Jane, Jane, Jane

Yesterday, I was listening to the radio on the way to school. I had on a "classic" rock station, and Jefferson Airplane was happily singing/screeching "Jane, Jane, Jane/ You think it's a game, girl." For fun, I started making a list in my head of all the songs or CDS featuring the name "Jane." For my students at Lingua Espresso, "Jane" used to be a very common girl's name in English. The name was so common, in fact, that unidentified female bodies at hospitals and morgues are still labeled "Jane Does" (unidentified male bodies are labeled "John Does"). So the name Jane has been used to mean "any girl." What I find strange about all this is that "common" Jane is so popular in music about "uncommon" love.

In fact, in only a few minutes, I had a list in addition to Jefferson Airplane's "Jane." Velvet Underground did a song called "Sweet Jane" that was covered at least one famous time decades later by the Cowboy Junkies. The group Jane's Addiction was famous for "Jane Says." Oh, and my personal favorite is a 1980's tune by Jon Astley called "Jane's Getting Serious": I remember the song had a Tarzan-themed video because Tarzan, of course, had a girlfriend named Jane. And Maroon 5 did an entire CD entiled Songs About Jane. So, for a name so common, it sure has gotten around.

It is not unusual for a woman's name to appear in a song or even to be the entire title. New alternative songs like Mike Doughty's "27 Jennifers" are as likely to feature girls' names as old country songs like Dolly Parton's "Joline." Still, sweet Jane seems to still reign and be unlikely to musically fade.