PJ Harvey – 50ft Queenie

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  General Comment:My take on the song is that this is Polly using male type sex trash talk to point out just how funny it is. The claim is that Polly is not only as good as the boys but better, and always will be. In terms of the lyric, better equals larger, hence the "arms" race twenty, thirty, forty - no fifty inches long!
  
  At the time I remember the song getting some air play and being a little shocked that she got away with bend over Cassanova... I can only assume the male sensors were oblivious.
  
  What I don't see addressed here - and it's the part I really don't know... Who or what is a Queenie and does extreme size matter to a queenie?

  Flag PBAon June 16, 2012   Link

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  General Comment:I've always taken the gender bending here not to be as simple as her having a huge cock, but a transferrance of the kind of language with which the anxious male appendage is validated through (size, mainly, but also fertility). My reason for this thinking is the term queenie, which is the name given to the queen scallop in the British Isles ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… ). Clams and fannies have certainly enough in common for an extended metaphor. Fannies in the British sense, of course.
  
  Anyway, yeah, I think to take this as her having a huge cock sort of misses the point that she is comically appropriating the exaggerated language men have used for their tackle to make a stronger point that she feels her ladyparts are no less strong and formidable: that they aren't a nothing to the man's something. And I think this because of bivalve molluscs. And also because it's funny to think of a 50ft fanny. Feel free to disagree!
  

  Flag ornotwhateveron September 09, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:To me she was a female Kurt Cobain at the time. She proved eventually that she was way beyond that.
  To me the song is simple, its a dude bragging about his manhood and she is aping that. Her first 2 albums are directed at men being egoist dickheads who think with there mansize, women are just objects and harvest alot of pain trying to weed through them.

  Flag PappyHabon May 13, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:It's - "I'm number one" not "i'm your new one".
  
  

  Flag fishbellyfaceon April 20, 2010   Link

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    Hi, most of the sexual role reversal that saturates ROM is covered pretty well in the thread on Man-size, which is two songs before on the ROM album.
    
    Also note the cover of the 4 EP album, deliberately sexualised, where 50ft also appears.
    
    Also queenie = effeminate male
    

    Flag Ais4Alexon June 15, 2010  
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  General Comment:I love that with every verse the claims get wilder and more extreme - "I'm twenty inches long... no, make that thirty... forty and still rising!!!" etc.

  Flag morethanadreamon August 10, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:maybe she's using a cock as a metaphor or symbol for ego. maybe this song is just about having a huge arse ego whether male of female.

  Flag Death_Is_Hereditaryon June 03, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:i love the line ... " you bend over Cassanova"
  did anyone else get a chuckle out of this one?
  she says
  "no sweat, im clean, nothing can touch me"
  gay sex was/is associated with AIDS. is she making referance?
  
  I love this song to death (thus my name on here)
  It screams "I am who I am and I am the shit... no matter what!" A song of pride.
  The main character in the song is every gender. ha.
  i like that too : ))
  
  PJ is just... a goddess. nothing more to it

  Flag forcetenhurricaneon October 04, 2007   Link

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    "bend over, Casanova" is a fucking great rhyme, and worth a good guffaw
    
    'cuz with a lot of songs on the Rid of Me LP, P J takes on a male persona--4 exaggerating gender role behavior & expectations--which would make the dominator-man-to-man rape implications dead-on target, uh, so to speak.
    
    not gay! not at all. that would imply male-to-male intimacy and love. here we have instead: comparing/measuring/boasting of size, seeking dominance. meaning: others must submit!

    Flag foreverdroneon February 13, 2011  
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  General Comment:I completely agree, my artsy slutty comrade. And when they're not intimidated by her, they don't feel she's of any relevance she's not featured on TRL or somesuch.
  
  I once attempted to introduce one of my younger cousins to PJ, only to within a couple minutes get a wince, "this is weird", and her attempt to then convert me to worship of the alleged greatness that is Creed. She's now dead to me.
  
  Seriously though, all hail Ms Harvey.

  Flag Rachel Summerson August 12, 2007   Link

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  General Comment:Kyomara, I definitely think the gender bending means something, but not like she's a closet tranny or anything (not saying that's what you were implying). I just htink she is trying to break down gender barriers. With her great big cock. :D
  
  I find it completely unforgivable that PJ isn't touted as one of the most impotant artists of her genre (whatever pigeonhole you'd like to shove her in). She is, of course, and I fully believe that it's because she doesn't have a great big cock. If a man had written these very same songs, he'd be hailed as a god.
  
  I can't believe that this song has been posted for over 5 years and I'm only the 4th to comment on it. And perusing the rest of her songs, no song has more than 19 comments....
  
  People are intimidated by her, I think.

  Flag artsluton April 17, 2007   Link

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  General Comment:this song means nothing to me, i cant see how it could, all i know is that she is the best, shrieking, to manly type howls

  Flag hoitsmithon August 23, 2006   Link

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