"She's Leaving Home". Who do you side with, all these years later?

Lesbianism wasn’t a criminal offense in the UK, while, prior to 1967, male homosexuality was, reportedly because the government either didn’t recognize that lesbianism existed or didn’t want to acknowledge it or draw attention to it by naming it and banning it.

 

did they ever find her?

 

At no point in the actual lyrics does the song say the subject is married, that she is the narrator's sister, or even that the narrator is male.

It definitely falls in the category of Ray's girl-leaving-home-is-bad songs.

 

Yep. Details in the article @JakeKlas posted:

Meet the Runaway Who Inspired Beatles' 'She's Leaving Home'

 

D: **** the lot of 'em.

 

The daughter's. When I heard this as a teen, I was impressed at the imagery, places, and people encountered in the song. Like many teens, I was already dreaming of one day traveling to faraway places (not running away). So today, whenever I hear this song, it brings me back to those days of idealistic longing that only youths can have - one of the reasons why we like the Beatles so much, right?

 

thanks...

 

was she underage?

The old gal would be in her seventies by now....

 

Yeah, that line always killed it for me, too.

 

Guy she married was "Arthur" as in the album Arthur and of course they moved to Australia - wonder what part and if they're still living here.

 

Once again there seems to be a lot of assuming of facts not in evidence going on in this thread.

For example, the notion that the family in question is rich and living in a posh home. In fact, the lyric reads "We struggled hard all our lives to get by." When I visualized the setting of this song, I never pictured anything more than a modest home at most.

Again, much is open to interpretation here, but that interpretation shouldn't be based on unsupported supposition.

I get to an extent the criticism of the mother's notion that this is all about them ("How could she do this to me?"). But you also have to put this in a bit of historical context. Up until the cultural explosion wrought by The Beatles and what followed over the next couple of years, it was just sort of understood that children would follow the path their parents laid out for them without much questioning.

And in homes with parents who weren't particularly authoritarian or arbitrarily mean to their kids — with day-to-day parent/child relationships that were relatively benign — it must have come as a shock to many parents that their children were capable of independent thought or that they could possibly be unhappy with their situation.

Also weighing against the idea that the daughter is escaping some seriously horrible or abusive home life is the detail that she is "clutching her handkerchief" as she leaves. Perhaps she is shedding some tears over her decision to leave, now that it's finally come to it. But she still, on balance, finds leaving the best course of action for her.

This is not certain, either, of course, but it's at least a possibility.

 

True. However, we do know for a fact that:

• Ray Davies had a sister named Rose, with whom he was very close
• Rose emigrated to Australia with her husband, who was named Arthur and who was the inspiration for The Kinks' album of the same name
• He has stated in interviews how much he missed his sister when she moved far away
• Ray Davies frequently based his songs upon real-life inspiration such as this

Knowing this back story as well as we do, it would seem disingenuous to argue that "Rosie Won't You Please Come Home" is just another fictional run-of-the-mill girl leaves home song that can be lumped into the category that includes "She's Leaving Home."

 

Which is why I questioned those who portray them as "materialistic" when like you I always imagined them to be a working class family much like the Beatles own families except John

 

The daughter. Parents should never try to control or guide their children. When I have kids, I'd literally let them get away with murder.

 

Okay found something - according to ancestry.com they moved to South Australia. Seems Rosie was also much older then Ray - born 1925

Alfred Arthur Anning - Ancestry.com

 

...Did " meeting s man from the motor trade " mean getting an abortion, as I've claimed as an interpretation some have made?
And does Mike Leander's role mean that Gary Glitter was on it? BAN it, then!

 

I've always identified as the daughter although now as a man in his 40s I see the parents' point of view as well. But I still sympathize with the daughter more.

 

Daughter.

Line: "How could she treat us so thoughtlessly? How could she do this to me?"

From parents' perspective, indicates more upset about what's happening to them than to the daughter. That's all I could get from the song.

 

No!

The motor trade in the UK is the motor trade - the business of selling and buying cars.

Nothing cryptic or ambiguous about it.

 

...Thank you. I knew what " the motor trade " meant, literally, already. I have seen the...suggestion?...that " the motor trade " had that additional, slang, meaning.

 

It's better than

Waiting to keep the appointment she made
Greeting a man who sells lemonade

 

Here's a little additional food for thought on the subject. The pivotal scene from "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?":

 

May imply tho that he's a dodgy character with questionable ethics if he's a used car salesman

 

I prefer that actually

 

It may or may not imply that.

I'm simply explaining the meaning of the term the motor trade.