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A Man Needs A Maid Neil Young's "A Man Needs a Maid" is an impressionistic musing by a man who is contemplating the start of a new romantic relationship. He is also encountering greater difficulties of an unspecified, but life-changing sort, beginning by noting, "My life is changing in so many ways/I don't know who to trust anymore." In such a context, he wonders whether instead of making the commitment necessary to a relationship, he ought to just hire a housekeeper instead. In this sense, he employs two different meanings for the word "maid" in the title. That got him in some trouble with feminists when the song was introduced on his popular Harvest album in 1972, since he seemed to be implying that the job of a female romantic companion was to cook for and pick up after him. And that implication is inescapable, though in a larger sense the song is about a man's struggle between his desire for companionship and his fear of being hurt. His account of falling in love with the actress in a movie seems to be directly autobiographical. Young was then involved with Carrie Snodgrass, star of the 1970 film Diary of a Mad Housewife. Just as Young was criticized for the way he expressed this idea, he was also criticized for the musical arrangement he used. In concert, he performed the song alone at a piano, but on record he brought in the London Symphony Orchestra for big orchestral effects that many found overly elaborate. Young defended himself against the criticisms when he included "A Man Needs a Maid" on his 1977 Decade compilation, humorously noting that " Robin Hood loved a maid long before women's liberation" and saying that Bob Dylan had told him he liked the arrangement.
My life is changing
in so many ways
I don't know who
to trust anymore
There's a shadow running
thru my days
Like a beggar going
from door to door.
I was thinking that
maybe I'd get a maid
Find a place nearby
for her to stay.
Just someone
to keep my house clean,
Fix my meals and go away.
A maid. A man needs a maid.
A maid.
It's hard to make that change
When life and love
turns strange.
And old.
To give a love,
you gotta live a love.
To live a love,
you gotta be "part of"
When will I see you again?
A while ago somewhere
I don't know when
I was watching
a movie with a friend.
I fell in love with the actress.
She was playing a part
that I could understand.
A maid. A man needs a maid.
A maid.
When will I see you again?
skip to 20 secs
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNHet308wYA[/youtube]
""I fell in love with the actress
She was playing a part I could understand"
They had a kid together, who happened to be born with cerebral palsy - which is how the Bridge School benefits came into being.
My life is changing
in so many ways
I don't know who
to trust anymore
There's a shadow running
thru my days
Like a beggar going
from door to door.
I was thinking that
maybe I'd get a maid
Find a place nearby
for her to stay.
Just someone
to keep my house clean,
Fix my meals and go away.
A maid. A man needs a maid.
A maid.
It's hard to make that change
When life and love
turns strange.
And old.
To give a love,
you gotta live a love.
To live a love,
you gotta be "part of"
When will I see you again?
A while ago somewhere
I don't know when
I was watching
a movie with a friend.
I fell in love with the actress.
She was playing a part
that I could understand.
A maid. A man needs a maid.
A maid.
When will I see you again?
skip to 20 secs
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNHet308wYA[/youtube]
""I fell in love with the actress
She was playing a part I could understand"
They had a kid together, who happened to be born with cerebral palsy - which is how the Bridge School benefits came into being.
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