DR. HOOK: Cover to Cover

"The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" is a song by American poet and songwriter Shel Silverstein. It was originally recorded by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, with the name spelled "Jordon".

The song describes the disillusionment and mental deterioration of a suburban housewife, who climbs to a rooftop "when the laughter grew too loud".

The song charted in the USA on October 19, 1974, reaching #109 in the Record World chart and spending 15 weeks bubbling under the top 100.

Here's Dennis (Locorriere) on lead.

“The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” was covered by the British singer Marianne Faithfull for her 1979 album Broken English. It was also released as a single in October 1979, and became one of  her highest-charting songs. It is featured on the soundtracks to the films Montenegro, Tarnation and Thelma & Louise.

In an interview on ITV's The South Bank Show, aired on 24 June 2007, Faithfull said that her interpretation was that Lucy climbs to the rooftop but gets taken away by "the man who reached and offered her his hand" in an ambulance ("long white car") to a mental hospital, and that the final lines ("At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever / As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair ...") are actually in her imagination at the hospital.

Here's Marianne with her version of the song:

Thanks for listening. See you next time.

(The information used in this post is from Wikipedia.)

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