Yeah, I assume since she can’t afford chairs, she probably can’t afford a whole house. Spends all her money on wine.
Since I first heard the song as a little kid (10yo or so) I’ve pictured it as a treehouse of sorts. A treehouse with a fireplace, no less. It makes no sense, but I still do.
beatlesbible has a quote via Many Years From Now, Barry Miles where Paul takes quite a bit more credit for the song, from co-writing the middle-eight to the fire:
I came in and he had this first stanza, which was brilliant: ‘I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.’ That was all he had, no title, no nothing. I said, ‘Oh yes, well, ha, we’re there.’ And it wrote itself. Once you’ve got the great idea, they do tend to write themselves, providing you know how to write songs. So I picked it up at the second verse, it’s a story. It’s him trying to pull a bird, it was about an affair. John told Playboy that he hadn’t the faintest idea where the title came from but I do. Peter Asher had his room done out in wood, a lot of people were decorating their places in wood. Norwegian wood. It was pine really, cheap pine. But it’s not as good a title, ‘Cheap Pine’, baby…
So she makes him sleep in the bath and then finally in the last verse I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as revenge, so we did it very tongue in cheek. She led him on, then said, ‘You’d better sleep in the bath’. In our world the guy had to have some sort of revenge. It could have meant I lit a fire to keep myself warm, and wasn’t the decor of her house wonderful? But it didn’t, it meant I burned the fucking place down as an act of revenge, and then we left it there and went into the instrumental.
Why would everyone assume he burned down her house/flat? I mean, isn’t that a bit much? I mean, Maxwell Edison was an obvious psycho, but it was explicit. Of course Maxwell murdered all those people.
The singer in Norwegian Wood is describing a 60s pickup where the girl led him on and either a) was just messing with him and never wanted to sleep with him, or more likely b) was annoyed the guy wasn’t interested/picking up on her obvious signals.
He pronbably, of course, being a guy, thinks he was the wronged party. And he was only smoking her pot, not her furniture.
I always thought it a “John” song and that his character really did just dig the decor and stoked up the never-before mentioned fireplace to keep warm and hang a while or for the day or whatever.
The only thing I knew was that it was the first Beatle song (Yardbirds and Kinks had already used if not exactly feature it) that had a real up-front sitar. The Beatles had a couple songs with sitar-ish music but supposedly George picked this one up cheap at some music store on Oxford Street in London, apparently when a guy keeping just 5% of his gross income could buy cheap stuff on Oxford Street. As the UK doesn’t yet tax the street or your feet, all I can afford on that block is a walk.
John had previously said the song was all his (more plausible on the post-Revolver albums) yet in Paul’s quote above I don’t think he’s just “having a go” with Barry Miles.
John, no doubt, would (and likely did) absolutely enjoy the ambiguous ending and if he were alive today wouldn’t “give way” (Brtish for yield) half the credit for the song that Paul kinda plausibly claims.
And to this day were John alive it’d still be keft to your interpretation if “John” appreciated the decor and lit a fire or “burned the fucking place down as an act of revenge”. After all the Beatles were trying to be Dylan-esque and half if not more of Dylan’s songs are anbiguous.
My two primary reasons for thinking he burned the place down:
“Isn’t it good, Norwegian wood” is a bit of a non-sequitur if it follows “I lit a fire in the fireplace”. The title, again according to Paul, refers to cheap pine paneling. “I lit a fire in the fire place. Look! Walls!”. I can sort of see it referring to lighting up a joint “have you ever really looked walls, man?”, but “I set those walls on fire” just makes the most sense in terms of narrative flow.
Second, it’s just a better story. “I went home with a girl. We didn’t have sex. Next day I enjoyed a fire in the fireplace.” Scintillating stuff.
Plus she didn’t have chairs. Who hangs around all day if there’s nowhere to sit?
But why would you burn down a stranger’s flat (and if it was a flat, every other apartment in the building) because you were too… self-absorbed, delusional, stupid, clueless… to have sex with a willing hottie?
i mean, there’s jerk, and then there’s certifiable. No matter how mad I was at a woman for leading me on, I’m not going to hurt her.
It was a record intended for airplay in 1965. The text is clearly intended to convey a fire in a fireplace or wood burning stove. But you can argue about the subtext all day long.
You’ve answered your own question.
Incel magic.
But in real life, it isn’t like he could get away with it.
Real life usually makes pretty boring songs.
I always assumed they had sex and the lyrics were being coy about the whole affair. I don’t think we are supposed to seriously think he slept in the bath.
I do still get the impression that he is disappointed that it was just a one night thing.
Well yeah, but I’ve always considered it as sort of a murder ballad. Not in the sense that anyone was literally killed, but it shares a lot of the same elements.
Some but certainly not all “apartment houses” in the UK have some form of firewalls. By law every room/flat has its own smoke & fire detectors that will alert the floor or maybe the whole place.
If we’re going with “John the pissed-off arsonist out for revenge” he couldn’t give a fuck about that. This is a psychopath. Oddly, in Paul’s quote he also doesn’t seem concerned with neighbours and I believe John and Paul at least grew up in various houses. “She showed me her room” vs “showed me her house” does make a difference. I dunno about his “In our world…” quote we fuck shit up and don’t care. is this “The Warriors”
There is no fireplace mentioned. If one existed and this were the real world, "I lit fire and she poured us some wine. There was no Ikea or chairs so the decor was cheap. We talked for (apparently some hours so one would assume a couple bottles) and she said “it;s time for bed” which every real “John” would be all about fuck Cynthia (Lennon) and 'ave a go with this bird yet this “John” takes as “I’m a loser” and crawls off to sleep in the bath. (The song is supposed to be a veiled attempt about how John the Lennon was having an affair(s) but didn’t want his wife to know.
I reckon that Loser John might smoke a joint and if there was a fireplace light that up and enjoy the cheap decor and would stay there till she returned home and booted him out (she’s certainly be out of wine).
As I said before, if this were a Dylan song he’d not have say anything as much whatever Paul was on about at the time.
It might be a safe bet that every poster in this thread has given more thought to this song than Lennon ever did.
There are many here amongst us, who feel that life is but a joke
- Bob Dylan
“[4th Time Around](From - Wikipedia the wiki: 4th_Time_Around)”
When the Beatles released their sixth studio album, Rubber Soul, in December 1965, John Lennon’s song “Norwegian Wood” attracted attention for the way Lennon disguised his account of an illicit affair in cryptic, Dylanesque language.[87] Dylan sketched out a response to the song, also in 3/4 time, copying the tune and circular structure, but taking Lennon’s tale in a darker direction.[87] Wilentz describes the result as sounding “like Bob Dylan impersonating John Lennon impersonating Bob Dylan”.[29]
The lead acoustic sounds like a mandolin tuned to sounding like a sitar too (wiki says guitar). This “bob dylan” is not a nice guy. She screams at you and she dies, time to fill up on her stuff,"
My point about Dylan is how rarely he talks about the meaning of his lyrics. If he talks at all. Hey what’s all that book of Isaiah stuff in “Visions of Johanna” all about? Rainy Day Women 12 & 35? There’s no women, just talk about getting stoned?
Hey John, heard “Norwegian Wood” from Rubber Soul. Check out my song, A few differences: No cheap decor, wine, sitting on rugs or sleeping in baths or fire. And it has fuck-all to do with Paul McCartney - rgds B.D.
You mean you didn’t try to overthink it?