This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
It's Saturday night, it feels like a Sunday in some ways
If you had any sense, you'd maybe go away for a few days
Be that as it may, you can only say you are lonely
You are but a young girl working your way through the phonies
Cafe on, milk gone, such a sad light and fading.
Yourself you touch, but not too much.
You hear it's degrading.
The flowers on your stockings wilting away in the midnight
The book you are reading is someone's opinion of moonlight
Your skin is so white, you'd like maybe to go to bed soon
Just closing your eyes if you're to rise up before noon
High heels, car wheels, all the losers are groovin'
Your dream, strange scene, images are movin'
Your friends they are making a pop star or two every evening
You know that scene backwards, they can't see the patterns they're weaving
Your friends they're all models but you soon got over that one
You sit in your one room a little brought down in London
Cafe on, milk gone, such a sad light and fading.
Yourself you touch, but not too much.
You hear it's degrading.
It's Saturday night, it feels like a Sunday in some ways
If you had any sense, you'd maybe go away for a few days
Be that as it may, you can only say you are lonely
You are but a young girl working your way through the phonies.
If you had any sense, you'd maybe go away for a few days
Be that as it may, you can only say you are lonely
You are but a young girl working your way through the phonies
Cafe on, milk gone, such a sad light and fading.
Yourself you touch, but not too much.
You hear it's degrading.
The flowers on your stockings wilting away in the midnight
The book you are reading is someone's opinion of moonlight
Your skin is so white, you'd like maybe to go to bed soon
Just closing your eyes if you're to rise up before noon
High heels, car wheels, all the losers are groovin'
Your dream, strange scene, images are movin'
Your friends they are making a pop star or two every evening
You know that scene backwards, they can't see the patterns they're weaving
Your friends they're all models but you soon got over that one
You sit in your one room a little brought down in London
Cafe on, milk gone, such a sad light and fading.
Yourself you touch, but not too much.
You hear it's degrading.
It's Saturday night, it feels like a Sunday in some ways
If you had any sense, you'd maybe go away for a few days
Be that as it may, you can only say you are lonely
You are but a young girl working your way through the phonies.
Lyrics submitted by MistyMadness
Young Girl Blues Lyrics as written by Donovan Leitch
Lyrics © Peermusic Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I don't know the actual story behind the song, but there's so much to be interpreted.
To me this song speaks of an empty existence, fueled by drugs and suchlike. When he says "You hear it's degrading" I don't think this means humiliation degrading, more degrading like milk degrading, makes for a lower quality product. Because this girl is thought of (and thinks of herself) as a product, not a human with a soul.
This is my favorite Donovan song ever.
Marianne Faithfull did a cover of this song. and i know she didn't write the lyrics but when she sings this song in first person it's as if he wrote the song for or about her and the scene and the people in the scene that she was surrounded by (sixties london). Marianne became a drug addict living in the streets in the 70's but started to become so in the late 60's.
Yourself you touch, but not too much, You hear it�s degrading.
Your friends, they are making a popstar or two every evening. -the musician scene, where every second person tends to have their 15 minutes of fame. You know that scene backwards, they can�t see the patterns they�re weaving.- Marianne was sick of the scene, noticed the roads that people took during their time in the scene. like a circle/pattern. Your friends, they are models, but you soon got over that one. -the beautiful women, anita pallenberg. Marianne was conscious yet sucked her insecurities up and got over it. You sit in your one room, a little brought down in London. - she was a really lonely person and spent a lot of time in various small london apartments.
I feel that the song is about being a drug addict in a typical musicians scene.
If you have read Marianne's biography 'Faithfull' you will understand this song, utterly and completely.
Great song. According to Donovan's autobiography, "'Young Girl Blues' is [Linda Lawrence's] disillusionment as a model in Los Angeles." So I guess that's settled.
But boy howdy, as Anaivy noted, Marianne Faithfull covered YGB with such a delicate yet bleak knowingness, she made it her own. Donovan might as well have written it for her.
Not without reason, people tend to dismiss Donovan as a hippie minstrel, but he could write with keen insight as well. This is one of his best.
By all means, look up the Marianne Faithfull version.