THE Story Behind THE Song Cliff Richard Living Doll

THE STORY BEHIND THE SONG – CLIFF RICHARD – LIVING DOLL   This 1959 Lionel Bart composition (by the man who later gave us the musical Oliver) was recorded by Cliff Richard and The Drifters (soon to change their name to The Shadows). It is presented as a cute adorable song about a man showing off his new beautiful girlfriend, but I always find it rather sinister and possessive. The singer – narrator seems to have the attitude of a stalker.   It’s a short number, five four-line stanzas, two of them repeated. The whole emphasise is on the girl as property. Doll was popular slang for a girl for years before this recording, but here she seems to be a doll in the sense of being something the doll-player can totally own and manipulate. The line “Got a roving eye and that is why she satisfies my soul.” Weakens the song and doesn’t make a great deal of sense. His roving eye suggests a willingness to admire or chase after other women. This girl ends up striking him as gorgeous enough to stop him from doing so. Things start to get creepy when he points out that her remarkable hair is ‘real’ (natural in colour and / or not a wig), and he wants to prove this point to us by having us touch her hair. “And if you don’t believe what I say, just feel.” I don’t think ever met a woman who would appreciate any man inviting friends or randomly met people to stroke, tug, pull or twist her hair as if inspecting a dog at a best in show event.   Cliff then seems to really lose it with “Gonna lock her up in a trunk / so no big hunk can steal her away from me.” Here the girl becomes a prisoner and a cause for police intervention.   A 1986 charity re-recording of the song with Cliff accompanied by stars of the popular anarcho-comedy show The Young Ones sends up the song quite well, with the trunk locking sequence being referred to as “politically unsound” by the heckling TV show folk.   The song still strikes me as mildly embarrassing in either version.  

Arthur Chappell