Lyrics to
The Jean Genie

This version of The Jean Genie was released by David Bowie in 1973.

Our About David Bowie page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for The Jean Genie from 1973 as well as all of the other lyrics from David Bowie that we have in our lyrics database.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to David Bowie or about the 1970s in general.

A small Jean Genie
snuck off to the city
Strung out on lasers
and slash back blazers
Ate all your razors
while pulling the waiters
Talking bout Monroe
and walking on Snow White 19
New York’s a go-go 19
and everything tastes right
Poor little Greenie

The Jean Genie lives on his back
The Jean Genie loves chimney stacks
He’s outrageous, he screams and he bawls
Jean Genie let yourself go!

Sits like a man
but he smiles like a reptile
She loves him, she loves him but
just for a short while
She’ll scratch in the sand,
won’t let go his hand
He says he’s a beautician
and sells you nutrition
And keeps all your dead hair
for making up underwear
Poor little Greenie

He’s so simple minded
he can’t drive his module
He bites on the neon and sleeps in the capsule
Loves to be loved, loves to be loved

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David Bowie has released many songs over the years besides The Jean Genie. David Bowie released songs from 1967 to 2003 spanning across albums like David Bowie, Space Oddity, The Man Who Sold The World, Hunky Dory, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, Aladdin Sane, Pin Ups, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, Station To Station, Heroes, Low, Lodger, Scary Monsters, Hot Space, Let's Dance, Tonight, Never Let Me Down, Black Tie White Noise, Outside, Earthling, Hours..., Heathen, and Reality. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by David Bowie.

If you're a fan of 1970s music looking for more songs from 1973 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and The Jean Genie by David Bowie

The lyrics to The Jean Genie are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that David Bowie used when the song was created in 1973. The lyrics to The Jean Genie have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only David Bowie and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to The Jean Genie by David Bowie. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to The Jean Genie" means the words set to the music of The Jean Genie, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by David Bowie. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to The Jean Genie and the lyrics to The Jean Genie are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of David Bowie who came here looking just for the lyrics to The Jean Genie, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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