submissions
| Thomas Dolby – Eastern Bloc (Sequel to "Europa and the Pirate Twins") Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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To the extent that Europa and the Pirate Twins was about a real girl, it seems that she was actually from an Eastern European country. So when the Iron Curtain fell in 1989-91, it's natural that Dolby's thoughts may have turned to her and inspired a sequel. It's a song full of hope after the end of the Cold War: the lines "Joey's gone and Georgie's gone ... found a crowbar and a drill, headed for the Berlin Wall" refer to (Joey) Stalin and (Georgie) Washington (or maybe H.W. Bush), which makes it an odd sort of spiritual relative of Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now." Too bad the world only woke up from history for a few short years before getting right back to sleep.
There's also a lot of personification of Europe itself in Dolby's songs (see also "The Flat Earth") and Europa herself may be more broadly interpreted as representing the continent reunited after decades of division. |
submissions
| Thomas Dolby – Mulu The Rain Forest Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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This song, which reinforces its theme of temporal confusion and ecological disaster with out-of-phase, off-time music, has always seemed to me to be about a local god or shaman worshipped by a rain forest tribe. He fails to predict that "the seasons" would change "too soon," and his people are either displaced or destroyed by a flood -- a freak occurrence, perhaps, or a sign of natural or man-made climate change. It is quite unlike anything one would hear on a major pop record these days... but then there was little like it in the 80's, either. Another innovative and overlooked masterpiece by one of the most innovative artists of the time. |
submissions
| Thomas Dolby – One of our Submarines Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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Dolby's best song and one of the best songs of all time by anyone. I've been listening to it for nearly forty years and it never gets old. The relentless bass-line and the synth effects, the way its closing moments conjure images of steel-gray waves rolling forever over a boat's crew drawing their last breaths... driving, haunting, gorgeous. |
submissions
| Thomas Dolby – One of our Submarines Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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The song was inspired by his uncle's WW2 service, but the line about "heavy water" has always made me think it's a nuclear boat. The song is less directly about his uncle and more about, as he puts it, "the futility of empire." |
submissions
| Thomas Dolby – I Live in a Suitcase Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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In real life, Dolby moved to Los Angeles sometime in the 80's and married actress Kathleen Beller. This song seems to reference that: the "dirty desert town" with "stars instead of a crowd" is LA, and the "little ingenue" could well be his wife. At the time this song was released, they'd been married for three or four years.Their relationship, which has produced three children, is one of the longer-lasting celebrity marriages you'll ever see. On the emotional level, at least, perhaps he did finally manage to stop living in a suitcase. |
submissions
| Thomas Dolby – Leipzig Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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People in their late 30's/early 40's, disappointed with the banality of their daily lives, try to spice things up by moving to a new city, but it turns out that "every place is just the same, isn't it?" |
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