The Dressing-up Box

Andrew Russe

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Jan 17 2015 - Remixed. I was always kinda disappointed with what the original mix sounded like. Listening to it the other day I realised what it is - I’d mixed the vocals too loud. This reduced the “stereo” and killed off a lot of the life of the track.
LOADS happier with it now…
Vocals slightly lower, and some bottom rolled off the band - thanks Stoman :)

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A new one from me. I wrote it in April and it’s been a bit of a mill-stone round my neck ever since. I have been busy with other stuff, but it’s still taken FIVE months to finish what started life as a little acoustic ditty!

It now has a multitude of guitars, piano, strings, drums and several massed choirs (doing things you can’t really hear). It seems to have turned into a bit of a ponderous dinosaur of a song… but I’m still rather fond of it.

There’s some more detail below, wot inspired it and so on, after the lyrics.

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The Dressing-up Box - A A J Russe

You should spare a thought for the woman behind
Stands and waits
Seems not to mind
She found her own way here
Were her choices ever that clear?

In her waking dream
A dream awake
On someone else’s dream she waits
We flatter to deceive
But she’s the one whom you might believe

There’s only one thing sure
Concerns the woman we adore
The Mistress of the Wardrobe
The dressing-up box conceals it all

If only she could be
The very thing she’s meant to be
At last and truly free
The dressing-up box would only hold
Her clothes

Now spare a thought after so many years
A woman stands
Seems to hear
Flattered not deceived
All the words she has received

But this waking dream
Is a dream so late
And someone else’s dreams await
She found her own way here
In her dreams we feel her near

There’s only one thing sure
Concerns this woman we adore
New mistress of the robe
Her dressing-up box holds it all

It pleases us to see
The very things we used to be
At last and truly free
Her dressing-up box reveals it all

If ever you want more
Than your flattery can ill afford
Her dressing-up box offers things to say

And if she offers more
If she ever offers more
Her dressing-up box carries you away

Copyright (C) 2014 A A J Russe. All Rights Reserved.

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The Dressing-up Box was inspired by a book called Courtiers by Dr Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces in the UK.

This magical book deals with the courts of George I and George II. Hiding inside is a lady called Henrietta Howard. She’d already had quite a hard time when she showed up in Hannover looking for a job with the soon-to-become English royal family. She managed to impress and obtained a position as one of Princess Caroline’s ladies in waiting. Later, she rose to become Mistress of the Wardrobe (I understand that she was quite good at clothes) and… well, Caroline also sorted her out with a job as her husband George’s (later King George II) mistress. So her working life was a little difficult and constrained.

Henrietta was valued by many of her contempories including lots of folks we still know of today. Some of them were quite worried about her. They feared that if she carried on being a courtier for too long, she would become the thing they all had to pretend to be. Eventually, she managed to escape and, one hopes, had some peace.

Among her admirers was a Mr Alexander Pope, although he later went off her when she wasn’t as friendly/supportive as he felt she should be (arty-types, eh? hehe). There’s a poem he wrote called “On a Certain Lady at Court” - you can find it on the interweb, if you want.

I don’t know whether Henrietta Howard liked dressing up - I do suspect that she did - but the Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, the lady who spends a lot of time wandering round the places where this all happened, certainly does…

So this is my “On a Certain Lady at Court” :-)