#64: Madam Butterfly by Malcolm McLaren
City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: March 1985
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #5
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Ireland Singles chart ~ #10
Peak Position on UK Singles chart ~ #13
Peak Position on Australian Singles chart ~ #16
YouTube: “Madam Butterfly”
Lyrics: “Madam Butterfly”
Malcolm McLaren was born in Greater London in 1946. While still an art student, McLaren had the first public exhibition of his work in 1967, which was based on an environmental installation staged at the Kingly Street Art Gallery in central London. In October 1971, McLaren took over the back part of the retail premises at 439 King’s Road in Chelsea, West London. The store sold rock and roll records, refurbished 1950s radiograms and dead stock clothing as “In The Back Of Paradise Garage”. McLaren converted the entire ground floor into the store and renamed it Let It Rock. The store was patronised by teddy boys and McLaren’s designs (along with his girlfriend) also appeared in such theatrical and cinematic productions such as The Rocky Horror Show and That’ll Be The Day. In spring 1973 the store was renamed Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die and began selling original 1950s-inspired leather clothing. In August 1973, McLaren and co-designer Vivienne Westwood visited New York to participate in the National Boutique Fair, where they began an association with the New York Dolls, supplying them with stage wear and joining their group on tour in the UK and France.
In October 1974, he renamed the outlet Sex to reflect its move towards fetish fashion and provocation. In January 1975, McLaren and Westwood designed red patent leather costumes for the New York Dolls and used a Soviet-style hammer and sickle motif for their stage shows in the US as an attempt to attract attention through provocation. This ploy was not successful and the Dolls soon broke up,
In 1974, McLaren advised some of his clothing shop customers to form a band that became Kutie Jones and his Sex Pistols. In time, the name was shortened to The Sex Pistols, and fronted by John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon. By 1977, the Sex Pistols added Sid Vicious and released “God Save The Queen” in response to Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee. Malcolm McLaren managed Adam and the Ants (later Adam Ant) and Bow Wow Wow.
In 1982, Malcolm McLaren released a solo album and the single “Buffalo Gals”. The song peaked in the Top Ten in New Zealand (#3) Switzerland and the UK, and the Top 20 in Australia, Austria, Ireland and Sweden. His debut album, Duck Rock, sold well in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Another single from the album, “Double Dutch” – taken from a skipping game, was a Top Ten hit in Ireland, New Zealand and the UK, and a Top 20 hit in Australia and West Germany.
In 1984, Malcolm McLaren released his second album titled Fans.
From the album came “Madam Butterfly (Un bel dì vedremo)”.
Madame Butterfly is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.
It is based on the short story “Madame Butterfly” (1898) by John Luther Long, which in turn was based on stories told to Long by his sister Jennie Correll and on the semi-autobiographical 1887 French novel Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti. The novel presented as the autobiographical journal of a naval officer who was temporarily married to a Japanese woman while he was stationed in Nagasaki, Japan. It closely follows the journal he kept of one-month paid relationship with Kiku (Chrysanthemum) in the Jūzenji. Long’s version was dramatized by David Belasco as the one-act play Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan. It premiered in New York in 1900 and moved to London, where Puccini saw it in the summer of that year.
1904 Poster for Madama Butterfly which premiered at La Scala in Milan.
The original version of the opera by Puccini, in two acts, had its premiere on 17 February 1904 at La Scala in Milan. It was not a success. Puccini rewrote the opera now set in three acts and presented it in Brescia, Italy, where it was a huge smash in May 1904. He continued to rework the opera in advance of its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in February 1907. At that performance, lyric soprano Geraldine Ferrar played Cio-Cio San, and Enrico Caruso played Lt. Col. Pinkerton (U.S. Navy).
Between 1915 and 1920, Japan’s best-known opera singer Tamaki Miura won international fame for her performances as Cio-Cio-San. A memorial to this singer, along with one to Puccini, can be found in the Glover Garden in the port city of Nagasaki, where the opera is set.
In the opera set in 1904, a U.S. naval officer named Pinkerton rents a house on a hill in Nagasaki, Japan, for himself and his soon-to-be wife, “Butterfly”. Her real name is Cio-Cio-San (from the Japanese word for “butterfly”). She is a 15-year-old Japanese girl whom he is marrying for convenience, and he intends to leave her once he finds a proper American wife, since Japanese divorce laws are very lenient. The wedding is to take place at the house.
In Act II Pinkerton leaves shortly after the wedding. Three years later, Butterfly is still waiting for him to return. Her maid Suzuki keeps trying to convince her that he is not coming back, but Butterfly does not believe her. From the hill house, Butterfly sees Pinkerton’s ship arriving at last in the harbour.
In Act III, Pinkerton is accompanied by his new American wife, who has agreed to raise the child Butterfly gave birth to. Seeing how Butterfly has decorated the hill house, Pinkerton cannot face her. Butterfly stabs herself behind a screen and when Pinkerton rushes to her aid it is too late and she dies.
In Malcolm McLaren’s pop adaptation of Madama Butterfly, his narration summarizes the contrasting voices of Pinkerton and Madam Butterfly:
(Pinkerton):
Back in Nagasaki
I got married to Cho Cho San
That was her name in those days
And I was her man
I’m going back to visit her
She got a problem
She got a little Cho Cho
Cho Cho San was her name
And this is her tale of woe
Take it away Cho Cho.
