>> The Dens of Gin Lane: Mark Knopfler's "Madame Geneva's"
Sep 3, 2018
Cindy Hunter Morgan
Madam Geneva & The Balladeer
"Madame Geneva" refers to gin, of course ("gin" is derived from the French genivre and the Dutch jenever both words for juniper, the berry used in gin), but in this song it also becomes a place the balladeer is in the drink, as we hear when Knopfler sings, "you'll find me in Madame Geneva's." He's not just drinking gin he's soaking in it. Still, the use of "in" is open to some interpretation. Knopfler uses it like the name of a bar (it was the name of a bar in New York, long after the gin craze), but it seems also to be a more general reference to "Gin Lane," the slum district of St Giles Parish in London depicted by Hogarth. Specifically, it's the area near Seven Dials made famous by many, including Charles Dickens, John Keats, and Agatha Christie. Keats described it as a place "where misery clings to misery for a little warmth, and want and disease lie down side-by-side, and groan together."