Oh No Not Susan

I entered the lyrics as they appear in the album notes. However, they aren't quite accurate: the line "They just don't mean a thing" is, in the actual recording: "They just don't mean a f***ing thing." Jeff Lynne (the writer and lead singer) has remarked that he's rather surprised that this lyric made it past the BBC censors.

Basically to me, it seems as though. The girl is sick of her life, and the falsities associated with it. "Look at her style -- free the day", here she is sneaking away from the "lions on the Garden wall" associated with keeping her locked into her world, the symbol of her wealth, to "free the day" from the pomposity associated with meeting with the "lords and dukes of everywhere", whom she detestes: "Smiling kissing wishing that they'd go to hell". It seems as though because she is wealthhy, she is trying to be paired off with someone she doesn't love and whom doesn't love her "Oh no not me -- I wouldn't Oh no not me -- I couldn't", and it is part of the reason she loathes her wealth. Perhaps, its an indication of Jeff's growing fame and fortune and people seemingly only caring about his wealth, and not himself and wishing he were back in the days before it all. Or maybe, I'm jsut over-analysing a fantastic song.

I always thought that Susan, the main character of the song, is considering suicide. Despite her wealth, she is miserable, but when thinking of suicide, she decided that she "wouldn't," that she "couldn't."

I have always thought that its about a woman who "has it all, ' but no matter what she has she's still unhappy and for some reason has something unfulfilled