| Old Blind Dogs – The Battle of Harlaw Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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This song, in vernacular Scots, tells the story of the Battle of Harlaw, fought in 1411. An army from the west coast of Scotland, under the command of Donald (or Domhnall), the Lord of the Isles, invaded the Earldom of Ross and advanced toward Aberdeen on the east coast. Donald's forces were met near Inverurie in Aberdeenshire by a smaller force assembled by Alexander Stewart, the Earl of Mar, who was loyal to the king of Scotland. The battle was a smaller affair than described in the song, but ended in a tactical victory for the Earl of Mar, and the retreat of Donald's army. Donald (Macdonald in the song) was not killed, and the leaders named on the 'Lowland' side -- Sir James Ross, Sir John Graeme, Forbes -- were probably not present at the battle and may not even have existed. Dunideer -- Dunnideer Castle in Aberdeenshire "fifty thoosan Hieland men" -- Donald's forces probably actually numbered only around 10,000 men; the Earl of Mar may have had just a third or half that number, but the core of the Lowland army was much better equipped, with knights wearing full plate armor against the lightly-armed and -armored Highlanders. Sir James the Rose -- Sir James Ross John the Graeme -- John Graeme or Graham Macdonald -- Donald (Domhnall) the Lord of the Isles, a baron whose power base lay mainly in the islands off the west coast of Scotland. Donald claimed to be the rightful ruler of the Earldom of Ross in north-western Scotland, and his incursion into mainland Scotland was intended to secure his claim. Skye -- a large island off the coast of Scotland heilan men -- the 'Highland men' were from the Western Isles off the west coast of Scotland. The 'Lowland men' who opposed them were the Earl of Mar's soldiers, mostly from the east and south of Scotland. merry men -- the phrase 'merry men' (most familiar from the phrase "Robin Hood and his merry men") doesn't mean that those described were particularly cheerful. 'Merry men' were the closest companions and most trusted soldiers of a lord or leader, often blood relatives or their best-equipped and most loyal knights. Depending on the context, 'companions', 'supporters', 'retinue' or 'followers' might all be good translations. 'Merry men' would normally refer to the core of a lord's army, but it could possibly be extended to describe all the soldiers fighting under his banner. "turn wir horse's heid" -- a poetic way of saying to turn around, i.e. to retreat "the brave Macdonald fell" -- Donald was not killed or, so far as is known, even injured in the battle "pitlarichie" -- panic, confusion, chaos; possibly an invented word "but fifty-three gaed hame" -- Donald's forces probably numbered about 10,000, of whom around 900 died in the battle. Around 600 of the Earl of Mar's smaller force were killed, but neither side was nearly wiped out, as the song suggests. Losses do seem to have been particularly heavy among the elites, however: Donald's seconds-in-command were both killed, and many knights on the Lowland side died. If you were to count only the nobility and the elite knights, then perhaps the numbers given in the ballad are more accurate. |
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| Old Blind Dogs – The Battle of Harlaw Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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As I came in by Dunnideer And down by Nether Haw There were fifty thousand Highland men Marching to Harlaw With a diddie aye-o and a fal and a doe And a diddie aye-o aye-ey As I went on and further on And down by Balquhain Oh it's there I saw Sir James Ross And with him John Graeme With a diddie aye-o ... "Did you come from the Highlands, man, Did you come all the way? Did you see Macdonald and his men As they came in from Skye?" With a diddie aye-o ... "Oh I was near, and near enough, That I their number saw. There were fifty thousand Highland men All marching to Harlaw." With a diddie aye-o ... "If that's true," says James Ross "They'll not be moving fast We'll call to our companions And turn our horse's head." With a diddie aye-o ... "Oh no, oh no," says John Graeme "This thing will never be For the gallant Graemes were never beaten We'll try what we can do." With a diddie aye-o ... Well, as I went on and further on And down by Harlaw They fell full close on every side Such blows you never saw. With a diddie aye-o ... They fell full close on every side Such blows you never saw And every sword gave clash for clash At the battle of Harlaw With a diddie aye-o ... The Highland men with their long swords They laid on us full sore And they drove back our companions The width of three acres or more With a diddie aye-o ... And Forbes said to his brother "Oh, brother, can't you see They've beaten us back on every side And we'll be forced to flee." With a diddie aye-o ... "Oh no, oh no, my brother bold This thing will never be You'll take your good sword in your hand And you'll come in with me." With a diddie aye-o ... Well, it's back-to-back the brothers bold Went in amongst the throng And they drove back the Highland men With their swords both sharp and long. With a diddie aye-o ... And the first blow that Forbes struck He made Macdonald reel And the next blow that Forbes struck The brave Macdonald fell With a diddie aye-o ... And such a panic The like you never saw As there was among the Highland men When they saw Macdonald fall With a diddie aye-o ... Some rode, some ran, and some fled They were of no account But Forbes and his companions They slew them on the road With a diddie aye-o ... Of fifty thousand Highland men Only fifty-three went home And out of all the Lowland men Fifty marched with Graeme With a diddie aye-o ... If anybody asks you Of those who marched away You can tell them plain and very plain They're sleeping at Harlaw With a diddie aye-o ... Wi a diddie aye-o and a fal and a doe And a diddie aye-o aye-ey |
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| Blyth Power – Carlisle Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| "Carlisle" is hard to interpret: the various references don\'t entirely add up to a coherent whole, although most of the song does seem to tell a story of a kind. Perhaps the best clue is in the liner notes for "Carlisle" on the album "Paradise Razed", which say that "A sudden clatter of mail vans without wakes me from dreams of riot and plunder to the cold waiting room and the morning train to Leeds". This suggests that the whole song might be simply a dream that Joseph Porter had while sleeping in a railway station, and so, like a dream, not all the images are necessarily connected.\n\n"Carlisle": a city in North-West England, slightly south of the border with Scotland.\n\n"Karpov": Anatoly Karpov, the Russian chess grandmaster. The first verse is full of chess metaphors, with several chess pieces -- pawn, castle, king -- mentioned. The action on the chessboard is described as if it were an actual battle.\n\n"the King\'s red menacing ride": in some chess sets, the darker pieces may be colored red rather than black. The "king\'s red menacing ride" may be an example of a figure of speech known as a \'transferred epithet\' in which an adjective is moved from one noun to another. In this case, \'red\' is transferred from \'king\' to \'ride\', so the "red king\'s ride" becomes the "king\'s red ride". The image of a "red king" may be intended to evoke the Red Queen from Lewis Carroll\'s "Through the Looking Glass": a ruler in an irrational dreamworld. As a chess grandmaster representing the Soviet Union, Karpov himself could also be described as a "red king", with \'red\' in the sense of \'Communist\'.\n\n"over the Castle": a castle (or rook) is a piece in chess, in keeping with the theme of this verse, but this is probably also a reference to Carlisle Castle, an 11th-century castle in Carlisle. \n\n"the Citadel\'s scar": The Citadel is a medieval fortress and former prison in Carlisle.\n\n"the border town": Carlisle\n\n"Sankt-Marie": \'sankt\' is a transcription of the Russian word for \'saint\' (i.e. the city of Saint Petersburg is Sankt-Peterburg in Russian). \'Sankt-Marie\' is clearly a protective figure, just possibly the Virgin Mary or another Christian saint named Mary or Marie.\n\n"I fell in with a good man ...": the verse that follows uses multiple images related to the work of a mason, suggesting that the \'good man\' may be an actual mason or a Freemason, or both.\n\n"to lay the breast works": "breastworks" are temporary fortifications, walls of earth or stone built to provide protection for soldiers\n\n"mortar": a paste used in building to bind stone or brick into place\n\n"his manor for my mansion house and altar": Mansion House is the residence of the Lord Mayor of London (and also the name of a nearby station on the London Underground). The implication seems to be that the \'good man\' has not merely taken the narrator under his protection, but has provided him with a home and even a path to respectability.\n\n"I pledged my parole": \'parole\', from the French word for \'word\', in the sense of "giving your word". A prisoner who "pledged his parole" might, depending on the circumstances, promise not to commit further crimes, or to flee, or to take up arms against his captor etc.\n\n"smarting but smiling": to smart is to feel pain; the suggestion is that the narrator resents his situation, but hides his resentment by smiling.