Well, I rang up Pantucci,
Spoke to Lu-chi,
I gave them all
They needed to know.
If affairs are proceeding
As we're expecting,
Soon enough the weak spots will show.
I assume you understand that we have options on your time,
And will ditch you in the harbour if we must:
But if it all works out nicely,
You'll get the bonus you deserve
From doctors we trust.

The Fat Lady of Limbourg
Looked at the samples that we sent
And furrowed her brow.
You would never believe that
She'd tasted royalty and fame
If you saw her now.
But her sense of taste is such that she'll distinguish with her tongue
The subtleties a spectrograph would miss,
And announce her decision,
While demanding her reward:
The jellyfish kiss.

Now we checked out this duck quack
Who laid a big egg, oh so black
It shone just like gold.
And the kids from the city,
Finding it pretty, took it home,
And there it was sold.
It was changing hands for weeks till someone left it by their fire
And it melted to a puddle on the floor:
For it was only a candle, a Roman scandal oh oh oh,
Now it's a pool.
That's what we're paid for
That's what we're paid for
That's what we're paid for here.


Lyrics submitted by mint_melody, edited by PaulMad

Fat Lady of Limbourg Lyrics as written by Brian Eno

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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The Fat Lady of Limbourg song meanings
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  • +2
    General Comment

    One of the more Dada-esque offerings from a songwriter whose early career is typified by heaping helpings of the absurd. Like "The Great Pretender"--also on Side A of the Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) LP--there's a woozy sense of nasty dealings underfoot, despite not much of a "smoking gun" in sight. One might labor to locate a specific element obviously over-the-top in terms of cruelty or perversion.

    Ah, but the description (in the second verse) of the Fat Lady of Limbourg! Close enough. The couplet:

    But her sense of taste is such that she'll distinguish with her tongue The subtleties a spectrograph would miss

    ...matches anything in "Seven Deadly Finns" for weirdness (followed up by an image truly nausea-inducing, if one thinks too hard about it). Either track would be a fine benchmark for Eno's playful perversity, most of which he--perhaps sadly--seems to have gotten out of his system, ultimately. Except for the odd bits of oddness on Side A of Before and After Science: the luxuriant wordplay of "Backwater" and the 'pataphysical madness of "King's Lead Hat". (These tendencies would crop up on My Squelchy Life, but only occasionally. An opinion based, of course, on those few tracks which ever saw legitimate release.)

    My knowledge of world history being neither deep nor wide, nevertheless I've noticed how Eno enjoyed making obscure references to pre-Modern Europe on Taking Tiger Mountain. There's the prominence of Limbourg, a city (located in what's now Belgium) of little significance today, but which once had been a great fortress. Intended, perhaps, to underscore the Fat Lady's faded ties with royalty. In a similar vein, Eno's protagonist of "Mother Whale Eyeless"--in yet another unlikely image--finds himself "plugging holes in the Zuider Zee." That body of water (spangled with zeds!)--once prominent in the map of the Netherlands--has vanished. This changeable (not to say "fluid") feature of the Dutch landscape is kept alive in memory by the Zuiderzee Museum (and by Eno's song).

    foreverdroneon January 17, 2011   Link

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