Know something about this song or lyrics?
Add it to our wiki.
All your women things
All your frilly things
Scattered 'round my room
Right where you left them
When you left them
Scattered 'round my room
All your hardness
All your softness
And your mercy
All your bridges and bras
Your cotton
and gauze
All your buckles and straps
Releases and traps
All your screws
and false nails
Oriental winks
and Egyptian veils
Oh all of these things
I gathered them
And I made a dolly
I made a dolly
A spread-eagle dolly
Out of your frilly things
Why couldn't I have loved you
This tenderly
When you were here
In the flesh
So tenderly
How could I ignore
Your left breast
Your right breast
How could I ignore
Your hardness
Your softness
And your mercy
Well it's been seven years
And the thought of your name
Still makes me
Weak in the knees
How could I ignore
Your left breast
Your right breast
All your frilly things
Scattered 'round my room
Right where you left them
When you left them
Scattered 'round my room
All your hardness
All your softness
And your mercy
All your bridges and bras
Your cotton
and gauze
All your buckles and straps
Releases and traps
All your screws
and false nails
Oriental winks
and Egyptian veils
Oh all of these things
I gathered them
And I made a dolly
I made a dolly
A spread-eagle dolly
Out of your frilly things
Why couldn't I have loved you
This tenderly
When you were here
In the flesh
So tenderly
How could I ignore
Your left breast
Your right breast
How could I ignore
Your hardness
Your softness
And your mercy
Well it's been seven years
And the thought of your name
Still makes me
Weak in the knees
How could I ignore
Your left breast
Your right breast
Lyrics submitted by ilse
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
This tenderly"
-This- tenderly, as in: as tenderly as he's loving the doll. The 'spread-eagle dolly.' Just making sure it's clear to everyone else that he gathered her woman-things and made a 'sex doll,' if you will, out of it all.
i don't care who the song's about. i like that it's been seven years, and just her name still affects him. maybe i just like my misery to last. people seem to get over things so fast ;) whenever i listen to this song, it makes me really sad -- just thinking of the way i didn't love, what i didn't notice, how i didn't appreciate enough... when i had the chance to. we never really do, i don't think.
joanna newsom's song "does not suffice" often seems to be the response to smog's "all your women things". they both describe the clothes left around his room. as well, on her songmeanings page, zortmuckerman commented that the lyrics to Does Not Suffice "seem like an interesting counterpoint that has Joanna picking up all her clothes and leaving him to be with himself."
I have an image of Joanna's silky things casually strewn all over Bill Callahan's dark room which is really quite comedic. which is why I think it is symbolic more than it is literal. it makes sense that whoever this woman was, her memory would stay in his room.
but, if it in fact Joanna Newsom and the Does Not Suffice theory is true, it is nice that she wrote him a response in the form of an equally heartbreaking song.
from 1993-1995 bill dated mtv vj kennedy, so the song could be about her.