\n\n"his dole": in British English, unemployment benefits are called "the dole". The word has the same roots as the verb "to dole out". \'dole\' in this sense is something given to someone in need, such as money, food or lodging. "his dole" is whatever the \'good man\' chooses to give the narrator (who is apparently humiliated by being dependent on his benefactor)\n\n"the silvers and the sables": \'sable\' is black, so this is a poetic image for moonlight and shadows.\n\n"gone to the moss now": \'moss\' is an archaic term for a peat bog and, by extension, moorland or any wild land. To "go to the moss" is to flee into the wilderness.\n\n"saddle bag": a bag fitted to the saddle of a horse to carry supplies\n\n"turned into the wind and slipped my cable": the metaphor here is of a sailing ship setting sail. To \'slip the cable\' is to leave in a hurry; a ship that did not have time to raise its anchor would simply release the cable or chain holding the anchor to the ship, letting it run overboard.\n\n"By Judas Iscariot": the narrator\'s betrayal of his host and benefactor is implicitly compared to the betrayal of Jesus by the disciple Judas Iscariot.\n\n"his hares and his hounds": \'hare and hounds\' is either a board game, in which three \'hounds\' try to trap a hare, or a physical game in which one person leaves a trail that others try to follow; the \'good man\' is not literally using hares to chase after the narrator, but his pursuit is being likened to one or other (or both) of the games known as "hare and hounds".\n\n"Sandman smashes the lantern": the sandman is a mythical figure in European folklore who brings sleep and inspires dreams\n\n"Narcissus": a character from Greek mythology, who fell in love with his own reflection, symbolizing total self-absorption. In this case, the \'Narcissus\' figure who is unmoved by the distress of a female character is presumably the narrator, who has been similarly self-focused and indifferent to the feelings of others throughout the song. | |
| Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – La Mitrailleuse Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| The title of the song, "La Mitrailleuse", is French, and means "the machine-gun". As the song progresses, drumbeats are heard that increasingly resemble the sound of machine-gun fire. | |
| Mike Oldfield – Five Miles Out Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| As @[andy106298:40370] described, this song was written by Oldfield after a frightening experience in an aircraft in bad weather. The lyrics of the song draw heavily (but not accurately) on aviation jargon and radio procedure. Oldfield\'s use of technical terms involves a lot of poetic license.\n\n"You\'ve got thirty degrees" -- probably thirty degrees of bank, i.e. the aircraft is not flying level, but is tilted thirty degrees to one side.\n\n"you\'re stalling out" -- an aerodynamic stall is not the same as stalling a car motor; in an aerodynamic stall, the aircraft is traveling below the speed at which the wings can generate lift, so it begins to fall and -- if no action is taken -- will crash.\n\n"hold your heading true" -- heading is a compass heading, so to \'hold your heading true\' would be to keep flying in the correct direction\n\n"you\'re number one" -- with these words, the traffic controller advises the pilot that he is first in line for landing.\n\n"Mayday!" -- internationally recognized code for distress, derived from the French "m\'aidez", meaning "help me"\n\n"Golf-Mike-Oscar-Victor-Juliet" -- the call sign used by the aircraft, spelled out in the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, which assigns each letter of the alphabet a different word. The words are chosen for their distinct sounds, making them hard to confuse. The call sign in this case is G-MOVJ, where the \'G\' designates an aircraft registered in the United Kingdom. It\'s not clear whether G-MOVJ was the actual registration/callsign of the aircraft involved, or if Oldfield simply chose this because it sounded good.\n\n"IMC" - Instrument Meterological Conditions: a technical term used in aviation to described weather conditions where visibility is so poor that pilots cannot use any visual clues -- i.e. what they can see outside the cockpit -- to help them navigate. Instead, they have to use the aircraft\'s instruments such as the compass, artificial horizon, altimeter etc. and signals from electronic beacons. Flying under \'instrument flight rules\' under instrument meteorological conditions requires special training; some pilots are cleared for visual flight rules only. In the context of the song, \'IMC\' simply means that the weather is very bad.\n\n"cu. nimb." -- abbreviation for cumulo-nimbus, the technical term for thunderclouds.\n\n"icing" -- ice is accumulating on the aircraft\'s wings and control surfaces, affecting its performance. Taken together with the previous phrases, the pilot of the aircraft is reporting a bad situation: very poor visibility, thunderstorms in the area, and ice build-up that could affect the aircraft\'s ability to fly.\n\n"traffic controller" -- the air traffic controller responsible for guiding the aircraft to its destination\n\n"Victor-Juliet" -- last two letters of the aircraft\'s callsign in the IRSA (see above)\n\n"your identity I have lost" -- the suggestion seems to be that the controller cannot see the aircraft on their radar display, or they are not receiving the transponder signal that identifies the aircraft, probably due to electrical interference from the storm\n\n"communicate or squawk \'emergency\'" -- the controller is instructing the pilot either to respond verbally -- \'communicate\' -- or by programming an emergency code into their transponder. The transponder (transmitter-responder) is a device that normally sends an identifying code for the aircraft, but can also be used to transmit one of a small set of emergency codes, which will show up on the controller\'s radar display. If electrical interference from a thunderstorm made verbal communication impossible, a pilot might be able to signal an emergency by entering one of these \'squawk codes\' into their transponder, thus letting the controller know that they are in trouble.\n\n"the evil eye of the hurricane" -- the metaphor doesn\'t quite work, because the eye of a hurricane is a patch of still air at the center of the hurricane; the calmest, least threatening part of the storm. | |
| Steeleye Span – Cam Ye O'er Frae France Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| The song, written in Scots, mocks various characters at the court of King George I, a German noble who became King of England on the death of Queen Anne. Wikipedia has an extensive explanation of the different figures named in the song, together with translations of key Scots phrases. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_Ye_O%27er_Frae_France | |
| Steeleye Span – Twa Corbies Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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As I was walking all alone I heard two carrion crows cawing And one said to the other Where shall we go and dine today? Where shall we go and dine today? In behind that old turf wall I know there lies a newly-killed knight And nobody knows that he lies there Except his hawk and his hound and his lady fair His hawk and his hound and his lady fair His hawk has gone hunting His hound to bring the wildfowl home His lady has taken another mate So we may make our dinner sweet So we may make our dinner sweet You will sit on his white neckbone And I'll pick out his pretty blue eyes With many a lock of his golden hair We'll line our nest when it grows bare We'll line our nest when it grows bare Many mourn for him But none will know where he is gone Over his white bones when they are bare The wind will blow for ever more The wind will blow for ever more (Note: the phrase "makes mane/makin' mane" occurs twice in the poem, once to describe the sound that the crows make, once to describe the actions of the knight's friends. The literal translation might be something like "makes moaning sounds"; I have translated it as "cawing" in the first case, and "mourning" in the second. The reason that the same phrase is used twice is probably to suggest that the cawing of the crows has a mournful sound to it, and so set the eerie tone of the poem). |
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| Steeleye Span – Rogues In A Nation Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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The words of the song are from a 1791 poem by Scottish poet Robert Burns. The poem expresses Burns' anger over the 1707 Act of Union, which ended Scotland's independence from England and dissolved the Scottish Parliament. Some of the members of the Scottish Parliament who supported the Act did so because they were essentially bribed: in return for their support of the Act, they were compensated for their losses in a disastrous investment scheme that had cost each of them huge sums of money. This is what Burns means when he speaks of the Scots being "bought and sold/for English gold". The poem refers to two figures from Scottish history: "Bruce" is Robert the Bruce, a Scottish king who fought against the English in the 14th century. "loyal Wallace" is Sir William Wallace, a Scottish knight who was one of the Scottish leaders during the First Scottish War of Independence (and who is probably best known today through the heavily-fictionalized Mel Gibson film "Braveheart"). |
