The Perfect Song #2 - The Magdalene Laundries - Joni Mitchell
In the gut-wrenching “The Magdalene Laundries” Joni Mitchell takes aim at the Catholic Church and follows in the footsteps of anti-establishment singer-songwriters such as Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, as well as her own, having released “Big Yellow Taxi” in 1970.
Song: The Magdalene Laundries
Artist: Joni Mitchell
Album: Turbulent Indigo (1994)
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I was an unmarried girl, I’d just turned twenty-seven
When they sent me to the sisters for the way men looked at me
Branded as a Jezebel I knew I was not bound for heaven
I’d be cast in shame into the Magdalene laundries
Most girls come here pregnant, some by their own fathers
Bridget got that belly by her parish priest
We’re trying to get things white as snow, all of us woe-begotten daughters
In the streaming stains of the Magdalene laundries
Prostitutes and destitutes and temptresses like me
Fallen women sentenced into dreamless drudgery
Why do they call this heartless place Our Lady of Charity?
Oh charity
These bloodless brides of Jesus if they had just once glimpsed their groom
Then they’d know and they’d drop the stones concealed behind their rosaries
They wilt the grass thy walk upon, they leech the light out of a room
They’d like to drive us down the drain at the Magdalene laundries
Peg O’Connell died today, she was a cheeky girl - a flirt, they just stuffed her in a hole
Surely to God you’d think at least some bells should ring
One day I’m going to die here too and they’ll plant me in the dirt
Like some lame bulb that never blooms come any spring – no not any spring, not any spring
The history of popular music is littered with anti-establishment songs. Songwriters like Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan plus many more highlighted wrongdoings by those in power over decades. Whether referencing miscarriages of justice, the futility of war, lack of freedoms, parental power, racial or sexual discrimination, the role of popular song in keeping such issues in the public consciousness should not be overlooked. The comfort this gives to the listener knowing that others share his or her views on a particular subject also cannot be downplayed.
Humorous songs by the likes of Tom Lehrer and Monty Python also enabled people to laugh at establishment norms, particularly the catholic church (see Lehrer’s “The Vatican Rag” and the latter’s “Every Sperm is Sacred”). But the song that hits home most on this particular issue that alerts the listener to the stern, arrogant and - some might say - evil intransigence of the Catholic Church was written by Joni Mitchell after evidence came to light of the ill-treatment of young women employed by nuns at one of the Magdalene asylums/convents in Dublin, where a mass grave was found. The young girls were considered ‘fallen women’ and any basic humanity was denied them, although the Sisters saw their role as curing these girls. What they saw as ‘care’ was far more a life of drudgery.
Mitchell’s lyric is a no holds barred attack on those running these institutions. Writing in the first person singular allows us to see the world through the eyes of the 27 year old protagonist. Immediately, Mitchell lays the blame for the fallen girl at the feet of the male of the species: ‘they sent me to the sisters for the way men looked at me.’ The fault of men for the dire predicament of the girls inhabiting the Magdalene laundries is made stark in the second verse. ‘Most girls come here pregnant, some by their own fathers. Bridget got that belly by the parish priest.’ It’s clear who Mitchell thinks are the immoral, the ones, if any, who should be spending their lives in this torment. The patriarchal society is at the heart of everything, the Catholic Church itself. She then turns her attention to the nuns themselves. They are not spared Joni’s vitriol, labelling them ‘bloodless brides of Jesus’ – cold, unfeeling, morally superior tyrants it seems, who she claims have not ‘glimpsed their groom.’ In other words are not behaving in the way that Jesus himself would, behaving in the opposite way, for didn’t Jesus forgive Mary Magdalene for her sins in Luke. There appears little forgiveness in the steaming washrooms of the Magdalene Laundries. It seems a great irony that the name of religion’s ultimate forgiven woman is used to house women who it seems will not be forgiven. See verse one: ‘Branded as a Jezebel I knew I was not bound for Heaven.’ Mitchell doesn’t stop here. She even claims these Sisters ‘leech the light out of the room.’ - perhaps a reference to the Old Testament when God said ‘Let there be light’. Again highlighting the behaviour of the nuns as counter to the teachings of the people they followed. St Francis also said ‘where there are shadows. I may bring light.’ Mitchell accuses the nuns of betraying fundamental Christian beliefs, who knows perhaps ‘the life of drudgery’ assigned to the girls was to make money from outside institutions for whom the girls did the laundry. Certainly at the end of the day the point of the Magdalene Laundries was to raise money for the Church through cheap labour. Like so many jobs in Dickensian times you work until you drop. Joni expands on the drudgery by calling it ‘dreamless’. There is no room in these young women’s lives for hope, for a better future. The protagonist is going to die and be shoved into an open grave just like Peg O’Connell before her.
A live performance of the song in Toronto shows an exquisite performance with Joni’s reasons for writing the song. What acoustic guitar playing! What a unique and wonderful voice! One of the very greatest female singer-songwriters railing against the establishment as she had done years earlier with “Big Yellow Taxi”’s attack on environmental destruction.
And yet, as seen above there is another version of this song that deserves acknowledgement, that of Christy Moore a decade or so later. His version gives the song even greater credence as coming from the male of the species he takes on the blame for the girls’ predicament on men’s behalf. Naturally, he changes the first person of the original to a girl called Joanie. He is saying that this song should not just be by women about women, he is standing up and saying that the blame is ours, we are the root of the problem and we shoulder that blame by singing this song. Moreover, Christy’s Irish roots in County Kildare, a short bus ride from Dublin, brought the song back to the scene of the atrocities where the open grave was found. When Ireland’s greatest living musician supports those who suffered greatly at the hands of the State, here in the form of the Catholic Church and especially the Convents then the world takes notice and listens. Christy’s Irish brogue lifts the song to another dimension.
Thanks go to the legendary Joni Mitchell, the national treasure Christy Moore and thoughts go to all those who suffer and toil at the hands of the Establishment.