea
I would die in ecstasy
But I'll be a bag of bones
Driving down the road along

My heart is drenched in wine
But you'll be on my mind
Forever

Something has to make you run
I don't know why I didn't come
I feel as empty as a drum
I don't know why I didn't come
I don't know why I didn't come
I don't know why I didn't come
(end)


She could have gone with him, and died in ecstasy, but instead she'll be a bag of bones (an old geezer) with him on her mind as she drinks to feel better.
(Of course, we know that's not what happened.)

And then there's this:

"SEVEN YEARS"
(Lee Alexander)

Spinning, laughing, dancing to
her favorite song
A little girl with nothing wrong
Is all alone

Eyes wide open
Always hoping for the sun
And she'll sing her song to anyone
that comes along

Fragile as a leaf in autumn
Just fallin' to the ground
Without a sound

Crooked little smile on her face
Tells a tale of grace
That's all her own

Spinning, laughing, dancing to her favorite song
A little girl with nothing wrong
And she's all alone
(end)

A happy song, but what's this?: "Fragile as a leaf in autumn just fallin' to the ground without a sound
Crooked little smile on her face tells a tale of grace
that's all her own. "

Just a little girl falling down? Or was Sylvie re-incarnated?

I don't expect anyone who reads this post to believe for one minute that Norah Jones and Nat KING Cole left PID clues.
It's true that Norah Jones is Ravi Shankar's daughter.
Ravi Shankar taught George Harrison to play the sitar,
so there could be a very tenuous link, but now really.....
You might just as well think that Broadway musical titles are clues.
But then again, who's to say?
Just about anything's possible on a magical mystery tour.
Or in the Twilight Zone for that matter.
You have been warned. ;D

[defhermit]

Norah Jones? Why not!

Nat King Cole? Not so much...

[Perplexed]

byrds---that's a beautiful and thought-provoking post.
Well written, well done.

I don't know, I am not going to say what could be a connection and what might not be. I mean, as far as human intentions go. Maybe the fabric of thought and the overall story of Mankind make so much resonance that we see stories printed in the stars, our palms, the want ads in the newspaper, and, maybe even, far away news events and songs lyrics. Who can ever say "no". But maybe "truths" areseeable in every process, even as allusion or subconscious undercurrent.