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| Steeleye Span – New York Girls Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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The song describes a situation common in the 19th century: naive men would be lured with the promise of sex, served with alcohol (possibly drugged), then be robbed of all their possessions and sometimes even their clothes. Some versions of the song make it explicit that the victim is a sailor ("so take a tip young sailors/and watch your step on shore"). In this version, he has a "gold watch and a pocketbook" which seems a little unlikely for a poor sailor, but the fact that the song finishes up with him being sent "round Cape Horn" suggests that that is indeed what he is. The place names in the song vary in different versions, but Chatham Street, where the sailor first meets the girl (clearly a prostitute), is in Lower Manhattan, near the docks where his ship was probably docked. It was close to Five Points, a disreputable and dangerous part of the city, and was lined with brothels and shops dealing in stolen goods. The girl takes him a little way uptown to Bleecker Street, which was also notorious for being home to a large number of brothels. The subtext is that the girl's "mother" and her "sister" are nothing of the kind: the "mother" is presumably the owner of the brothel, her "sister" another prostitute. "Martin Churchill" was apparently a real figure, a 19th-century boarding house master who ran boarding houses that provided lodging to sailors. Like other owners of lodging houses that catered to sailors, he also acted as a recruiter, finding sailors to crew ships. He may also have been a 'crimp', a man whose recruiting methods involved drugging unsuspecting sailors or getting them drunk, and tricking or coercing them into signing a contract to join a particular ship while they were drunk or drugged. The spoken parts of the Steeleye Span version ("play that modern banjo, Min") are in the voices of Minnie and Henry, two characters from the anarchic radio comedy series The Goon Show, popular in Britain in the 1950s. |
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| Steeleye Span – Blackleg Miner [*] Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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A "blackleg" is a worker who is not a member of a union, and who is employed by the bosses to break strikes organized by the union. That is to say, the blackleg defies the orders of the union for everyone to stop work until management meets their demands. Because blacklegs or 'scabs' reduced the impact of the strike by allowing the mine to keep working, they were very much hated by the striking miners. In this song, the blackleg miner goes to work in secret at night ("in the evening after dark"), for fear of the retribution that he will face if he is caught. This is a union song, probably intended to discourage strike-breakers and encourage union membership. It probably dates from the miner's lockout of 1844, a nationwide miner's strike, but makes particular reference to two coal mines in Northumberland. The lockout was eventually unsuccessful, largely due to the use of blackleg labor by the mine owners. "moleskin pants and dirty shirt" -- the working clothes of a coal miner "grabs his duds" -- 'grabs his clothing' "to hew the coal" -- 'to dig the coal' "there's not a woman in this town row would look at the blackleg miner" -- blacklegs were not just at risk of violence, anyone willing -- or desperate enough -- to break a strike would risk being socially ostracized by people in the community. "Delaval" -- Seaton Delaval coal mine in Northumberland, England. "the Seghill mine" -- another coal mine, located near the village of Seghill not far from Seaton Delaval. |
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| Steeleye Span – Gaudete Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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"Gaudete" ("Rejoice") is a sacred carol, celebrating the birth of Christ. "Deus homo factus est" -- "God is made man" is a reference to the central mystery of the Christian faith, the incarnation of God in the form of the mortal Jesus Christ. "Ezechielis porta clausa per transitur" -- "the closed gate of Ezekiel has been passed through": in Ezekiel 44:1-3, the prophet Ezekiel describes a vision of the eastern gate of the Temple (the holiest site of Judaism, the temple built in Jerusalem by King Solomon). The gate remains closed forever, because G*d has entered the Temple through it, and so no mortal is allowed to use it. For some Christian theologians such as St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, this verse was seen as a prophecy of Christ's birth, and the closed gate was identified with the womb of the Virgin Mary; no man could pass through it, but God could (and had). |
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| Steeleye Span – Gaudete Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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Rejoice, rejoice! Christ is born Of the Virgin Mary – Rejoice! The time of grace has come— That we have wished for; Songs of joy Let us give back faithfully. God is made man [With] Nature marveling The world is renewed By the reigning Christ The gate of Ezekiel [which has been] closed is passed through Whence light is risen Salvation is found So let our assembly Now sing in brightness Let it bless the Lord Salvation to our King |
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| Steeleye Span – Thomas The Rhymer Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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Thomas the Rhymer was a nickname of Sir Thomas of Ercildoun ('Earlston'), also known as True Thomas, a 13th Scottish laird (landowner) known as a poet and also reputed to have the gift of prophecy. The ballad "Thomas the Rhymer" condenses into ballad form a written romance which was a kind of 'origin story' for Thomas's supposed prophetic gifts. Stories of mortals being abducted by faeries -- often, by the Queen of Elfland, the queen of the faeries, herself -- were fairly widespread, and the story of Thomas the Rhymer follows the standard pattern. Typical elements include the description of the queen appearing as a beautiful woman riding on a horse, who takes the mortal Thomas through a strange and disturbing landscape. In the legends, the mortal is then eventually dumped back in the real world, where they often find that either many years or no time at all has passed. They sometimes have the gift of poetry or prophecy (or both; the two are frequently linked) as a result of their adventure. The traditional ballad "Tam Lin" is not directly related, but it falls under the same general heading. Like "Thomas the Rhymer", it's about a mortal man who has been taken to Elfland by the Queen of Faerie to be her lover or companion. |
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| Neil Young – Revolution Blues Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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"we live in a trailer at the edge of town" -- Charles Manson and members of the Manson Family lived in trailers at Spahn Ranch, a property near Los Angeles owned by George Spahn, during 1968 and 1969. "carbine" -- a light military weapon "ten million dune buggies" -- Manson and members of the Family constructed an improvised workshop on the Spahn Ranch, where they built improvised dune buggies out of stolen Porsches and Volkswagens, then sold them for money and drugs. Manson's plans to start a race war that he called "Helter Skelter" included the idea of a fleet of dune buggies manned by his followers. See the book "The Family: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion" by Ed Sanders. "Laurel Canyon" -- an upscale neighborhood in Hollywood Hills West, Los Angeles. |
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| The Jam – Eton Rifles Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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"Eton Rifles" -- Eton College is an expensive private boarding school, perhaps the most prestigious of the various schools that cater to the children of the wealthy and the British aristocracy. The name 'Eton Rifles' doesn't have any specific meaning, but Weller may be thinking of members of the Combined Cadet Force (CCF). Students aged 16 or older at Eton would have a choice between two extra-curricular activities: 'social services', which involved doing various humanitarian or social tasks in and around Eton, or the 'cadet force', a para-military force supported and trained by the British Army. Cadets would drill once a week, receive basic training, go on occasional field exercises etc. The CCF is similar to ROTC in the US, except that students joined the CCF during high school rather than at college. "sup up your beer and collect your fags" -- there's probably a play on words here; 'fags' is British slang for cigarettes, but it also has a specific meaning in the distinctive slang of Eton, where a 'fag' is a younger boy who performs chores for an older student; one of the privileges of seniority at Eton would be having a 'fag' to run errands on your behalf. 