Song of the week #13

Miss Jemima Can Dance

I wrote Miss Jemima Can Dance back in October 2018 for my third album Big Issues. I think the idea of an elderly lady dancing on her own, oblivious to everyone around her, was suggested to me by Sting's They Dance Alone (Cueca Solo). In both Sting's song and in mine, the image of a solitary dancer is used as a metaphor for the loss of loved ones. In Sting's case the loss is the result of living under the shadow of the far-right Chilean dictator Pinochet; in my song it is the Second World War which has robbed Miss Jemima of her soldier boy friend. There may also be subconscious connections to the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby and to Paul Simon's Old Friends.

Miss Jemima was probably born in the early 1920's making her “in her nineties” at the time I wrote the song. (I like to get those time-line details correct!) I imagine that she was probably a ballet dancer during the late 1930's before war broke out, plunging the world into horrific turmoil.

The arrangement of the song is unusual, for me at least, in having no guitars or drums - just orchestral instruments and voices. The vocal lines to the verses all descend wearily, dragged down by old age, but when the chorus arrives the melody ascends as Miss Jemima rises from her armchair. The tune she dances to is a Viennese waltz where the second beat of the 1-2-3 bar arrives fractionally earlier than expected. It evokes the word of pre-war Palm Court orchestras, tea-dances and the film Brief Encounter.

The chorus borrows lines from two of Vera Lynn's iconic World War 2 songs: We'll Meet Again and Blue Birds Over the White Cliffs of Dover. Although Miss Jemima was a classically trained ballerina her musical tastes clearly crossed over into the world of the sentimental ballads of the 1940s.

When I wrote the song I didn't make a video for it as I didn't think I could do justice to the subject matter. However, with the rise of AI websites which can conjure up very specific images from a text prompt I have recently (in the summer of 2024) put together a collection of photo-realistic images to tell Miss Jemima's story. 

As is usual with AI images I had to reject at least 50% of them as some weren't quite what I had in mind but a handful of them were so perfect that I remember saying to myself “Yes!” That was certainly the case with the final memorable and moving shot of the video - I had rejected at least a dozen images before I came across that one.

Is the ending of the video ambiguous? I hope so! I won't spoil it for you by saying what I think it means. Decide for yourself!

Watch the video by clicking on this link:

Miss Jemima Can Dance

She spends all her time in her armchair
And she’s lost in a world of her own
There’s no family or friends who will call at weekends
And her story is largely unknown.

Though the nurses don’t know much about her
They believe she was once on the stage
In her nineties, they say, a bright star in her day
And she’s doing quite well for her age.

But when the mood takes her just once in a while
She will rise to her feet with an angelic smile.

Miss Jemima can dance. Miss Jemima can sing
And she knows all the songs that were sung
By that young Vera Lynn
There’ll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover
Wait and see. Wait and see.

Her long hair it is whiter than ivory
And her skin is as pale as a ghost
Though the dress that she wears is in need of repair
It appears she is luckier than most

While her dances are slow and beguiling
It would seem she’s not dancing alone
For at times you could swear that there’s somebody there
Miss Jemima is not on her own

For her partner’s the sweetheart she kissed off to war
Till the telegram came with a knock at the door

Miss Jemima can dance. Miss Jemima can sing
And she knows all the songs that were sung
By that young Vera Lynn
And she’s sure that they’ll meet again
Don’t know where. Don’t know when.
Wait and see. Wait and see.

And she twists and she turns while the orchestra plays
Though the tunes in her head are from long-ago days

Miss Jemima can dance. Miss Jemima can sing
And she knows all the songs that were sung
By that young Vera Lynn
There’ll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover
Wait and see. Wait and see.

And she’s sure that they’ll meet again
Don’t know where. Don’t know when.
Wait and see. Wait and see.