‘She’s only a bird in a gilded cage, a beautiful sight to see. You may think she’s happy and free from care; she’s not though she seems to be.’
When the British lyricist Arthur J. Lamb first offered the lyrics of ‘A Bird in a Gilded Cage’ to the Tin Pan Alley tunesmith Harry Von Tilzer, he was told to go back home and clean them up. Lamb had made the subject of his song a rich man’s mistress; for mass-market appeal she needed to be married.
In its revised version ‘A Bird in a Gilded Cage’ shot to the top of the 1900 sheet-music charts. For some strange reason the idea of the kept woman, married or unmarried, continues to exert a fascination on both sexes. How else to explain the undiminished popularity of Victorian images of captive women in opulent interiors?
Distance may lend enchantment to the view, but post-#MeToo some justification is needed.
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