'Fagging' was a kind of rite of passage, and those who 'fagged' would in turn have 'fags' of their own once they became more senior. There are no sexual connotations in either case. The joke is in the double-meaning. Addressed to Weller's working-class friends, 'fag' means one thing; addressed to the 'Eton Rifles', it has a quite different meaning. "down near Slough" -- the nearest large town to Eton, Slough (pronounced /slau/) is a working-class town. "thought you were smart when you took them on" -- a reference to a fight between Socialist Workers' Party demonstrators and Eton students, as described by other commenters "their artillery room" -- there is no 'artillery room' at Eton, but this is probably metaphorical; an 'artillery room' might be a room where the cadet force kept its weapons (or trophies), so "you didn't take a peep in their artillery room" means "you didn't see what kind of resources they had", i.e. you underestimated them. "all that rugby puts hairs on your chest" -- Eton students play a variety of sports on a regular basis -- soccer, rugby, cricket, rowing and Eton's own eccentric "Wall Game". The rugger players in particular were probably stronger and fitter than the SWP members might have expected from pampered members of the upper class. "a tie and a crest" -- the uniform of the upper classes, and by extension the upper classes themselves; some private schools (but not Eton) have a school uniform that included a necktie and a jacket with a crest on the breast pocket "hello-hooray" -- the cheer 'hooray' is an upper-class affectation; around the time that the song was written or a little later, 'Hooray Henries' was a slang name for a particular kind of noisy upper-class youth. "House of Commons" -- the lower house of the British parliament "I hope rain stops play" -- sporting fixtures like cricket matches in the UK are often interrupted by weather; Eton boys would have been familiar with 'rain stops play' as a laconic note describing the outcome of a particular internal match or a game against another school. In the context of the song, the meaning seems to be "I hope outside events spoil your fun", and is probably Weller's general hope for the British upper classes. |
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| The Jam – Saturday's Kids Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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"Saturday's Kids" -- the song title is possibly a reference to the nursery rhyme, "Monday's Child" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday%27s_Child), which describes the characteristics that children are supposed to have based on the day of the week on which they are born. Weller, the author of the song, would very likely have been familiar with this rhyme. In place of the rather optimistic qualities given in the rhyme, "Saturday's Kids" paints a bleak picture of lower-class life in Britain. Saturday's kids are working-class or lower-class children -- the song is a long list of characteristics that a British listener would instantly recognize as identifying working-class people. It's also possible that it's a reference to "The Saturday Kids", a song by Mott the Hoople that Weller might also have known. "live life with insults" -- the song doesn't make it clear if the boys receive or issue insults, but the answer is probably both, or that their life itself is one long insult. "wait for half-time results" -- the 'half-time results' are the scores from a football (soccer) match at 'half-time', the break in the middle of the game. At the time that the song was written, results from soccer matches, particular in the minor leagues, wouldn't usually be available live. Instead, radio sports programs would give a round-up of the scores from each match at half-time, and then again at full-time, when the matches ended. The boys in the song are waiting for the half-time results to see how their team has done. "Light-a-bite" -- a 'bite' is slang for a meal, so "Light-a-Bite" (or "Lighter Bite") is apparently the name for a cafe, either a specific one or part of a chain. "Tesco's and Woolworths" -- Tesco's is a supermarket chain; Woolworth's is a department store chain. The choice of those two chains, which cater mostly to lower-class or lower-middle-class Britons, is deliberate. The fact that the girls have jobs in those particular stores defines them as working class. "go to discos" -- a Friday or Saturday night outing to the disco is another activity strongly associated with the particular class Weller has in mind. "drink Babycham" -- Babycham is the brand-name of a light alcoholic drink, a sparkling perry made from pears. The 'cham' part of the name is supposed to imply 'champagne'. Again, this choice of drink firmly identifies the drinkers as working-class; Babycham was a stereotypical choice for girls from the class Weller is describing, probably because it was inexpensive and relatively low in alcohol. Boys would drink beer instead. "Bingo accents" -- Bingo was a popular pastime among working-class Britons; so a 'Bingo accent' would by implication be a working-class accent or dialect. "one-arm bandits" -- slot gambling machines, sometimes called "fruit machines" "Capstan non-filters" -- unfiltered cigarettes of the Capstan brand. Again, this brand and the choice of unfiltered cigarettes is a very strong indicator for a specific social class. "To Selsey Bill or Bracklesham Bay" -- two seaside destinations in Sussex, in southern England. The fact that the subjects of the song vacation in England rather than traveling abroad is another class indicator. Selsey Bill had a large caravan (US: trailer) park; going to the seaside and staying in a caravan near the beach was a firmly working-class style of vacation. "one on the way" -- a woman with 'one on the way' is pregnant; the implication is of a hasty or forced marriage because the female partner is already pregnant "council houses" -- social housing built by the local Council (US: projects) "v-necked shirts and baggy trousers" -- the uniform of a particular social class at the time that the song was written "drive Cortinas" -- the Ford Cortina was nearly ubiquitous in the UK at the time that the song was written; again, it was not a prestigious choice of car. "fur-trimmed dashboards" -- particular kinds of vehicle accessorization such as fur trim, fuzzy dice dangling from the mirror etc. were also strong class indicators "stains on the seats -- in the back of course" -- probably the result of sexual intercourse. It's yet another class indicator; middle-class young people can find more comfortable places to have sex, while working-class boys or girls can only find privacy in the back seat of their cars or their parents' cars. |
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| The Mekons – Brutal Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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"Brutal" is about drugs and, in particular, the real or presumed involvement of governments in the drug trade. "Here comes McDrug" -- the invented name "McDrug" appears to stand for large-scale commercialization of drugs, by analogy with the McDonalds fast-food chain: the idea is that commercial interests mean that drugs are now sold cheaply, at massive scale, and everywhere, just like McDonalds hamburgers. "The English love for China tea ..." -- the first three verses refer to the Opium Wars of the mid-19th century. The British government granted a monopoly on trade with India to a private company, the East India Company, which came to rule large parts of India and fielded large private armies. It also imported tea from India and China to India, and exported opium grown in India (including present-day Bangladesh) to China. When the Qing Emperor of China banned the import and sale of opium in China, threatening the profits of the Company, a British military expedition was sent to invade China and force the Chinese to accept opium imports ("send in the army to deal some smack"). "smack" -- slang for heroin, an opiate drug "live together in perfect harmony" -- an allusion to the song "Ebony and Ivory" by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney, with a cynical twist; instead of 'ebony and ivory' living 'together in perfect harmony', the Mekons are saying that 'drugs and guns and slavery' co-exist happily together. "Where the poppy grew, the soil is dead" -- the opium poppy impoverishes and damages the soil where it is grown, so parts of Bangladesh may still suffer from erosion and damage caused by intensive opium cultivation. "Drugs have long been the currency of the Central Intelligence Agency ..." -- it has been claimed that the CIA has used drug sales to finance covert operations; one conspiracy theory asserts that crack cocaine was introduced to the United States by the CIA. "E.E.C." -- the European Economic Community, a European regional trading organization that was later renamed the European Community, and then merged into the European Union. "a clown steps over the Berlin Wall" -- US President Ronald Reagan "burning cross" -- burning crosses were a trademark of the racist Ku Klux Klan in the United States; the reference seems to suggest that Reagan, as a right-wing politician, was sympathetic to the ideals of the Klan. "Perestroika dependency" -- 'perestroika' ('reconstruction' in Russian) was a policy of reform in the Soviet Union under the administration of Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev's reform policies led to a new openness toward the West, and may have contributed to the later collapse of the Soviet Union. Because Reagan was able to claim credit for this, the song alleges that he had a "perestroika dependency". "Noiseless rocks ..." -- the imagery in this verse evokes cocaine, including crack cocaine. Crack is sold in chunks known as "rocks"; "snow" is a slang term for cocaine. "NATO searches for a new enemy" -- with the fall of the Soviet Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance between the United States and European nations, was less necessary. NATO military forces were sometimes reassigned to drug interdiction operations, providing them with a "new enemy". "the big city" -- possibly London, the home base for the East India Company, with a number of important buildings constructed using money from the Company's profits -- including the profits from the Company-controlled opium trade. "Fenland" -- a district of Cambridgeshire, England. "Alderman Roberts" -- almost certainly a reference to Alfred Roberts JP, alderman of Grantham and the father of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. "the duffer" -- 'duffer' is English slang for a stupid person, especially an elderly one. From the context, it sounds as if a specific person is intended and this may be a nickname. It's not clear who this is, or why he is "on his way to Alderman Roberts". |
