Roll of the Dice: Bishop Danced

“This next song is kind of a nonsense song. I’ll give you a quick rundown:

 

It’s about a bishop and his wife and this violin player in West Virginia.

 

It’s about how their daughter lost her mother to mathematics while on a business trip in Detroit.

 

It has a Top 40 hook part that if we knew the words, everybody could sing to it.

 

It’s about pancakes and this guy named Muskrat who lives in Richmond, Virginia, who I met when I was playin’ down there. (He plays saxophone.)

 

It’s about James Garner, when he was very popular years ago in his Brit (Bret? Bert?) Maverick TV shows, and it was a well-known Hollywood secret that he had an affair with a mad woman with one eye.

 

It’s about this little boy who told his father that the Indians are still in the woods, only nobody sees ‘em.

 

And it’s about sexual pathos of elderly choirboys in Butte, Montana.”

 

— Bruce Springsteen, January 31, 1973

Yeah, I should probably leave it at that.

Because if we accept Bruce’s description verbatim, we end up with an impressionistic mess that’s at least fun to sing; if we treat his plot summary as tongue-in-cheek, however, we end up with a song-length ode to self-pleasure.

Because Bruce once remarked that if you don’t know what one of his songs is about, it’s about sex, and we should take him at his word.

Because “Bishop Danced” is laden with so much phallic, masturbatory, and ejaculatory imagery that Bruce’s inner twelve-year-old must have been laughing hysterically when the band performed it on stage.

Bishop danced with a thumbscrew woman
Did a double-quick backflip and slid across the floor
The Catholic traffic flowed freely across the river
And fiddlestick fiddled quick out the front door

Oh, baby dumpling, mama’s in the back tree
If the bow breaks, mama might fall
Little sad and only, baby don’t be lonely
Oh, mama knows arithmetic, knows how to take a fall
Mama knows arithmetic, knows how to take a fall

And the kids are crying, “Flapjacks, make ’em fat, early in the morning”
Little Jack, grab your hat, hear the breakfast call
Muskrat, bat a cat, kick him in the fireplace
There’s someone in the kitchen blowing Dinah on their horn
There’s someone in the kitchen blowing Dinah like they’re born

Well, Maverick daddy got a one-eyed bride
She glides like a monkey-mule kicking on the back slide
Over hill, over hill, daddy don’t you spill now
Papa got a switch stick, he’s pumping little Bill
Papa got a switch stick, he’s pumping little Bill

And Billy he’s crying, “Tomahawk, tomahawk, daddy better duck now”
The Mohawks, the Mohawks, they’re still out there in the woods
Monatuk, Ocanuk, running through my dreams now
With fire on their fingertips and Injun screams
Fire on their fingertips and feathers made of moonbeams

Well, early in the morning the cannoneer cried
“I seen the sailor’s warning in the western sky”
Well, mountain man, if you can, cut me down a fir tree
Branches full of candlesticks for baby and me

And my darling cried, she said, “Honey, the weathervane lately it’s been pointing the way to heaven”
Scatterbrains, scatterbrains, watch out where you fall
Champagne, champagne, a round for all the old choir boys
They’re busting off the altar chasing Dinah through the hall
They’re busting off the altar chasing Dinah through the hall

And like kids they’re crying, “Flapjacks, make ’em fat, early in the morning”
Little Jack, grab your hat, hear the breakfast call
Muskrat, bat a cat, kick him in the fireplace
There’s someone in the kitchen blowing Dinah on their horn
There’s someone in the kitchen blowing Dinah like they’re born

Because while I’m no one’s prude, I’m not gonna go line by line on this one. I’ve given you all the context you need to interpret “Bishop Danced.” You can take it from here.

Because to my knowledge, no one has ever called Bruce on this one–not a fan, not a critic, not an interviewer–and I can’t help but suspect that he’s just waiting for someone to figure it out and ask. That is, unless he’s just completely forgotten.

Because “Bishop Danced” disappeared from Bruce’s set list in early 1973 and didn’t return until 2012, in its first electric full-band arrangement, and Bruce seemed to have forgotten he’d ever played it live before at all.

“Bishop Danced” benefitted from its new arrangement, particularly from Soozie Tyrell’s violin solo and Charlie Giordano’s accordion spotlight. Still, Bruce seemed awfully close to blushing at times.

So you decide: “Bishop Danced” is either an atypical-for-Bruce nonsense song or a very typical-for-Bruce obscured sex song. (See “All I’m Thinkin’ About.”) I know what I think.

I’m still listening for that Top 40 hook, though.

Bishop Danced
Never recorded
Released: Tracks (1998) (live version)
First performed: December 7, 1972 (New York City, NY)
Last performed: November 19, 2012 (Denver, CO)

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