The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
Tuna
Rubber
A little blubber in my igloo
And I knew you pigtails and all
Girls when they fall
And they said Marianne killed herself
And I said not a chance
Don't you love girls ladies babes
Old bags who say she was so pretty why
Why why why did she crawl down in the old
Deep ravine
C'mon pigtails girls and all those sailors
Get your bags and hold down won't you just
Hold down cause Ed is watching my every sound
I said
They're watching my every sound
The weasal sqeuaks faster then a seven day week
I said Timmy and that purple Monkey
Are all down
At Bobby's house
Making themselves persters and lesters and jesters and my
Traitors of kind
And I'm just having thoughts of Marianne
She could outrun the fastest slug
She could
Marianne
Quickest girl in the frying pan
Rubber
A little blubber in my igloo
And I knew you pigtails and all
Girls when they fall
And they said Marianne killed herself
And I said not a chance
Don't you love girls ladies babes
Old bags who say she was so pretty why
Why why why did she crawl down in the old
Deep ravine
C'mon pigtails girls and all those sailors
Get your bags and hold down won't you just
Hold down cause Ed is watching my every sound
I said
They're watching my every sound
The weasal sqeuaks faster then a seven day week
I said Timmy and that purple Monkey
Are all down
At Bobby's house
Making themselves persters and lesters and jesters and my
Traitors of kind
And I'm just having thoughts of Marianne
She could outrun the fastest slug
She could
Marianne
Quickest girl in the frying pan
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According to Tori, she did not say "Not a chance." she really said "F**k you" to she who told her Marianne was dead. Of all songs, this is her clearest, despite little poetic free associations about weasels and monkeys. This song is powerful and realistic, and very very sad. I had a friend named Liz who died of a heroin overdose last year - a nice kind suburban girl who closeted her depression, and to this day, nobody really knows whether or not it was suicide or accident. This song reminds me of Liz.
I saw her play at the Santa Barbara Bowl and before she sang this song she told a story about Marianne, a childhood friend, who killed herself. And it was her mother who called to tell her the news and she did say "Fuck you" to her mom. I don't remember much more about what she said. I think she gave more detail than that.
@j3ebrules I am sorry for your loss. This song means something entirely new to me now hearing it after losing my childhood girlfriend to a heroin overdose this year as well. It makes me sad to think back on when we were kids and still had our whole lives ahead of us and to know now that hers was going to be so short due to addiction. I wish I could go back in time and change the course of what happened for her.
"Marianne Curtis is a girl I went to school with in junior high. She was the kind of person everyone adored, she was just magical. I had written a song about her years ago which I used to play in the bars sometimes. It never went any further than being performed, I didn't record it. Since then I have always wanted to have Marianne in a song. She died from a drug overdose when she was 15. It is not known, but I don't believe it was suicide. I think she took the wrong things together. She is very special to me, and comes to visit in my songs sometimes."
@merchantpierce I remember this well. No it was not suicide. It was class of 1980 Senior skip Day, as this is what I heard, Maryanne had mixed a combination of alcohol and quaaludes. She was with friends who had her stay in a car when they returned they found Maryanne outside of the car face down in a puddle and unconscious. It was accidental.
[This has not much to do with anything, but shortly after my rat Marianne died, I got this album and heard this song. ] anyway: I think that even though years have passed, you just sometimes will remember someone whether or not any thing sparked the memory, and perhaps one day while writing, she was just "having thoughts of Marianne" and wrote of the reaction that came from everyone of her death.
"Old bags who say, 'she was so pretty'." Old women who saw her as just a pretty thing, that she should have been happy because she was pretty, as if that makes the world go 'round. She was a complex individual, a woman bogged down, and she was one of many "girls when they fall."
one of my fav tori songs
i once knew a person who hated soliloquys. and i thought, "how come? when every possible thought we have is one"
i guess for me the most painful form of soliloquy is when we try to talk with that child within us, and discover that we're not sure if he/she died.
and i knew you...
I love this song.... on a less literal level, i knew a lot of people who really lost them selves when I went through high school. And you hear about things that happened and you think "What? Seriously? How could he/she?" and its just so sad....
This is my favorite song by my favorite artist. As eulogies go, only "Toast" from The Beekeeper comes anywhere close. Both break my heart, but what a gift she has given to the deceased.
"tuna, rubber, a little blubber in my igloo.."
That feeling of nausea that goes with something so horrible, tuna, rubber, blubber all unpleasant. The igloo = cold, feeling numb with grief.
I`ve heard that this song was written in one take, is that true?
True. There were no demos made for this song. Whatever you hear in the record was the first time she ever played it. It was that raw.
"Blubber in my igloo" for me I guess is a metaphor for something that gives warmth in a place that is perennially cold (blubber being whale fat, igloo being structure made of snow).