Little Miss Strange (Alternate Take)

Song Meaning

This track paints a portrait of an enigmatic figure, "Little Miss Strange," who arrives unannounced and leaves a trail of bewilderment. The narrator immediately establishes a sense of mystery, admitting "No one knows where she comes from" and questioning if she's "a devil in disguise." This initial uncertainty sets the tone for the entire piece, highlighting the narrator's inability to fully comprehend or categorize this captivating presence. The core tension lies in the narrator's fascination with and simultaneous confusion about Miss Strange. Her arrival is described as an intrusion into his "parlor," a space that implies a degree of control or familiarity, yet he's left disoriented, "didn't know just what to ask her." The memory of their interaction is so hazy that he "don't remember what we did after," underscoring her disarming and perhaps overwhelming effect. The lyrics cleverly employ the concept of a dream to further distance the experience from reality. Miss Strange "came out of the darkness" and "walked across my mind," explicitly stated as "a dream I had the other night." This framing allows for the surreal and inexplicable nature of her presence, suggesting that her impact transcends ordinary waking interactions and operates on a more subconscious, elusive level. Ultimately, the song's effectiveness stems from its direct, almost childlike recounting of profound disorientation. The repetition of "Little miss strange" acts like a mantra, acknowledging the label without offering any resolution. It captures that unsettling feeling when someone or something disrupts your sense of order so completely that all you can do is name the strangeness itself.