The Babysitter's Here Lyrics
She taught us the sign for peace.
Now She's made us some popcorn,
We've turned out the lights and we're watching movies
And I don't understand and she tries to explain
How a spaceship is riding through somebody's brain
And their blood and guts and eww
She sits on her hair
And she's tall as my dad
And she tie-died my shirt,
And pierced her own ear
And it's peace, man, cool, yeah, the babysitter's here
He wears an American flag on the butt of his ripped up pants
And will they get married with kids of their own?
He says "Not if she's going to college they won't,"
And he kisses her, oh
She sits on her hair and she's tall as my dad
And she got mad at dinner when Tom drank a beer
But peace man, cool, hey, the babysitter's here
We made her a big card
And she told us that she'd be the unicorn wearing the pink leotard
And there she was leaping up just like she said,
With a sparking horn coming out of her head
And she's oh...oh oh uh oh
I can't sleep, and we're watching the news
She says, "Do me a favor,
Don't go with a guy who will make you choose,"
And I don't understand, and she tries to explain
And all that mascara runs down in her pain
Cause she's leaving me, oh
You sit on your hair
And you're tall as my dad
And I'll make you a big card for college next year
So hush now, sleep, yeah, the babysitter's here.
The best babysitter's here.
This song was my favourite song about 8 years ago when i was about 8 - the age of the girl in the song, i imagined! It got through to me cos i had a close relationship with my babysitter i think. Anyway last year I wanted to hear the song again but i couldn't find it so my Mum bought me Dar's album and I've been hooked ever since, and this song is still one of my favourites. It wasn't until this time round that I heard it that I really understood the song though. I think its about irony: the little girl has this great relationship with the babysitter and perceives the babysitter to have a great relationship with her boyfriend. When the boyfriend makes the Babysitter choose between college and him, the Babysitter gets upset and tries to explain to the girl why. The irony comes where the child has said earlier that she wants a boyfriend just like "Tom", and that she thinks that the Babysitter is upset because she's leaving to go to college and she doesn't understand that the "perfect" boyfriend has made her babysitter choose between him and going to college. The innocence Dar creates in this song is really moving and it gets to me everytime.
Dar has the ability to capture childhood innocence so well. The song is sad though....the babysitter has to grow up and go to college, and leave you.
i heard this song in a jewlery store in New Orleans and it struck me so much when i came home i had to find it. It's telling the story of the babysitter from the little girl's point of view. The little girl sees her babysitter in this great relationship with this wonderful guy, but what she doesnt see is that "wonderful" guy was making his girlfriend choose either him or college. the babysitter was crying because she broke up with said boyfriend to pursue what she really wanted...does that make sense? it's a really sweet song. it makes me cry like every time i hear it.
I'm torn. In one way I can see what Desaparecida is saying, though I have another idea. That the babysitter, though liberal, loved being innocent and babysitting with children. Her boyfriend wants her to go to college, to become one of the liberal free women that aren't little housewives. Though she really wants that old style wife's life she is so swept up by the woman's movement that she does what is supposed to be right and chooses freedom even though she still wants a family life instead.
I think you've got it turned around. Tom doesn't want her to go to college--if she chooses school, he won't marry her. She asks Dar/the child not to "go with a guy who will make you choose", which suggests that the babysitter wants both school and Tom/marriage. Tom is the obstacle.
I think you've got it turned around. Tom doesn't want her to go to college--if she chooses school, he won't marry her. She asks Dar/the child not to "go with a guy who will make you choose", which suggests that the babysitter wants both school and Tom/marriage. Tom is the obstacle.
For me, there are two ways of seeing this song, and both are interesting although one is less universal than the other.
For me, there are two ways of seeing this song, and both are interesting although one is less universal than the other.
One: Choices in relationships, and what love means. If Tom loved her, he would encourage her to go to school and not...
One: Choices in relationships, and what love means. If Tom loved her, he would encourage her to go to school and not force a choice between "love" and education/self-improvement. This would be an easy decision for me--I'd tell Tom to stuff it--but I'm 20 years older than the babysitter and decisions like this seem less dire when you're well into your thirties in the 2010's than they must have when you were a young girl in the early 1970's.
Two: Women in the "liberated" 1970's. For all the talk of love and freedom and equality, the hippie movement often didn't do very well by minorities and women. Tom is at least a wannabe radical who wears a flag on his pants, but he still expects his girlfriend to do as he says and give up her own aspirations for him.
I always like this song much better than I expect to. It seems as if it will be a cutesy song about a kid and her favorite babysitter, but then it gets complex and kind of dark, but without becoming pretentious. The lyrics are amazingly economical: It tells the listener a lot with only a few words.
I see Desaparecida's point more than VampedVixen, because I think that if she wanted a family she would understand that it's possible to have an education first, while trying to be a mother and a student is near impossible.
I love the way it's a sad love story without being whiny or despairing- since it's from this innocent little girl's point of view, she doesn't see how the relationship's falling apart. I think VampedVixen's got it wrong- the boyfriend doesn't want the babysitter to go to college, he wants her to get married & settle down. I will never "go with a boy who would make you choose". I want to get married and have a family, AFTER art school.
My favorite line, and I think one of Dar's best, She says do me a favor don't go with a guy who would make you choose and I don't understand and she tries to explain And all that mascara runs down in her pain
So perfectly captures the struggle so many people face in making decisions. You feel the tug toward the known, but want to explore and expand your horizons. I feel like 30 years ago, many people didn't see a point in a woman going to college if she was to end up a housewife anyway.
Dar brings a lot of humor to this live with her expression and childlike affectation.
"I can't wait to give her the card. I can't wait to give her the card."
Here's how I see it. This girl loves her babysitter, sort of a hippy babysitter. (which is not in anyway a bad thing.) She has a boyfriend named Tom, and she thinks he is really cool too. He says they are only getting married if she stays home and doesn't go to college. So, she is faced with the choice: stay home with Tom, or be an independent woman and go to college. She decides to go to college. I love the line "And all that mascara runs down in her pain cause she's leaving me" She's crying because she thought she really loved Tom.
Just a little comment about an allusion from the song - the movie they're [probably] watching on tv is called Fantastic Voyage, "a 1966 American science-fiction film directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. The film is about a submarine crew who are shrunk to microscopic size and venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain." [source: Wikipedia]