Jean / the female entity
It's a well-known fact that John has been open about his contact with spirits in other dimensions for a long time, but to my knowledge, he has only ever made public the name of one of these entities: Jean.
Jean is namechecked in 'Ratiug' from PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone:
'Jean Nealy views from a place where time is flat She sees a haze that could penetrate more black'
I find it interesting that John gives her the surname Nealy. It sounds almost identical to the word 'nearly' which, in my mind at least, evokes the idea of incorporeality: a state of being without a physical body.
Jean was famously mentioned during a solo show John did in 2001. He details how she inspired the song 'Someone's' from To Record Only Water for Ten Days:
'This song is written to a very good friend of mine named Jean, who is a spirit. She was possessing a person who is a very good friend of mine, who was asleep. And we've talked many times, and she tells me about what it is like in other dimensions, like places you'll go after you die. You're actually there right now; there are places that you go after you die, and you're already there. And you're already living that life simeltanously with this, because they're in a kind of time zone…where they are at every time at once. And we're only at this short period of time. People who are spirits, they live in every time zone at once, because they don't have a sense of time. Consequently they can't write songs, and they can't do drugs, they can't have sex, they can't…do all these things that we do, because we have time. You don't realize that it's time…it's not your flesh, or anything like that. It's time. You're very lucky to have time. You should appreciate it while you have it.'
He also introduced the song live at Paradiso, Amsterdam, February 8, 2001 with:
“This song is dedicated to someone who lives out there (John points with his right arm to the sky) not among us, but she is inside of you, you know, she could be inside of you over here.”
Taking this into account, the lyrics of Someone's and Ratiug (which is the word GUITAR backwards, by the way) make a lot more sense.
The nature of who or what Jean is, is a mystery. It appears that she may never have had a turn in a human body (ie, incarnated), but given how close John seems to be with her, it could be surmised that she acts as a sort of guardian angel to him.
'And I'm so happy And sad 'cause they both Connect me with when I'd never been A body'
-Lyrics to 'Someone's' from To Record Only Water For Ten Days
Time is a repeating motif in John's lyrics and he talks a lot about how we as humans perceive it differently to those in other dimensions. He also talks a lot about the union of opposites, (note the song title RATIUG being followed directly by GUITAR), but that's another post, for another day.
