Re: Wear sevens on one's sleeves

Posted by RRC on April 22, 2008 at 19:21:

In Reply to: Re: Wear sevens on one's sleeves posted by RRC on April 22, 2008 at 19:19:

: : To wear sevens on one's sleeves. From "Loretta" by Townes van Zandt, might be a cover..........

: : 'O Loretta she's a barroom gal,
: : Wears them sevens on her sleeves...'

: : What's that all about hmmm?

The phrase seems to be unique to this one song and I can't find anything about it.
"To wear something on your sleeve" usually means that you show/don't hide something internal like wearing your heart on your sleeve means that your emotions are obvious. However, in this case it could be literal.
I listened to two versions of the song on Napster. On the live version, he says the song is about a girl named Diane he met while he was going with a girl named Sally and I was married to a girl named... remember time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana. In both versions, he rather indistinctly says "wearzemsevens on her sleeves" - that the lyrics websites say "them" instead of "'em" seems to be a "correction" of sorts.

A wild guess for what 'em sevens could be: the bar she works in is a casino and she has an applique of either winning dice rolls or the name of the casino, e.g. Lucky 777. An even wilder guess: L7 is a square, so M7 could be a heart a la <3 if you put the 7 sideways under the M.