I was going through in my head and there is actually quite a bit of people who have been immortalized on a Deep Purple record. This list includes peoplecalledby an actual name in songs written by anyone (so while we know quite a bit about Living Wreck, they don’t have a name, while “little miss Molly” counts even if we get to know very little). Some of them are real, some entirely fictional, but most, I guess, are fictional fusions of several people. Here are the ones I found, tell me if and when I missed someone!
Joe (going to go to Mexico)
Taliesyn (bard, worth more than 300 salmon)
Emmaretta (was sent a letter)
Lalena (sex worker)
Rosemary (not on birth control I gues)
Molly (miss, rocking in the house of blue light)
Nancy (with a face “nothing fancy”)
Claude (Funky)
Mary Long (a hypocrite)
Lucy (sweet, dancer)
Mitzi Dupree (queen of the ping pong business)
Anya (spirit of freedom)
Ted (a mechanic)
Rosa (has a cantina)
Cisco etc. (going down together)
Jack Ruby (just like he did)
Louie (evil)
Grover and Gillian (the two mr.'s who must have made a million)
Eddy (two-tone)
Vincent Price (back again)
Johnny Jones (woke up from dreaming)
Bill (bass)
Pete (joined a cult in LA)
Benny (crazy)
Joanna (old, used to be in every bar)
Sally (long, tall)
Dave (short, fat)
Jenny (…Jenny, Jenny, Jenny…)
Jackson (Colonel)
Hickory (Old)
Charlene (just arrived in the city)
Joe (Ring-tone)
Renee (full of guilt)
Billy (arrogant)
Jessica (has a bra)
Mary (big)
I knew I could not get everything right the first time, but I think we’re pretty good here by now. One of the things that make many of these characters so interesting is the personal detail in which they are described. I mean you can vividly imagine Ted or Mitzi (okay you might not need to even imagine Mitzi), and while there is vitriol towards Mary Long, she’s there alright, or even when Lucy exists to crack a series of backdoor jokes, she still comes out as a person.
Mary Long is one of those songs that’s basically just casual misogyny on the surface, but when you study the backstory, it does get more nuanced (since the character is an amalgamation of a man and a woman).
But still, one of the things I have wondered over the years is that why he chose the feminine form to be the nominal representative of everything reactionary. In the context of the times, it was of course easier to make fun of the prudish woman archetype. Also “we didn’t give a thought about the potential implications” is probably a major factor, as with very much everything young men did in 1972 (or 2026, no doubt).
And of course it sits perfectly in line with Smooth Dancer, where a certain man is given a female form and then berated…
“His name wasn’t Ted. Actually, his name was Martin as far as I remember and he was a wine merchant but that didn’t scan well.” Outro 14th September 2002
“Here’s a story about a guy I met in a bar a long time ago. Edward his name was and he worked on motor cars.” London Astoria 17th January 2006
