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Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
The King of Marigold was in the kitchen
Cooking breakfast for the Queen
The Queen was in the parlor
Playing piano for the children of the King.
Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
So cry baby cry.
The King was in the garden
Picking flowers for a friend who came to play
The Queen was in the playroom
Painting pictures for the children's holiday.
Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
So cry baby cry.
The Dutchess of Kircaldy always smiling
And arriving late for tea
The Duke was having problems
With a message at the local Bird and Bee.
Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
So cry baby cry.
At twelve o'clock a meeting round the table
For a seance in the dark
With voices out of nowhere
Put on specially by the children for a lark.
Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
So cry baby cry cry cry cry baby
Make your mother sigh.
She's old enough to know better
Cry baby cry
Cry cry cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
So cry baby cry.
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
The King of Marigold was in the kitchen
Cooking breakfast for the Queen
The Queen was in the parlor
Playing piano for the children of the King.
Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
So cry baby cry.
The King was in the garden
Picking flowers for a friend who came to play
The Queen was in the playroom
Painting pictures for the children's holiday.
Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
So cry baby cry.
The Dutchess of Kircaldy always smiling
And arriving late for tea
The Duke was having problems
With a message at the local Bird and Bee.
Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
So cry baby cry.
At twelve o'clock a meeting round the table
For a seance in the dark
With voices out of nowhere
Put on specially by the children for a lark.
Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
So cry baby cry cry cry cry baby
Make your mother sigh.
She's old enough to know better
Cry baby cry
Cry cry cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better.
So cry baby cry.
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the king of Marigold is having an affair
with the duchess of Kircaldy.
there is a distance between the king and the queen,
who are a married couple who have children,
the queen attends to them
while the king is picking flowers for a friend (duchess)
duke at bird and bee...alludes to the underlying affair theme.
the chorus is not a literal baby,
the singer (king?) is singing to the queen,
"cry baby (queen) cry
make your mother sigh (the grandmother)
you're old enough to know better (these are the ways of the world)
cry baby (queen) cry"
ending verse....
adults looking for answers
interrupted by children
underlying sense of absurdness,
what's the point of life?
just some suggestions.... :)
As you know, "Cry baby..." appeared on the White Album, which was released late in 1968. As you may also know, this was around the time that the use of LSD (and other similar drugs) was probably at its peak in England and in the USA. The story which I personally heard about the meaning of this song was related to the belief among many at the time that taking LSD while pregnant could potentially cause a baby to be born with a variety of mental or physical defects of an unspecified nature. The words "make your mother sigh, she's old enough to know better" suggest that - in spite of the warnings, the "mother" referred to in the song took LSD while pregnant, gave birth to a baby with some sort of disturbing abnormality, and now is being reminded of her rather careless and irresponsible behavior every time that her baby cries. The rest of the words of this song were never explained - but they sound like they are perhaps describing a hallucinatory fantasy about living the life of kings and queens which the mother may have had while on that fateful LSD trip.
With a message at the local Bird and Bee.
Of course this is just a cool way of indicating his wanker was on the uptick, so to speak. This is John Lennon after all.
My plan is to research each song, delve deeply into the lyrics, and then create a narrative that uses the themes and ideas of the songs.
You can check out my interpretation of how the first story I wrote, A Sigh for All Seasons, works within the frame work of the original Beatle tune here: rickivy.com/blog/
And you can read the story here: rickivy.com/blog/
good song, love the Beatles
The other comment about the ending of the song makes a lot of sense to me too, about how they wish to go back to times much simpler than the one they lived at the time, battling drug addictions and various prominent issues they must have been having in their lives.
I wish we could go back and ask John what he intended this song to mean, though. I'm a teenager now, and like others said I was greatly impacted by the song for a reason I could not explain when I first heard it. It made my heart ache and I wasn't sure why, which was amazing.
It's always reminded me of Sing a Song Six Pence which was one of my very favorite nursery rhymes when I was a little girl.