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| The Mekons – Amnesia Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| The final verse of the song, with its references to "Up the river" and "Floodlit jungle" may be intended to evoke imagery associated with the film "Apocalypse Now" and, in a broader sense, the American involvement in Vietnam. The verse appears to suggest that rock musicians are a metaphorical invading army: a "heavy metal Marine Corps". | |
| The Mekons – Amnesia Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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"It was a dark and stormy night" -- aside from the obvious meaning, this is also a reference to the (in)famous opening line of the novel "Paul Clifford" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. "The first mate, the bosun and me" -- the 'first mate' is the second-in-command of a sailing ship; the bosun or boatswain was the most senior member of the ship's deck crew. "from Bristol to the Ivory Coast then on to Jamaica" -- the Atlantic slave trade was an example of a 'triangular trade'. Ships from British ports such as Bristol carried British manufactured goods to Africa, where they were exchanged for slaves. The slaves were then carried to the West Indies, where they would be sold to sugar cane planters to work on plantations there. The ships were then loaded with sugar and rum for the journey home to Britain. The profits from the sale of West Indian products were used to buy more goods to be traded in Africa, and so the trade continued. "Down in the hold there is no sound" -- the hold of a slave ship would have been filled with slaves. "We're taking rock'n'roll to America" -- rock and roll derives from music made by American Blacks, which in turn was based on the rhythms and sound of African music; the ship in the song is clearly a slave ship, carrying Africans -- and their music -- to the Americas. "The crack fields of Bolivia" -- Bolivia was an exporter of coca paste, used in the production of cocaine and crack, a variant form of cocaine. "Burning White House" -- the White House in Washington D.C. was partially burned by British troops during the War of 1812. "Shining Path" -- the Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path were a Maoist revolutionary movement in Peru during the late 20th century. "Americay" -- the Mekons sometimes use poetic variants of words ending in '-a' for rhyme purposes; they do the same with 'California' in the song "Brutal" "Eric Burdon" -- lead singer of the band "The Animals" "stunned in Mississippi on The Animals' US tour" -- during the band's tour of the US, The Animals were violently expelled from the town of Meridian, Mississippi by local racists because of the band's promotion of Black music and the fact that the band had a Black assistant. "Mardi Gras Indian" -- Mardi Gras Indians are Black revelers in New Orleans who dress in costumes loosely-inspired by Native American clothing at Carnival. "Segregation" -- refers to racial segregation in the United States, when schools, businesses and facilities were divided along racial lines, and Black people were denied access to facilities reserved for Whites. "1964" -- a pivotal year in the civil rights movement. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination on grounds of race, color, religion, sex and other criteria. "wah-wah" -- a wah-wah pedal is a guitar effects pedal used to create a distinctive sound "blackface-painted" -- this probably has a double significance; the song as a whole deals with racism, particularly in the context of music; blackface minstrels were White performers who painted their faces Black, performed music supposedly derived from Black music, and acted out racist caricatures of Black people. The last verse, however, has a military theme, and soldiers may also paint their faces black on night operations. The phrase is probably intended to evoke both meanings. "gringo" -- Latin American slang for a North American; "gringo military" suggests an American army, probably an invading army in a foreign country. "Led Zeppelin" -- successful British heavy rock band "Marine Corps" -- the US Marine Corps, one of the arms of service of the American military. |
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| Blyth Power – Sometimes I Wonder Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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The song is an imagined interaction between the narrator and members of the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction), also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group, a terrorist organization active in Germany mainly during the 1970s. The names mentioned in the song are all those of members of the RAF. Andreas -- Andreas Baader, one of the leaders of the RAF. Ulrike -- Ulrike Meinhof, another RAF founding member. Gudrun -- Gudrun Ensslin, another prominent RAF member. Specific lines in the song reference elements of the history of the group and its members. "talked of his childhood days/of artists and cafes" -- before becoming a terrorist, Baader was part of an alternative arts scene "Opel-Gang wars" -- the Opel-Gang were German criminals who drove modified Opel cars. The lyric may just mean that the Opel-Gang were contemporaries of Baader, not that he had any direct connection to them. "Opel-Gang" was also the title of the debut album by the German punk band Die Toten-Hosen. Joseph Porter, vocalist and lyricist of Blyth Power, was a member of various punk bands and often references other bands in his songs. "the parson's daughter" -- Gudrun Ensslin was the daughter of a pastor. "a father he couldn't recall" -- Andreas Baader's father was sent to the Russian front during WWII ("blown by defeat to the ends of the east/on the wind of another man's war"), taken prisoner by the Russians and probably died in a Russian prison camp; Baader was 2 years old when his father was captured. "his mission of mercy/and in a vision not fully explained" -- the RAF were Communists, and their terrorist actions were presumably intended to create a better society, although the lyric suggests that they didn't have any very coherent plan for this. "his elders and betters" -- the targets of the RAF included prominent German politicians and capitalists, members of an older generation. "betters" is particularly ironic, as the RAF were angered above all by the fact that many former Nazis had successfully avoided punishment and were now once again in positions of power in German society. "silenced Berettas" -- Beretta is an Italian firearms manufacturer; in this case, the reference is probably to a popular line of automatic pistols, and "silenced Berettas" would be pistols fitted with a suppressor (popularly known as a 'silencer') to reduce the noise of gunshots "Frankfurterallee" -- a major street in Berlin "Lord of the flies" -- a reference to William Golding's novel "The Lord of the Flies", in which a group of schoolchildren abandoned on a tropical island revert to savagery. The implication is that Baader is of the same kind: an unsupervised child who turns to violence. "prestressed tower block jungle" -- the 'prestressed' seems to have a double meaning here; concrete used in construction is 'prestressed' (compressed) to make it stronger, but the suggestion is also that the urban environment -- a "tower block jungle" -- in which Baader grew up was subject to particular stresses as a result of events of the recent past, i.e. WWII. "Andreas passed to a German hell/Ulrike preceded him there/Gudrun has gone to the place she belongs" -- the leaders of the RAF were arrested in 1972. Ulrike Meinhof was found hanged in her prison cell before the end of their trial on terrorist offenses. Andreas Baader and fellow RAF member Jan-Carl Raspe were found shot to death in their cells in Stammheim prison in 1977, while Gudrun Ensslin was found hanged in her own cell. The deaths were probably suicides, although some supporters believe that they were murdered. "I was ready and willing to talk/to turn in my gun now and run with the hounds and the hunter" -- the identity of the narrator of the song is unclear, but these lines suggest that it might be an RAF member who cooperated with the authorities. 2nd-generation RAF members Volker Speitel and Monika Helbing both received reduced sentences in exchange for cooperation, but both of them joined the RAF after the leaders of the 1st generation (including Baader, Meinhof and Ensslin) were already imprisoned, making the imagined dialogue in the song impossble. |
