| Belle & Sebastian – Lazy Line Painter Jane Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Let me see if I can assemble the pieces here. Jane works in a shop in a small town. She wants to get out. She has been having sex with strangers while riding on intercity buses. - "You will have a boy tonight" means you will "possess" him sexually. OR she has been having sex with the first man she meets ("the first bus out of town"), i.e. the first person who will take her away from her parents, the first person who will give her a place to stay or some money. But in contrast to some other girl she knows, Jane is doing this for free. The other girl is "tax free, on her back", i.e. having sex for cash. But Jane is doing it "for the joy of giving". "And you hope that she will see" seems to refer to this other girl. Maybe Jane is competing with her, or maybe trying to prove that she (Jane) is totally suicidal in terms of being willing to "do" any guy anonymously and for free. (Competing with the other girl in terms of who is most desperate, who is the most tragic.) In the recorded version this line mutates into "you hope that they will see" - which could refer to the whole world - teenagers often regard the whole world as their stage - if they make a suicide attempt for example they might think "I'll show them." (And teenage prostitution can be kind of similar to a suicide attempt or self-harm of some kind.) "Let's see your kit for games, all the girls look the same" - this sounds like a line some boy might say to her if he wanted her to take off her clothes. "Your kit" - could be her tits (as in "rack"), or could be the other kit down below. "You're running miles in some boy's jumper" could refer to having vigorous sex, e.g. expending the same effort as if she was running miles, but while remaining stationary. For instance she could be standing in the street, having slipped under the boy's jumper so they can be skin-to-skin. Jane got a dose of thrush (oral yeast infection) from sucking d**k ("licking railings"), and she is debating telling her mother about this. But she got a free booklet at the chain drugstore "Boots" that says there are pharmaceutical products she can buy that would get rid of the rash, and that way nobody would know. Another dirty/innocent ballad from Belle and Sebastian. What are we to make of the social reality behind this charming but degenerate song? |
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