| | Odalisque Lyrics Artist(Band):The Decemberists
as the light dies horribly on a fire escape you walk all rare and resolved to drop and when they find you odalisque they will rend you terribly stitch from stitch til all your linen and limbs will fall lazy lady had a baby girl and a sweet sound it made raised on pradies, peanut shells and dirt in the railroad culdesac and what do we with 10 baby shoes a kit bag full of marbles and a broken billiard cue? what do we do? what do we do? fifteen stitches will mend those britches right and then rip them down again sapling switches will rend those rags alright what a sweet sound it makes and what do we do with 10 dirty jews a thirty-ought full of rock salt and a warm afternoon? what do we do? what do we do? lay your belly under mine you're naked under me, under me such a filthy dimming shine the way you kick and scream, kick and scream and what do we do with ten baby shoes a kit bag full of marbles and a broken billiard cue? what do we do? what do we do? lazy lady had a baby girl, and a sweet sound it made If you find some error in Odalisque Lyrics, would you please submit your corrections to me? Thank You. Review about Odalisque About the rock salt. | Reviewer: Anonymous | 10/12/09 The 30-ought rock salt comment IS referring to a weapon. People, mostly back in the day, used to fill shotguns with rock salt. One, it will still puncture your skin. Two, it will burn like crazy because it is in fact salt. It's a very malicious thing to do. Hey guys, | Reviewer: Anonymous | 4/6/09 Anyone who claims Colin is antisemitic is taking it too literally. While the actions described herein are, that does not make him one or a supporter. He has a song about getting eaten by a whale, a song about killing ones children, and a song about finding a crane in the woods, nursing it back to health, and it became a woman. Obviously, he has a grasp on, and actively uses simile and metaphor. He's also a fan of historical and literature based songs. Nah | Reviewer: Jake | 1/30/09 I doubt this song is anti-semetic, seeing as how Colin has stated he writes the songs from perspectives of other people. As a sidenote, I do find it interesting how people can shape a songwriter's intentions to fit what they'd like to believe about him. Anything with anti-semetic overtones is OBVIOUSLY not literal, but if the same guy were to write badly about Christianity or some other mainstream school of thought, then people take it as an anthem speaking out against his Christian upbringing or the government or whatever it's kitsch to be against these days. not anti sememtic | Reviewer: andy | 12/28/08 Ridiculous to say he is anti semetic... a good song tells a story and often from different points of view. He is trying to get a story across. If you said every author was racist if they wrote something racist (from a racists man or woman's view) in their story huge amounts of authors would be marked as racists. It's the same for songwriters especially a writer like colin who is very descriptive and often puts pictures in yours minds through his lyrics. Coheed and cambira have a lyrics "saying pull the trigger and the nightmare stops" in one of there songs, and in the lyric book it says "do not take literally it is only a story" under the lyric. They might be different lyrics and bands but what im getting at has the same meaning. definitely not anti semetic Not anti-Semitic | Reviewer: TDG | 11/30/08 I honestly don't think Colin Meloy is Anti-Semitic. If he was I'm sure there would be more evidence than just one line in one song. Also Colin Meloy is certainly capable of subtly and I doubt he would just put it that bluntly if he actually felt that way. No offense. | Reviewer: RetroWarbird | 11/24/08 The song seems to me to be from the point of view of Nazi soldiers. I take "as the light dies horribly" to mean as the city of Paris falls. Paris is the city of light, I'm sure the Nazis taking it was horrible. Now granted, the history of the Nazis and their treatment of Jews, their treatment of France, hell, everything except their sharp uniforms was offensive. But about it is meant to evoke that old offense. And even if it's not Nazi-specific, most of Europe's highly Christian denizens treated Jews terribly over the years. And that's offensive as well, historically. You're supposed to be offended. At how callous whoever the hell is doing the raping can be. 30-ought full of rock salt? | Reviewer: Artifex | 2/4/08 Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but that line seems to be a firearms reference. "30-ought" is commonly short for 30-ought-6, a popular rifle caliber. But "full of rock salt" suggests a shotgun shell loaded with rock salt, which I've heard of before as a non-lethal shotgun load (although mostly as a historical curiosity). Now, I've never heard of a "30-ought" shotgun, but The Decembrists probably just thought it sounded good that way, or they were making a reference to fellow Portland band Thirty-Ought-Six. anti-semitism | Reviewer: DJC | 1/14/08 The first part of the song is written from the perspective of a third person who sympathizes with the song's heroine. The last part of that section is "what will we do with ten baby shoes." After that verse's "what will we do" starts the part from the point of view of her abusers, delighting in mistreating her. I mean, he's clearly raping her in the second to last verse. These lines aren't from Melroy's POV, but the attacker's, and "ten dirty jews" is from that scumbag's perspective, not the original narrators. one interpretation | Reviewer: Anonymous | 12/23/07 The Decemberists are painting a very bleak story with this song. It appears to be about a girl, an social outsider of some sort, who is harassed, abused, and raped by a group of sadistic men or boys, and becomes pregnant and has to raise the child in abject poverty and shame. This fits with the title Odalisque, which often referred to female slaves of low social status that were bought to be used as sexual partners for one night, and then discarded. The song appears to be sung in the third person, but a few of the lines, such as the one about a "thirty-ought of rock salt, a warm afternoon, and ten dirty jews" appear to be sung from the rapists' point of view, expressing how their hatred and cruelty is not limited to just Odalisque, but perhaps anyone he finds vulnerable or different. Historically, the Jewish people have often been treated as outsiders and were the victims of hate crimes, and the Decemberists often use bits of history in their songs to evoke another time period. So in the time period that they set "Odalisque", Jews may have been an easy target for the attacker/rapist's acts of cruelty. The sympathy of the listener is obviously supposed to with the girl, the "Odalisque", and not the attackers, so I highly doubt that any anti-semitic sentiment was intended by the band. Research | Reviewer: chaim | 10/22/07 After looking up the word Odalisque, I found this: "The French term odalisque derives from the Turkish-Ottoman word odalik, which refers to a female slave owned by a Muslim male as his legal concubine," but I've also seen that an odalisque had a status even lower than a concubine, and could only rise to the concubine status by being skilled in a number of "arts." Apparently, this position still exists and women are frequently trafficked to the Middle East and North Africa from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal, where they are drugged and abused and have a life span of about two years after being sold. Although I can't find any mention as to whether Jews have been used in this position in the past, I very much doubt that Colin Meloy just put that reference into the song for kicks, especially knowing his knowledge of obscure history. My best guess is that he heard of a specific case in history when Jewish women were enslaved and abused and decided to write a song about it, which is not at all unlike him. I'm going to have to say this is not anti-Semitism. Simply storytelling. Review By Pages: 1 2 Review the song Odalisque The area is only for review, if you want to submit the lyrics or the corrections of the lyrics, please click the link at the end of the lyrics.  Download "The Decemberists" Music | |
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