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| The Mekons – Corporal Chalkie Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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The song is apparently the thoughts of a conscripted British soldier in an unspecified war. Because the song describes the Second World War as "what happened before I was born," the war referred to may be an imagined Third World War. The title of the song, "Corporal Chalkie", is presumably the rank and nickname of the narrator. 'Corporal' is a junior non-commissioned officer in the army, outranking only privates (ordinary soldiers) and lance-corporals. A corporal would probably be in charge of a section of up to 20 men. 'Chalkie' is a traditional nickname in the United Kingdom, given to anyone whose surname is 'White'. Historically in Britain, certain surnames were associated with specific nicknames, so that anyone named White would be known as Chalkie White, anyone whose last name was Miller would be Dusty Miller, and so on. 'I know what happened before I was born' apparently refers to the Second World War. 'the Huns' -- slang for Germans 'the Nips' -- slang for Japanese (from Nipponese, derived from the Japanese word 'nihonjin'). 'Nips' is now considered offensive. 'Blighty' -- slang name for Britain 'get uppy with' -- to act arrogantly or aggressively toward someone else, usually someone who is assumed to be superior to them; summarizing the Second World War as simply Germany and Japan 'getting uppy with' Great Britain is deliberately absurd. 'Tommy' -- a British soldier, or, in this case, British soldiers as a group. The name 'Tommy Atkins' was apparently used as a generic name for an ordinary British soldier since at least the early nineteenth century, and 'Tommy' became a generic term for any British soldier. Rudyard Kipling's poem 'Tommy' further popularized this use. 'my call-up forms' -- conscription papers 'bloke' -- generic slang for a man 'platoon thirty two' -- a platoon is a military unit which, in the British Army, consists of around 30 men. 'thirty-two' is an unlikely name for a platoon and is probably used just to help the rhyme scheme; a platoon would normally be referred to by a its number within a company (a larger unit, typically consisting of three platoons), for example "2nd Platoon B Company"; no company would contain thirty-two platoons. 'poof' -- offensive term for a homosexual male or a person judged effeminate 'number two' -- feces |
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| The Mekons – (Sometimes I Feel Like) Fletcher Christian Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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Fletcher Christian was an English seaman, master's mate aboard the transport ship HMS Bounty. In 1789, Christian led a mutiny that seized control of the Bounty from her commander, Lieutenant William Bligh. Bligh and a number of sailors who refused to join the mutiny were set adrift in the ship's longboat. Christian and the mutineers sailed the Bounty first to Tahiti, where they took on board a number of Polynesian men and women, and then to Pitcairn Island, where they settled, burning the ship so that it would not be discovered. Fighting later broke out among the settlers, and Christian and most of the other mutineers were killed. The song lyrics are the thoughts of someone who is imagining how Christian might have felt on Pitcairn and compares his own feelings to those he attributes to Christian. Many of the lyrics reference the events of the mutiny directly. For example "... and gave our captain up to the sea" describes the abandonment of Bligh in the longboat. Similarly, "the tattoist's needle" is probably a reference to the fact that tattooing was practiced in Tahiti and other Pacific Islands, and may have been the first place that British sailors such as Christian encountered the practice. The line "I sucked hard on every pleasure" probably refers to the fact that before the mutiny the Bounty visited Tahiti and remained there for five months. During that time, many of the sailors lived ashore and formed relationships with Polynesian women; one of the probable motivations for the mutiny was that the sailors wanted to return to their comfortable life on Tahiti. |
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| The Tom Robinson Band – Martin Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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Two more items of slang "hard" -- emotionally withdrawn "inside" -- in prison |
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| The Tom Robinson Band – Martin Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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Some of the British slang used in the song includes: "mush" -- face "six of the best" -- corporal punishment; six strokes with a cane "nick" -- to steal "motors" -- cars (from "motor car") "Black Maria" -- a police van "XJ6" -- Jaguar XJ6, an expensive car "nicked" -- arrested "Borstal" -- a type of youth detention center, prison for young offenders "taking and driving away" -- legal term for stealing a car; UK equivalent of the US 'grand theft auto' "the boys in blue" -- police "racing mags" -- magazines about horse-racing "ciggies" -- "cigarettes" "booze" -- "alcohol" "remand home" -- a detention home for young offenders; in this case, it probably refers to a halfway house between Borstal and release into the community "Nan" -- grandmother "telly" -- television |
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| Prince & the New Power Generation – 7 Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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The song is about the conflict between love and peace, on the one hand, and forces of violence and oppression on the other, with Prince promising that love and peace will win. The significance of the 'seven' who 'stand in the way of love' is not clear. One common suggestion is that they represent the seven deadly sins, which is certainly possible. However, it's hard to find evidence of this in the song. What is clear is that many words and phrases in the song seem to consciously echo the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible. First of all, the number seven is highly significant in Revelation, being repeated numerous times: Revelation 1 opens with the author, St. John, addressing "the seven churches which are in Asia", and refers to the "seven Spirits which are before his throne" (i.e. the throne of God). John has a vision of "seven candlesticks", and a figure who "had in his right hand seven stars". The candlesticks are later explained to represent the seven churches, while the stars stand for "the angels of the seven churches". Later, in Revelation 4, there are "seven lamps of fire ... which are the seven Spirits of God ..." [Revelation 4:5]. There is also a book "sealed with seven seals" [Revelation 5:1]. The seven seals are opened by "the Lamb" (Jesus), and John then sees "seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets" [Revelation 8:2]. When the first six angels have blown their trumpets (loosing various plagues and disasters on mankind), John sees another "mighty angel come down from Heaven", who cries out and "seven thunders uttered their voices". In the song, Prince sings "I saw an angel come down unto me/In her hand she holds the very key". The use of the archaic word 'unto' is obviously intended to suggest a religious text, and in Revelation 20:1 we find a suggestively similar verse: "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit ..." There are more parallels. Prince hears "an army's marching feet"; John sees "the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army." [Revelation 19:19]. The words 'army' and 'armies' also occur frequently elsewhere in Revelation. Prince sings "And we lay down on the sand of the sea"; John says "And I stood upon the sand of the sea" [Revelation 13:1]. Immediately after the reference to the sand of the sea in "7", Prince says that "... animosity will stand and decree/That we speak not of love only blasphemy"; the rest of Revelation 13 deals with the seven-headed Beast, which is closely associated with blasphemy: "upon his heads, the name of blasphemy" [Revelation 13:1], "... and there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies" [Revelation 13:5], "And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name ..." [Revelation 13:6]. Prince sings "we will see a plague and a river of blood"; the angels of Revelation smite the earth with various plagues, and "the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood" [Revelation 16:3] Prince sings "there will be a new city with streets of gold"; in Revelation 21, the heavenly city of Jerusalem is described in detail, "and the street of the city was pure gold" [Revelation 21:21] Prince, who was raised as a Seventh-Day Adventist and later became a Jehovah's Witness, would certainly have been familiar with the Book of Revelation. The parallels between the song and Revelation are too numerous and too close to be accidental. It seems very likely that Prince was consciously thinking of Revelation when he wrote the song, and may have intended it as his own prophetic text; just as John predicts the downfall of the enemies of God in Revelation, Prince promises that he and his lover or ally will see "the seven" defeated. This doesn't resolve the question of who "the seven" are. In Revelation, the number seven is first associated with the churches. It's possible that in the song, "the seven" stands for organized religion in general, or for the Seventh-Day Adventist faith in particular, or it may have had some entirely different, personal meaning for Prince or his fellow songwriters. |
