6 Meanings
Add Yours
Follow
Share
Q&A
The Modern Dance Lyrics
Down to the bus
into the town
our poor boy can't get around
Eight fifty-five
down at the show
she leaves early
He'll never know
Cuz our poor boy
believes in chance
he'll never get the modern dance
Under the door there's an eye on the place
He watches for the shadows race
Watch real close
Look real fast
He's in touch
It'll never last
Cuz our poor boy
believes in chance
he'll never get the modern dance
into the town
our poor boy can't get around
Eight fifty-five
down at the show
she leaves early
He'll never know
Cuz our poor boy
believes in chance
he'll never get the modern dance
He watches for the shadows race
Watch real close
Look real fast
He's in touch
It'll never last
Cuz our poor boy
believes in chance
he'll never get the modern dance
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
mandra mandra!
Well, Cool song.
He's saying "merdre merdre" ("merde" roughly means "shit" in the various romantic languages). "Merdre" is also the first line in the play "Ubu Roi," from which the band took their name.
I don't think it could be about anything other than sex. Of course, I am probably wrong.
palemovie, you're half right- in Jarry's play Pere Ubu mispronounces "merdre" by actually sounding the "-re", giving you this untranslatable slang- sometimes it's translated as "shit-rrr". Making things even more confusing is Dave Thomas' lovable way of mumbling and garbling words- I've known French since childhood, and been a longtime Ubu fan, and it took me some work to figure out that he wasn't saying "mandra mandra"
oh, and not to be a pedant, but the word for shit is different in other Romance languages.
Favorite version, titled or Untitled? The needling guitar in the untitled version seems to convey the proper paranoia, but lacks the "mandra Mandra" chorus.... I love both versions, just wish I could insert the guitar from Untitled into The Modern Dance.