> Folk Music > Songs > Eileen Jameson’s Experience

Eileen Jameson’s Experience

[ Roud - ; Mudcat 174606 ; Alasdair Clayre]

Eileen Jameson’s Experience is a song from Alasdair Clayre’s 1966 book A Cold Wind Blows & Other Songs (London, Clarion Photographic Services. p.9).

Marian McKenzie sang Eileen Jameson’s Experience in 1967 on Three City Four’s CBS album Smoke and Dust (Where the Heart Should Have Been). Leon Rosselson noted:

Alasdair Clayre, poet and songwriter, says this song, of the blasé teenager who’s seen it all and experienced it all, is based on a conversation overheard on the top of a London bus.

Lyrics

Marian McKenzie sings Eileen Jameson’s Experience

Out of the frying pan and into the fire,
And fed to the teeth with pleasure and desire,
I’m going to renounce them, and go and be a nun,
With my friend Sandra, it won’t be fun,
But it’s bound to be better than this, I mean,
Anything, compared with this would be bliss, practically…

This time last year, I cared about boys,
Sandra says my experience has given me poise,
But I’ve had men, there’s either not enough,
Or far too much and you ne’er’d get rough,
I think old age would be better than this, I think,
Anything, compared with this would be bliss, practically…

I kick lump stones as I slouch along the beach,
Happiness is going to be always out of reach,
I’m going to renounce it, and go and be a nun,
With a sackcloth dress on, and my hair in a bun,
Because it’s bound to be better than this, I mean,
Anything, compared with this would be bliss, practically…