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| Fatal Mambo – Magot tcheri Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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My bank manager [...] The sicker I am, the more he hassles me What do I have to do, to get a little bit of dough? What do I have to do, to get a little bit of dough? I tried the mayor, asked for financial aid But the civil servants were holding a demonstration What can you do, against the anger of the bureaucracy? What can you do, against the anger of the bureaucracy? And when I asked for housing benefits at the ASSEDIC Outside, the cops gave me a parking ticket It's really not cool, to pay it I'll have to find some bread Oh it's really not cool, to pay it I'll have to find some bread [...] the job, if you don't want to pay What? Your sweet dough (x3) Ai, dough! Some dough If you're not from money It's difficult -- it's just crazy! Why did no one ever tell me That to make a pancake, you need some radishes Oh, give me, seven hundred and fifty million 'bricks' And I'll sing for you all my life Yep! I could [...] Or even insurance salesman -- welcome to the home of the scammers! I prefer to be a singer, even if it's the job that's wiped me out I prefer to be a singer, even if it's the job that's wiped me out Lay out a little [...] [...] So it's impossible for me to change my job But the solution is for you to help me If you like my song, you'll do some advertising for me (x3) |
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| Fatal Mambo – Magot tcheri Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| The lyrics as originally posted are incomplete, and are a transcription by a non-native French speaker. If you can improve them, please do. | |
| New Model Army – Here Comes The War Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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The line "the centre cannot hold" is a reference to the poem "The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats, which contains the lines: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." The idea of impending anarchy fits well with the general theme of the song. The Age of Reason, also known as the Enlightenment, was the 18th-century philosophical and intellectual movement that championed many ideas central to modern Western thought -- individual liberty, religious tolerance, democracy, scientific discovery, and so forth. "Put out the lights on the Age of Reason" implies a return to superstition, violence and tyranny. The "Valley of the Shadow of Death" is a reference to Psalm 23, verse 4: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." In the psalm, God is presented as a shepherd leading a mortal safely through the valley; in the song, the opposite is happening. "Give us liberty or give us death" is a version of the phase "Give me liberty, or give me death!", attributed to the US founding father Patrick Henry, in a speech made to the Virginia Convention in 1775. The album "The Love of Hopeless Causes" was released in 1993, While the image of the young men in their "makeshift uniforms" fighting a pointless war for a "sacred mother tongue" and a flag is probably intended as a general image for the futility of patriotic war, it may have been at least partly inspired by the war in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995). |
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| New Model Army – 225 Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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The title "225" turns out to refer to the tempo of the song -- 225 beats per minute. The song itself is a protest against many of NMA's favorite targets -- inhuman capitalism and technology, militarism, pollution and surveillance. Above all, it's about the way the voices of ordinary people go unheard: "I swear, we never asked for any of this." |
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| Jon Langford – Thee Olde Trip to Jerusalem Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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The song refers to various historical figures and groups from English left-wing, anarchist and Utopian movements. "Red Ken" is Ken Livingstone, a Labour politician and former Mayor of London. Tony Benn, also known as Anthony Wedgwood-Benn, is another idealistic 20th-century politician from the Labour Party. William Blake is a British poet, whose works included a poem called "Jerusalem" (later set to music as a very popular hymn) with its vision of the Kingdom of God, i.e. Jerusalem, built "in England's green and pleasant land". William Morris was a late nineteenth-century utopian, artist and libertarian socialist. The Fabian Society was a British socialist movement, advocating gradualist rather than revolutionary reform. Tony Benn was a Fabian. Muggletonians, Ranters and Quakers were religious sects with an emphasis on a personal relationship with God, with pacifist and egalitarian ideals. Only the Quakers still exist. The Levellers and the Diggers were two early Utopian anarchist movements, who claimed common ownership of the land, and were heavily repressed by landowners and vested interests. "Oh I love the Union" may be a reference to trade unionism; it could also be a reference to Britain as a whole, as created by the Act of Union that joined England and Scotland. The 'olde trip to Jerusalem' is presumably therefore any movement to create an ideal society in England, the song focusing here particularly on groups or individuals whose visions stressed socialism, anarchism, pacifism and egalitarianism as key features of such a society. |
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| Levellers – Behold a Pale Rider Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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The title of the song is a reference to the Revelation of St John, 6:8: "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." Although the Bible verse actually describes the horse, rather than the rider, as 'pale', the two have become merged, so the 'rider of the pale horse' is a 'pale rider', who is Death. The song reflects this theme of death and destruction being unleashed, in the context of the 'Global War on Terror' of the early 21st century, with multiple references to events and themes of the war. "Bombs go off in London" refers to the 7/7 terrorist bombings in London, in which Islamist suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured more than 700. One bomb exploded on an underground train that had just left King's Cross Station, hence the reference to "... that King's Cross countdown/As the detonators blow". The verse that begins with the words "Split the Gulf Sky red" refers to the American invasion of Iraq, in which the oil fields were set on fire, resulting in thick smoke clouds and the black rain described in the song. The "hidden Eastern passes" are the passes of Afghanistan, defended by the Taliban. One side goal of the Western mission in Afghanistan has been to destroy the fields in which opium poppies are grown, in an attempt to stop the flow of heroin to the west. The Edgware Road is a major road in London, thus "a soldier from the Edgware Road" is a British soldier. The 'water margins' are historically famous marshes in China; Guantanamo Bay is a US internment camp in Cuba where terrorist suspects are held and tortured without trial. The line reflects the global nature of the war on terror. The 'pale rider' himself is described as 'a New World partisan': the tone of the chorus and the image of "the desert dust slipping slowly through his hands" after twenty years suggests the futility of the whole enterprise. The alternating chorus of "And the millions cried 'Sweet Mary' ..." reflects the horror and remorse of ordinary people at the atrocities committed in the name of fighting terrorism. |
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| Levellers – Behold a Pale Rider Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| The title is "Behold a Pale Rider", not "Behold the Pale Rider". | |
| Fabrizio De André – Sinan Capudan Pascià Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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"Sinan Capudan Pascià " tells the story of Scipione Cicala, the son of a Genovese nobleman, who was captured by the Ottomans at the battle of Djerba. He converted to Islam, and rose to the rank of Grand Admiral ("Capudan Pasha") of the Ottoman fleet. De Andrè's song describes his capture ("turbaned heads on the galley, the sabers flash in the moonlight"), and his later rise to fortune. The song seems to imply that he was a galley slave who came to the attention of his masters when he saved a ship from being wrecked, but this seems not to have been the case: the real Cicala, captured at an age between 14 and 16, was trained to enter the service of the Ottoman Sultan, and subsequently married two great-granddaughters of Suleyman the Magnificent. The chorus portrays Sinan/Cicala as uninfluenced by wealth and attaching no significance to his conversion: "... and tell those who call me a renegade, that I have left the riches of gold and silver to sparkle in the sun, blaspheming Muhammad in place of Christ". Wikipedia has more information about the historical Cicala: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigalazade_Yusuf_Sinan_Pasha |
