Who is the real ‘Arabella’ from the Arctic Monkeys song?
In 2013, slinky, Sabbath-checking crowd-pleaser ‘Arabella’ became the first Arctic Monkeys song directly referencing a specific woman. Let’s leave aside the remake of the early demo track ‘Cigarette Smoke’ on their 2006 EP Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?. ‘Arabella’ is still the only song written and released by the band’s frontman, Alex Turner, to throw a name out there explicitly.
As soon as it was released on the 2013 album AM, the track got tongues wagging. Who was ‘Arabella’? Was there really a “little lady” out there with “‘gator skin boots” and a “Barbarella silver swimsuit”, or did she solely exist while taking “a dip” in Alex’s “daydreams”?
While Turner and Matt Helders were promoting the group’s US tour in early 2014, this topic naturally cropped up in their interview with Q104 3 Classic Rock Radio in New York. Host DJ Jonathan Clarke put it directly to Turner, “Who is Arabella?”
The songwriter’s answer said more in its nervous incoherence than any words could have done. “I dunno… I spose like…I mean,” he stammered. “I don’t really wanna give you her number or anything”. Arabella was a real person, it seemed. “She’s…er…yeah…she’s quite remarkable,” he continued.
Turner then tried to divert listeners away from the real identity of his muse by claiming the song’s subject matter was actually more abstract. “I suppose it’s trying to describe this kind of impossible object,” he explained. “I just got carried away colouring outside the lines with it.”
But he wasn’t convincing anyone. Especially when he asked Clarke apprehensively, “Could I have been more cryptic there?”
An LA woman?
The song’s composer had given the game away, confirming what many fans had already figured out. Arabella was a not-so-subtle pseudonym for Turner’s then-girlfriend Arielle Vandenberg. Take the ‘B’ out of the song’s title, and it sounds almost identical to Vandenberg’s first name.
She and Turner met when the singer moved into a Los Angeles apartment with Arctic Monkeys drummer Helders. Vandenberg was native to the city and was developing her career as an actor at the time, with starring roles in the sitcoms Greek and Meet the Browns.
The couple were the same age, and apparently mixed in a lot of the same circles. They were together for three years between 2011 and 2014, and Vandenberg came to be associated with most of the love songs Turner wrote for AM.
By the time he moved on to his next project, The Last Shadow Puppets’ second album, Everything You’ve Come to Expect, the Sheffield indie rocker had found a new muse. ‘Arabella’ was in the past, making way for ‘Sweet Dreams, TN’, aka American model Taylor Bagley.
Still, Arielle Vandenberg will always have her song, which has become a staple on the setlists of Arctic Monkeys’ live performances. She’s surely tapped into Turner’s mind and soul for good.
