Music Not The Doctor isn't my favourite track on Jagged Little Pill and it's probably not yours. Less showy than All I Really Want, less controversial than either version of You Oughta Know and less worthy of midnight drunken discussion than Ironic ("That's not ironic!" "Yes it is! I often need a knife and all I can find in the kitchen drawer are spoons. I mean you can butter the toast with the handle but it's not ideal..."). Plus it's another list, one of several hundred which Alanis would set to music across her career (Under Rug Swept begins with a track called 21 Things I Want In A Lover and good god do we hear them all). But it does have two key elements going for it. It has a really rather amazing hook of the kind Mike Oldfield would be proud of, four acoustic guitar notes rotating from top to bottom, between A and E which the rest of the melody hangs off, and acts as the engine that motors the rest of the song through the end. There's also the rather caustic lyrics in which protagonist is essentially saying to her man, no look, man, sort yourself out, I'm not your mother, I'm not your everything. Find your own way to exist as a person, I'm not in this relationship simply to be your nursemaid. Clearly it's about a real person, it's autobiographical and it's raw, and not that surprising considering what happened to her in the run up to recording the album and when the lyrics were written (see here). All in all considering what else was apparently recorded in the Jagged Little Pill sessions (hello Superstar Wonderful Weirdos, Death Of Cinderella and the impressively noodly No Avalon), it's well worth another listen.
I don't want to be the filler if the void is solely yours
I don't want to be your glass of single malt whiskey
Hidden in the bottom drawer
I don't want to be a bandage if the wound is not mine
Lend me some fresh air
I don't want to be adored for what I merely represent to you
I don't want to be your babysitter
You're a very big boy now
I don't want to be your mother
I didn't carry you in my womb for nine months
Show me the back door
Visiting hours are 9 to 5 and if I show up at 10 past 6
Well I already know that you'd find some way to sneak me in and oh
Mind the empty bottle with the holes along the bottom
You see it's too much to ask for and I am not the doctor
I don't want to be the sweeper of the egg shells that you walk upon
And I don't want to be your other half, I believe that 1 and 1 make 2
I don't want to be your food or the light from the fridge on your face
At midnight, hey
What are you hungry for
I don't want to be the glue that holds your pieces together
I don't want to be your idol
See this pedestal is high and I'm afraid of heights
I don't want to be lived through
A vicarious occasion
Please open the window
Visiting hours are 9 to 5 and if I show up at 10 past 6
Well I already know that you'd find some way to sneak me in and oh
Mind the empty bottle with the holes along the bottom
You see it's too much to ask for and I am not the doctor
I don't want to live on someday when my motto is last week
I don't want to be responsible for your fractured heart
And it's wounded beat
I don't want to be a substitute for the smoke you've been inhaling
What do you thank me
What do you thank me for
Visiting hours are 9 to 5 and if I show up at 10 past 6
Well I already know that you'd find some way to sneak me in and oh
Mind the empty bottle with the holes along the bottom
You see it's too much to ask for and I am not the doctor
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