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| The Sisters of Mercy – Lucretia, My Reflection Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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'Dum-dum' bullets are expanding bullets, designed to deform and expand when they strike a target, producing a more damaging wound. The commonest kind of expanding bullets are 'hollow-point' rounds, where the tip of the bullet is hollowed out. The use of expanding bullets in warfare has historically been illegal, but they are sometimes used by law enforcement because they have less penetrating power, so they are less likely to pass through objects and injure bystanders. Methedrine is a popular amphetamine ('speed'). Lucretia may possibly be a reference to the Roman woman Lucretia, whose rape and subsequent suicide led to the downfall of the last king of Rome, or it may possibly refer to Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of the infamous Rodrigo Borgia. |
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| The Sisters of Mercy – Lucretia, My Reflection Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| The lines "Once a railroad/Now it's done...", which superficially make no sense, may be a reference to the well-known Depression-era song "Buddy, can you spare a dime?", which contains the line "Once I built a railroad; now it's done". | |
| The Sisters of Mercy – Lucretia, My Reflection Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Although the singer pauses between the words "dive" and "bombers", the comma between the words should probably not be there. A 'dive bomber' is a specific type of military aircraft (e.g. the German Ju-87 Stuka, the American SBD Dauntless, and the Japanese Aichi D3A "Val"). "I hear dive bombers" makes sense, whereas "I hear dive, bombers" does not. | |
| Richard Thompson – Dad's Gonna Kill Me Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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"Willie Pete" is actually slang for white phosphorus ('WP'), not napalm. White phosphorus burns rapidly, so white phosphorus munitions may be used as incendiaries or to generate smoke, either as a target marker or to create smoke screens. "Ali Baba" may refer to Arabs in general, or it may be used in a more restricted sense to refer to the looters who emerged after the fall of Saddam. The name comes from the story "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves". Incidentally, the more typical spelling is 'humvee', and it comes from the acronym HMMV (High Mobility Multipurpose Vehicle' or 'High Mobility Military Vehicle': sources differ on which is actually the correct form). It's a lightweight wheeled vehicle used by the US military, and you're correct that a 'humvee Frankenstein' is one that has been up-armored by the addition of armor plating, often done by military mechanics using whatever was available - hence, 'Frankenstein', after the artificial man created out of bits and pieces. |
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| Fairport Convention – Fotheringay Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Mary Queen of Scots spent the last days of her life as a prisoner in Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, and was executed in the castle's courtyard. The song reflects on her years of imprisonment and impending death. |
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| Seth Lakeman – John Lomas Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| In 1812, at Hankelow in Cheshire, a servant named John Lomas murdered his master, a prosperous farmer named George Morrey. Lomas had apparently been having an affair with Morrey's wife Edith, and claimed to have carried out the murder on her instruction. Both Lomas and Edith Morrey were subsequently executed, although Morrey's execution was delayed until after the birth of her child, thought to be Lomas's. | |
| Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – Stanlow Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Confirmed. At a 2011 concert in New York, Andy McCluskey described it as "a love song to an oil refinery". There may be additional layers of meaning, probably personal, to it, however. |
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| Jethro Tull – Kelpie Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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A kelpie or 'river horse' in Scottish folklore is a magical creature or monster that can change shape. It may appear as a handsome horse with a costly saddle and harness, found grazing unattended by the side of a river or loch. When someone is unwise enough to mount the horse, it plunges into the water, first drowning and then eating the unlucky rider. In some accounts, kelpies may also transform themselves into beautiful women in order to lure unwary men to their doom. |
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| Jethro Tull – Lap of Luxury Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| 'jag' should be capitalized, 'Jag': it's a common abbreviation for 'Jaguar', the make of luxury car driven by the 'gaffer' (US: 'boss') | |
| Jethro Tull – Hard Water Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Title of song is "Heavy Water", not "Hard Water". | |
| Jethro Tull – Broadford Bazaar Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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"down our road, sailing" should probably be "down narrow road sailing" "cottiers" should be "cotters" |
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| Jethro Tull – Broadford Bazaar Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The song describes a regular market or fair - 'the Broadford Bazaar' - held at Broadford on the Isle of Skye. The song alludes to the economic situation following the decline of the oil industry ("jobs for the many are down to the few") and contrasts the wealthy tourists who are able to spend "pounds, francs and dollars" on souvenirs ("home-dyed woollens and wee plastic Cuillins") with locals who can only pay in 'Green Shield' trading stamps. There's a hopeful note, however, in the image of the "old sheep that's dying" which had "two new lambs just a fortnight before", suggesting that despite the hard times, Skye and its economy will revive again. Vauxhall Vivas and Ford Cortinas are makes of car. These cars are definitely not luxury vehicles, reinforcing the idea of economic decline. |
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| Jethro Tull – Broadford Bazaar Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| "horns flattened, fists whaling" should be "horns' flattened-fifths wailing" A 'flattened fifth' is a technical term in music. | |
| Jethro Tull – Broadford Bazaar Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The correct lyric is indeed "wee plastic Cuillins". The Cuillin are a range of hills on the Isle of Skye (Ian Anderson now lives on Skye). Broadford is also a place name from Skye. |
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| Blyth Power – House of Cards Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The song documents an imagined friendship between the narrator and the poet Robert Graves (a frequent subject of songs by Blyth Power). Charterhouse is an English private school, where Graves was educated. The song suggests a college friendship, but in fact Graves did not go directly from Charterhouse to university, enlisting instead in the army to fight in the First World War. One of Graves's close friends during his time at Oxford University (where he eventually went after being badly wounded in the war) was T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"), who is also the subject of a Blyth Power song. It's possible that the narrator is intended to be Lawrence. The line "Four things better than all things are" is a variant of the first line of a couplet from Kipling's "Ballad of the King's Jest", which reads "Four things greater than all things are/Women and Horses and Power and War". |
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| Blyth Power – On the Viking Station Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The song refers to the Icelandic Cod Wars, a series of confrontations during the 1950s and 1970s over fishing rights around Iceland, involving clashes between British trawlers, Icelandic coastguard vessels (referred to as 'gunboats' by the British press), and warships of the British Royal Navy. The song probably refers to the Third Cod War, the most violent of the three 'wars', involving numerous incidents of net-cutting and ramming, with Icelandic ships ramming or being rammed by a number of vessels, including Royal Navy frigates. The gunboat "Thor" was a real vessel, but it's not clear if all the incidents and vessels referred to in the song are real, or whether they're just intended as representative. The line "Cry Harry! Cod! And England!" is a pun on a line from Shakespeare's "Henry V", in which the king exhorts the English soldiers to "Cry Harry! God! And England!" |
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| Blyth Power – Salmon & Gluckstein Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| The song was inspired by "Chasing after Danger", the memoirs of Squadron Leader Terence O'Brien, a decorated pilot from World War II. O'Brien was one of the pilots who flew missions against the harbor in Brest where the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were penned in by a British blockade. 'Salmon and Gluckstein' - the name of a major chain of tobacconists in Britain - were code words used to refer to the two battlecruisers. | |
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