“Georgy Girl,” a 1967 hit from Australia’s legendary folk act The Seekers, is generally thought of as an innocuous little
number, complete with delicately pretty harmonies and even a cute little
“whistling solo.”
Truth be told, however, a toxic heart lurks beneath all the seeming sweetness and light.
The subject of the song is a young woman named Georgy, who
seems quite satisfied with her life. Indeed, the demeanor she displays is spirited,
even “fancy-free.” However, the “judgy” female
narrator of “Georgy Girl” thinks she knows Georgy better, and suspects that all
is not well behind the girl’s happy-seeming exterior.
A moment later, we find out why, at least according to the
assessment of the quite nosy narrator of the song, Georgy is secretly
unfulfilled: she isn’t flirting enough with men.
Hey there, Georgy girl, why do all the boys just pass you by?Could it be you just don’t try, or is it the clothes you wear?
Insulting another lady’s wardrobe seems unnecessarily harsh,
even catty, on the part of the speaker. But note the context in which this
derogatory declaration is made. The speaker would like to see Georgy dress
sexier, so she might in so doing catch the eye of a boy or two. Why, she
mourns, will Georgy not even “try” to be more alluring to the opposite sex?
Indeed, the speaker seems weirdly exasperated about the
matter of Georgy’s absence of flirtiness, and her absolute unwillingness to
make any effort to grow towards coquetry. She also remains weirdly fixated on
clothing. “You’re always window shopping, but never stopping to buy,” she
complains of Georgy, alleging that her propensity to needless frugality renders
her “dowdy” and thus, presumably, undateable.
What Georgy ought to do, she counsels, is not only to
purchase more glam threads; it’s also to adopt an altogether more sensual and
passionate persona. Despite her marked exasperation with Georgy’s insistence on
plain-Jane-ness of appearance and non-sensuality of temperament (however
“fancy-free” it may be), the speaker nevertheless remains rather
condescendingly optimistic about Georgy’s prospects for self-improvement, if
she is wise enough to take the speaker’s advice to heart:
Hey there, Georgy girl, there’s another Georgy deep inside
Bring out all the love you hide, and oh what a change there’d be!
The world will see a new Georgy girl! Wake up, Georgy girl!
Still more insufferably, the nosy narrator instructs Georgy
to get over what the narrator assumes to be the girl’s fear of the prospect of
self-transformation.
Don’t be so scared of changing and rearranging yourselfIt’s time for jumping down from the shelf!
*************
As Hamlet would say, this “nosy Nellie” narrator’s
presumptuous attitude “would be scanned.”
Why is she (that is, the speaker) so terribly
concerned with convincing this “fancy-free” girl to alter herself, both from without (vis a vis her wardrobe)
and from within? And even if it’s true, as she claims, that Georgy is
lonely beneath her “fancy-free” exterior, why is the proposed solution to “change
and rearrange” herself? It is really so important
to get the attention of boys, that one must alter the essence of one’s very
being?
In any case, why is the notion of becoming “a new Georgy
girl” asserted to be, ipso facto, a
good thing? What is so bad about “old” Georgy, anyway? If change shouldn’t be feared,
why ought it reflexively embraced? And why, in particular, should this type of change be considered necessary and salubrious?
*************
“Georgy Girl” essentially proselytizes for a “reverse-Peter
Pan” perspective on human maturation. If Peter Pan wanted to remain forever childlike, seeing adulthood as an utterly unwelcome development, the speaker of
this song wants to impose “grown-upedness”—specifically in the form of embracing
a heightened state of sexuality—upon a character who doesn’t seem terribly
inclined to desire this for herself. As the reader may have guessed by now, I
would argue with the conclusions reached by this “nosy Nellie narrator”;
moreover, I would question her motives in advocating such behavior for Georgy.
I might even pen a scathing response, rap-battle style:
Hey there, judgy bitchWhy you wanna make Georgy a ho?Don’t you know that innocence is highly prized… by Jesus?Hey there, judgy bitchWhat’s it to you what dear Georgy wearsDon’t you it’s best to err on the side of dowdy… instead of slutty?
Though this response is lighthearted (along with being not
terribly clever), I do find “Georgy Girl” to be a subtly poisonous anthem,
masking its malevolent intent behind an eminently singable melody and placidly
pleasant guitar-strumming. But in its lyrics we see the initial implementations
of an ideology—namely, sexual libertinism as enforced doctrine-- which would in
short time begin to bear poisonous fruit all across the Western world.
The
results have been, and continue to be, devastating, to men, women, and children
alike.
Excerpted from Andy Nowicki's yet unreleased Ruminations of a Low-Status Male, Volume 3
Andy Nowicki, assistant editor of Alternative Right, is the author of eight books, including Under the Nihil, The Columbine Pilgrim, Considering Suicide, and Beauty and the Least. Visit his Soundcloud page and his YouTube channel. His author page is Alt Right Novelist.