(Madam Butterfly):
a tiny thread of smoke appears,
where blue skies fall upon the ocean,
and shake this staid emotion.All the while I sing this song,
I see a dot on the horizon,
growing bigger every second
gleaming white in my direction.Who on Earth can it be?
Coming up the path for me?
What on Earth will he say?
Shall I run to him or run away?
My feet are stuck and just won’t let me,
Run to him do I dare?
Madam Butterfly don’t blow it.
“He’ll be back. I have faith in this love track.”Giacomo Puccini was born in the city of Lucca in the province of Tuscany, Italy, in 1858. As a child, he participated in the musical life of the Cattedrale di San Martino, as a member of the boys’ choir, and later as a substitute organist. Puccini received a general education at the San Michele seminary in Lucca, and then at the seminary of the cathedral. He later studied at the Milan Conservatory. After mixed reception to some of his earlier works, he premiered the opera Manon Lescaut in 1893 to great acclaim. La bohème (about four bohemians) followed in 1895, and Tosca (set in Rome in 1800 during the Napoleonic Wars). Among his later works, Turandot was premiered posthumously. Puccini died in 1924, and Turandot premiered in 1926. The opera concerns princes who seek the hand of the cold Princess Turandot in Henan (now Henan in Central China). Puccini was a chain smoker and when he got cancer he was given experimental radiation therapy. During treatment, uncontrolled bleeding led to a heart attack and he died at the age of 65 in November 1924. In his memory, the Puccini Museum has been established in Lucca, Italy.
“Madame Butterfly” peaked at #5 in Montreal, #10 in Toronto, and #14 in Annapolis (MD). Internationally, “Madame Butterfly” peaked at #10 in Ireland, #13 in the UK, and #16 in Australia, and #19 in the Netherlands.
Malcolm McLaren worked on a musical adaptation of his album, Fans, envisioned as Fans: The Musical. However, the project never reached completion. The 1989 musical, Miss Saigon, was an adaptation of the Madama Butterfly story now concerning an American soldier and a Vietnamese bargirl at the end and aftermath of the Vietnam War.
In 1989, McLaren released his album Waltz Darling. The title track reached #6 in New Zealand, #18 in West Germany, and #20 in the Netherlands. A followup single, “Something’s Jumpin’ in Your Shirt”, climbed to #9 in the Netherlands and #12 in New Zealand. While “Deep In Vogue” was a number-one Dance Chart hit in the USA.
In 1990, “Operaa House” became the fifth Top 20 hit for Malcolm McLaren in New Zealand and peaking at #4. The album Round the Outside! Round the Outside! reached #6 on the New Zealand album chart. In 1992, McLaren composed the theme song “Carry On Columbus” for the comedy film Carry On Columbus. The film was a spoof on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ ‘discovery’ of America.
McLaren released his seventh and final studio album, Tranquilize, in 2005. In 1984, he began working on a script for a screenplay titled Fashion Beast, a fusion of the story of fashion designer Christian Dior and the children’s story Beauty and the Beast. In 2012 the first of a ten-part series of Fashion Beast as a graphic novel was released. The idea of the story for a film never made it to screen.
In 1999, McLaren ran for mayor of London (UK). Running on an environmental-themed campaign, he was ultimately unsuccessful.
He died in April 2010, after suffering from a cancer that attacks the lining of the abdomen. At the time of his death, McLaren had recently finished a new film work entitled Paris: Capital Of The XXIst Century, which appeared at a theatre in Gateshead.
An exhibition about McLaren’s engagement in fashion was held as part of the Copenhagen International Fashion Fair in August 2014. “Let It Rock: The Look of Music The Sound of Fashion” was curated by Young Kim and Paul Gorman and included sections focusing on each of the six retail outlets McLaren operated with Vivienne Westwood. Original clothing, photographs and ephemera were loaned by the Malcolm McLaren Estate archive and such collectors as British fashion designer Kim Jones and musician Marco Pirroni. British fashion writer Charlie Porter praised the curation, writing on his blog: “At the Malcolm McLaren show in Copenhagen, the hang of the garments is exceptional.”
In 2020, a BBC show Malcolm McLaren: Spectacular Failure, included observations by British writer and cultural commentator Lou Stoppard. He said, “Malcolm McLaren served as a precursor to the boundary-blurring, genre-defying creativity that is prevalent today. His mix of intense ambition, excitement and engagement with an almost nihilistic, bubbling apathy is something that young people today can very much relate to.”
May 7, 2025
Ray McGinnis
References:
Amy Fleming, “Portrait of the Artist: Malcolm McLaren, Musician,” Guardian, August 10, 2013.
“Malcolm McLaren: Spectacular Failure,” BBC, February 2020.
“Former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren dies at 64,” BBC, April 9, 2010.
Daniel Trilling, “When Malcolm McLaren ran for mayor: The late Sex Pistols manager’s foray into politics,” New Statesmen, April 9, 2010.
“The Original Story: John Luther Long and David Belasco,” New York City Opera Project.
“Madam Butterfly: A Japanese Tragedy in Two Acts,”
Sarhan Basem, “Remembering Giacomo Puccini: The Composer’s Final Days in Brussels, 1924,” Brussels Morning, November 29, 2024.
“Puccini: The Life,” Puccinimuseum.org.
CKOI 96.9 FM Montreal (PQ) Top Ten | February 15, 1985
I absolutely love Malcolm McLaren’s pop adaptation of Madama Butterfly.
Thank you for yet another great and informative review.