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"
The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" is a song by American poet and songwriter
Shel SilversteinSheldon Allan "Shel" Silverstein , was an American poet, singer-songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter and author of children's books. He styled himself as Uncle Shelby in his children's books...
. It was originally recorded by Dr Hook and covered by the English singer
Marianne FaithfullMarianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
. Taken from her 1979 album
Broken English, it was released as a single in November 1979. It is featured on the soundtracks to the films
MontenegroMontenegro also known as Montenegro - Or Pigs and Pearls is a Swedish black comedy film by Yugoslav director DuĊĦan Makavejev.-Plot:Marianne Faithfull sings "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" over the opening credit sequence....
, Tarnation and
Thelma & Louise. Faithfull also performed the song during a guest appearance in the episode "Donkey" from the fourth season of
Absolutely Fabulous.
In an interview on ITV's
The South Bank ShowThe South Bank Show was a television arts magazine show, originally made by London Weekend Television , presented by Melvyn Bragg, broadcast on ITV and seen in over 60 countries worldwide — including Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States...
aired on 24 June 2007, Faithfull said that the story she intended to put across in it was that Lucy climbs to the rooftop but gets taken away by "the man who reached and offered her his hand" in an ambulance ("long white car") to a mental hospital, and that the final lines ("At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever / As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair ...") are actually in her imagination at the hospital.
Thelma and Louise has a similar
fatalisticFatalism is a philosophical doctrine emphasizing the subjugation of all events or actions to fate.Fatalism generally refers to several of the following ideas:...
theme.
Cover versions
- 1976: Lee Hazlewood
Lee Hazlewood , born Barton Lee Hazlewood was an American country and pop singer, songwriter, and record producer, most widely known for his work with guitarist Duane Eddy during the late 1950s and singer Nancy Sinatra in the 1960s.Hazlewood had a distinctive baritone voice that added an ominous...
, on his album 20th Century Lee
- 1979: Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
, on her album Broken English
- 1980: Ruthi Navon
- 1996: Belinda Carlisle
Belinda Jo Carlisle is an American singer who gained worldwide fame as the lead vocalist of the Go-Go's, one of the most successful all-female bands and the first such group whose members wrote their own songs and played their own instruments...
, on her album A Woman and a ManA Woman and a Man is the sixth studio album by American singer Belinda Carlisle, released in the United Kingdom on September 23, 1996 by Chrysalis Records. It was the first album Carlisle had released since departing Virgin Records...
- 1996: Barra MacNeils
The Barra MacNeils are a Canadian musical group from Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia. The founding members of the group are siblings Sheumas, Kyle, Stewart, and Lucy MacNeil. In 2005 two additional brothers, Ryan and Boyd, joined the band...
, on her album The Question
- 2000: Dennis Locorriere
Dennis Locorriere was the lead vocalist, guitarist of the pop group Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show, later Dr Hook...
, on his album Out of the Dark (as the singer for Dr. Hook, he performed on the original version of the song)
- 2005: Bobby Bare
Robert Joseph Bare is an American country music singer and songwriter. He is the father of Bobby Bare, Jr., also a musician.-Early career:...
, on his album The Moon Was Blue
- 2007: Nicki Gillis
- Background :Nicki Gillis is a female vocalist and entertainer from Australia who was born in Western Australia and grew up a child of entertainer parents from Croatian and Italian backgrounds...
, on her album Lucy's Daughter (a remixed version appears on her 2011 album Woman of Sustance)
- 2009: Wiwa
- 2010: Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams is an American rock, folk, blues and country music singer and songwriter. She recorded her first albums in 1978 and 1980 in a traditional country and blues style and received very little attention from radio, the media, or the public. In 1988, she released her self-titled album,...
, on the Shel Silverstein tribute album Twistable Turnable Man