It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
You taught me all I know and I’ll never look back
And it’s a very strange song that you recorded, Four Jacks and a Jill. I’ll bet you didn’t know they were from South Africa, did you? The song “Master Jack” was released in 1968 and reached #1 in Canada and New Zealand, among other localities.
On the the face of it, “Master Jack” is about a mentor relationship, between a young acolyte and her older, perhaps wiser friend, a teacher or an uncle, or some other worldly-wise adult, who teaches her to take “coloured ribbon” from the sky and tie up your problems with it and then “sell it to the people in the street”. I can’t for the life of me figure out what that means exactly. My guess is that it’s something to do with tie-dye t-shirts or incense.
The acolyte has grown old enough now to want to see and experience the world for herself, so she bids farewell to her wise teacher. It’s clear that she no longer trusts his judgment.
“Master Jack” is one of those odd songs that seem untouched by the hands of a music industry professional, who surely would have polished the vocals and added a hammy flourish in there somewhere, and would certainly have removed one of the strangest and most acute lines in the song:
I saw right through the way you started teachin’ me now
So some day soon you could get to use me somehow
I thank you very much and though you’ve been very kind
But I’d better move along before you change my mind
Rather edgy, don’t you think, for a lilting guitar ballad with a reticent female lead? It’s almost as if there is something sinister at work here, so you think of Jimmy Jones or Charles Manson. But the song sounds so innocent– maybe it’s Tiny Tim instead.
I never liked the song very much when I was in my teens– it sounded a bit saccharine to me. But like “I’ve Never Been to Me”, it has a little bite.
Yeah, they’re still around. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I recently read a comment from an anonymous poster claiming that the “jack” in the song is the Union Jack, and the song is a comment on Britain’s legacy of Apartheid in South Africa. That’s an interesting idea. [2011-11-29]