This Bird Has Lost Her Home?

The song 'Norwegian Wood [This Bird Has Flown]' begins by saying that their relationship is over. In the first part of his story, he mentions seeing her room and he immediately mentions Norwegian wood. Does this imply that the room/home was made of Norwegian wood? [Keep this possibility in mind!]

There's no chair for him to sit in, so he sits on her rug and they drink wine. He tells us that he was "biding his time," which implies he was waiting for something else...and I suppose we can all guess that he was waiting for the talk to end.

She mentions early in the morning that it's time for bed. She's got to get up for work pretty soon! He laughs, telling her that he doesn't have to work tomorrow and therefore didn't need to go to bed yet. He ends up sleeping in her bathtub. I guess we can assume the night did not go as he had planned.

When he wakes up in the morning, she's already gone. He ends with, "so I lit a fire. Isn't it good, Norwegian wood?" Think about this for just a moment in detail...

This is not an invention of mine. It's been a debate among fans about what exactly this all means for a long time. Some people believe that he simply ends the song sitting in front of her fireplace, but others take the ending as though he set her home on fire. Do you have any opinions about this? I DO!

In my opinion, the fireplace explanation makes no sense. Why would he hang out there with her fireplace, and if he did, why wouldn't he tell us what happened when she came back home? It's not logical to me at all. I personally think that he set her home on fire. No, I'm not a pyromaniac. No, John was not crazy. John loved this kind of stuff! He liked writing lyrics that took people by surprise. He also had a VERY wicked sense of humor. Would he actually do something like that? No...but I think that's what he did in the song.

Consider this, all of you who disagree: the song "Run For Your Life" came out on the same album. It's a song in which he tells his girlfriend the following:
*I'd rather see you dead than with another man.
*If I catch you with another man, that's the end, little girl!
*I'm a wicked guy and I was born with a jealous mind.
*I mean everything I've said...I'm determined and I'd rather see you dead!
*RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

Need I say more?

We all know and love these songs, and it's okay! It's good music with crazy words. John had angry and violent moments in his life, that's for sure, but he fought hard for peace once he found peace for himself. It has never occurred to me to be disturbed by these words [even when I was a little kid] so if that's the ONLY reason we're making up stories about a fireplace, we shouldn't. If we really just interpret the lyrics differently, then that's the beauty of variety in the people of the world!