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Watching Alice Lyrics
Alice wakes
It is morning
She is yawning
As she walks about the room
Her hair falls down her breast
She is naked and it is June
Standing at the window
I wonder if she knows that I can see
Watching Alice rise year after year
Up in her palace, she's captive there
Alice's body
Is golden brown
Her hair hangs down
As she stoops to conquer me
First she pulls her stocking on
And then the church bell chimes
Alice climbes into her uniform
The zippers on the side
Watching Alice dressing in her room
It's so depressing, it's cruel
Watching Alice dressing in her room
It's so depressing, it's true
It is morning
She is yawning
As she walks about the room
Her hair falls down her breast
She is naked and it is June
I wonder if she knows that I can see
Up in her palace, she's captive there
Is golden brown
Her hair hangs down
As she stoops to conquer me
First she pulls her stocking on
And then the church bell chimes
Alice climbes into her uniform
The zippers on the side
Watching Alice dressing in her room
It's so depressing, it's cruel
It's so depressing, it's true
Song Info
Submitted by
dressed2depress On Jun 26, 2006
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I laugh when people think that it's actually him in the narrators position. I laugh a lot.
Err, I'm not sure where these lyrics are from, but in my version of the song "her hair hangs down" is clearly followed by "as she brushes it one hundred times."
Coincidentally, that's the line that made me think Alice was supposed to be a princess of some sort (or at least the voiyeur sees her as such). I read somewhere that princesses are supposed to brush their hair a hundred times each day.
I think this song is about Lewis Carroll, author of 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'. His Alice character was widely believed to be based on Alice Liddell, a young girl who Carroll was friends with and who he is believed to have had a romantic or sexual attraction to. The song seems to be from Carroll's point of view, watching his beloved Alice but knowing that the fact she is a child will keep them apart, hence "Watching Alice dressing in her room, It's so depressing, it's cruel".
For more great music inspired by Lewis Carroll's relationship with Alice Liddell, try Tom Waits' brilliant album 'Alice'.
the strange reference to "uniform with zippers" makes me doubt your version. this uniform sounds to me very frightening and in some sense dischord to "brushing her hair 100 times", as if something nice looking turned out to be completely wrong, misleading, shameful. but what??? i have no idea.
the strange reference to "uniform with zippers" makes me doubt your version. this uniform sounds to me very frightening and in some sense dischord to "brushing her hair 100 times", as if something nice looking turned out to be completely wrong, misleading, shameful. but what??? i have no idea.
Uh, I don't it's about Alice Liddell.
''Her hair falls down her breast''
Alice had short hair, and didn't have any breasts (she was a child at the time Lewis Carroll was supposedly in love with her).
She was also pale white, so her body wasn't golden brown.
I agree with you. By the way, zippers were not invented until 1913, and Alice Liddell was born in 1852. Nick Cave would not have slipped such a mistake. My guess, she's a girl in some catholic boarding school or such.
I agree with you. By the way, zippers were not invented until 1913, and Alice Liddell was born in 1852. Nick Cave would not have slipped such a mistake. My guess, she's a girl in some catholic boarding school or such.
always was wondering about this song. till today I am not quite sure who alice was. i don't know why, I thought maybe a nun. any ideas?
I gotta say, Nick Cave is a creep - plain and simple. A weird stalking, voyeuristic creepazoid - ahh but i love it!
I like madmanmunt's assertion that this could be Alice Liddell, which i never thought of. I also agree that Tom Wait's album Alice is brilliant - because it is.
I was about to type that however, i didn't know why Alice Liddell would be a nurse - and then i realized that i added that part myself - for years - in my head. The uniform could be a school girl uniform, and i simply had just pictured her as being a nurse for some reason, weird.
So yeah, i don't see why it couldn't be - seems like an interesting take on it. A bit more creepy now - i was always attracted to Alice (maybe cause i thought she was a nurse) and now that she could be a child that's gone for me. Thanks a lot pal!
I gotta say, Nick Cave is a creep - plain and simple. A weird stalking, voyeuristic creepazoid - ahh but i love it!
I like madmanmunt's assertion that this could be Alice Liddell, which i never thought of. I also agree that Tom Wait's album Alice is brilliant - because it is.
I was about to type that however, i didn't know why Alice Liddell would be a nurse - and then i realized that i added that part myself - for years - in my head. The uniform could be a school girl uniform, and i simply had just pictured her as being a nurse for some reason, weird.
So yeah, i don't see why it couldn't be - seems like an interesting take on it. A bit more creepy now - i was always attracted to Alice (maybe cause i thought she was a nurse) and now that she could be a child that's gone for me. Thanks a lot pal!
about a man who has watched this woam for years, its more than stalking, she'a apart of his life, without her knowing it an infatuation whats zippers on the side though? i always thought she was a stripper or something, but thats just my crazy mind haha
"its so depressing its true...."
While I do appreciate the theories about this being about Lewis Carol and Alice Liddell, I think perhaps Nick is just using their names to draw on the ideas of a forbidden kind of love.
The song itself is ambiguous as to who the stalker or Alice is, though the fact that they are separated suggests some kind of forbidden love. The last lines of the song imply that the stalker knows he cannot have this woman, hence why watching her dress is so depressing.
This song really captures desire for the unattainable, and by putting us in the perspective of the stalker, we not only sympathise, but can relate to him, since everyone has craved something that they can't have at one time or another.
This song is about heroin.