This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
The spirit of Fatima still rules the Earth
She knows your future, she knows what it's worth
Sister Fatima has God-given powers
And on 42nd Street a shop that sells flowers
Is her palace, come and be healed
She knows all your business, your health and your ills
She'll counsel your weddings, divorces and wills
For full restoration five dollars an hour
And with each consultation a free holy flower
And if she likes you, well you can have two
And I came from nowhere like you and your friend
My searching and wandering went on without end
My future was dim, my spirit was crushed
In one sacred moment my questions were hushed
I'm a servant of fate in this garden of truth
A humble recruit of the taffeta booth
Where all things are known but few are revealed
Sins are forgotten and sickness is healed
For five dollars the flower is free
She knows your future, she knows what it's worth
Sister Fatima has God-given powers
And on 42nd Street a shop that sells flowers
Is her palace, come and be healed
She knows all your business, your health and your ills
She'll counsel your weddings, divorces and wills
For full restoration five dollars an hour
And with each consultation a free holy flower
And if she likes you, well you can have two
And I came from nowhere like you and your friend
My searching and wandering went on without end
My future was dim, my spirit was crushed
In one sacred moment my questions were hushed
I'm a servant of fate in this garden of truth
A humble recruit of the taffeta booth
Where all things are known but few are revealed
Sins are forgotten and sickness is healed
For five dollars the flower is free
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I'll comment, but I can't say much other than: What does it mean? This song gave me chills when I first heard it in 1977, but I've never understood it. Is it about saviors who hide in plain sight (like a flower shop)? Is she a nun? A prostitute (from long ago when five dollars was the going rate)?
It surprises me that nobody has commented on this song. In my opinion one of the most memorable songs of Don McLean's. It is a narrative story rather than a surreal story and it is primarily non-emotional and non-intellectual. It's more an auditrory painting, an aestetic experience. But I think it is a great portrait of the sixties.
The ‘taffeta booth’ is the giveaway. Taffeta was the clothing of prostitutes in England for centuries and is often used by Shakespeare with that implication. Take, for example, Falstaff's "fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta". Pushing the boat out a bit, Our Lady of Fatima is a Portuguese Catholic reference to the Virgin Mary. What we seem to have is a classic Madonna/Whore paradox - the sacred (God given powers) and the profane (a shop that sells flowers). For five dollars (money for sex) you think you have something beautiful (a holy flower). Just don’t ask what she’s thinking (your questions are hushed and few things revealed). It’s a shop. The flower wasn’t free.
@Seesaw67 <br /> I think you're reading way too much into this<br /> The illustration included with this song in the original songbook pictured Fatima as a black, inner-city nun.
Like much of Maclean’s 70s work there is often meaning piled on meaning and often not easily accessible but always interesting and sung with that very melodic expressive voice….. often the beauty is in the uncertainty….. the prostitute notion certainly works and the juxtaposition of the sacred and profane, the good and the bad, is a common theme in his work. This is a beautiful wistful sad song and I can’t say with certainty it’s exact meaning or indeed if it has one but it moves me and I feel the better for having heard it.