| Japan – Halloween Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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1) First point to establish: the lyric has nothing obviously in common with the movie of the same name, released the previous year (1978). Though the title (and last word of the refrain) may well have been triggered by John Carpenter/Debra Hill’s first in a long series, there’s no sign of stalking, stabbings (in vengeance or otherwise) – or indeed, gore of any sort. (!) Since the musical dimensions of a song certainly inform the meaning(s) of its lyric, we can concede there is a repeated “growl and banshee wail” figure from the guitar in its refrain, and a double-tracked “high tension” alto-sax accompaniment to the verses (plus short break before the last verse) that indeed suggest heightened nerves, growing emotional-mental crisis, even a sense of panic. But the horror in this song is a psychological one: caused perhaps by a distressing romantic split, but then exacerbated by a slightly blurred but palpable sense of menace from the society around. 2) The song was on Japan’s third studio album (“Quiet Life”, 1979), the middle of five in a brief, three-year recording career. ESTRANGEMENT and/or ALIENATION can be seen as the most consistent theme/s throughout the band’s work, almost a constant. Indeed, the band’s very name suggests an alienation effect from metropolitan England – ironically enough, its initial glamrock rebellious music and look made it big in the land of the ironically alienated name! 3) Sylvian’s lyrics for Japan often comprise miniaturist shreds - lines and phrases carrying splintered impressions of moods, atmospheres, social states or architectural structures: making the whole text a highly-charged patchwork collage of uncertain signs. So with many songs, it may be asking a lot to look for one single, overarching and sure meaning. But after the preparations above, we can now try the detail of Halloween. 4) The “windswept cottage” in the first verse suggests the abandonment of a (perhaps secluded?) intimate relationship, perhaps for two. As often in Sylvian’s lyrics, there is a strong impression of intense short-sightedness: the power is in a profusion of glimpsed, frosted details, without the whole picture. In verse 2, the ears are almost hypersensitively tuned to sound, to the impulses of music for example. But in this song, all the aural receptivity is not enough. In verse 1, we already begin to hear what seems the will-sapping effect of romantic dismay, a Separation drastic as that pictured in Munch’s famous expressionist painting & woodcut of the 1890s. This “Halloween” appears (first refrain) to be the nightmare of a relationship breakdown. But in Verse 2, things only get worse. “Could we believe that all you said was true / We would be so determined now” – if this were: “Could I believe (if I could believe)”, this might be describing the conventional aftershock of a betrayal and destruction of trust in a relationship. But the “we” now suggests someone’s news or confidence had been false. Because in this verse, ominous moves are afoot outside. “Germanic forces marching on concrete squares” – “German” might be more precise, but it doesn’t fit the scansion. And meaning-wise, it also suggests a vaguer identification. A type of collective herd behaviour, presumably the sort known from 40 years earlier in the same century, but by unknown troops? So we’ve moved from a Munch-type romantic estrangement to a social alienation with a present imminent menace. The life-jeopardising rumbling outside world of military manoeuvres: like Bergman’s The Silence (1963). An alien, not clearly understood language out there, and our sense of powerlessness. Verse 3 shifts us on from previous suspicions of (Nazi?) mobilisation to the second half of 1961, specifically Berlin. “Slowly emerging …” emphasises the inexorable growth of the mobilising threat. “We” now seems to be an assemblage of people cut off, disorientated and highly vulnerable to movements around, with no obvious communications or emotional bonds to those shrinking surroundings. And dependent on shaky rumour (“… just what you want to hear”). “Waiting at stations again” – another highly associative phrase, with complete uncertainty of destination & outcome. Anxiety is strongly suggested, and cheerless isolation felt individually by many (”we”). An anxiety to get moving – presumably to get out, to escape the encirclement. But the last word adds “again” – as if there had (temporarily) been some more settled, calmer state. Now dissolved. The Halloween now seems an existential endless migration of everyone near: disenchanted, trapped, under threat. Everything in flux. Everything at risk. Nightmarish. A general, society-wide Halloween. |
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| The Velvet Underground – Pale Blue Eyes Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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It's a song of infatuation and disillusion, pining and resignation. The lover sums up "everything I've had but could not keep". It's certainly about sex and adultery (last new verse). But as important is that the singer finds his world turned upside-down. "Thought of you as my mountain, Thought of you as my peak" .... but the lover bursts his bubble: "Down for you is up". He mopes in depression when he should be energetic, enthusiastic - and equally, the apparent summit of life for him turns to a fading memory, a fall ("truly, truly a sin") with no body to hold. Money is an illusion too ("lies but can't stand up") - possibly another form of impotence ;) when the precious dream fades. The singer is obsessed by the clarity of the eyes, he wishes they were his mirror image. He is crazy and angry ("mad"), but still does not wish to shut out this dominant feature of his lover, the only constant that definitely remains for him from the relationship, amidst his fluctuating emotions - and sense of loss. |
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| The Velvet Underground – All Tomorrow's Parties Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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RIP Lou Reed. I'm surprised more people here haven't picked up on the massive Cinderella allusions that sweetiedarling raised back in 2004, at the beginning of this thread. "poor girl", "hand-me-down/s", and "when midnight comes around" wave a huge hint. The difference is that this Cinderella doesn't get her ball gown or her romantic happy ending. "ALL tomorrow's parties" suggests she is lost in a permanent wishful/feeble-minded/powerless dream of glamour, status and happiness. (As others here have suggested.) Taken together, these strands suggest a wannabee, a hanger-on, a groupie, with no skill or drive of her own to make any of her dream(s) come true. Just hoping to be whisked to the Ball of bright life by someone with a golden coach. The art scene could be, and still often is, a cruel, bitchy environment. Lovvies who stab each other in the back if it advances their careers, and take a sado-masochistic delight in the misfortunes of the Darwinian failures less successful than themselves. I've absolutely no doubt Warhol will have adored this song. Lou Reed by contrast, who took the action and wrote it, as opposed to lapping it up with a sneer, expresses a certain sympathy through the contempt for another of art life's talentless failures. It has a bit of a friendly warning about it, expressed in severe terms. I'm not sure "Sunday's clown" is about clothing - it seems to be more about someone acting the joker, pretending to be merry, an entertainer (see Cobain) on the day of the week that is "off". But there no doubt is a play also on "far to go" vs. "full of grace". I would bet a lot of money that the person who mainly inspired this song, whoever she was, will also have been born on a Thursday ..... And there's no doubt the shroud is the sad end of a junkie and/or suicide - the apparently inevitable end of a permanent Cinderella, hanging on to Warhol's soulless chancer set. On the versions - Japan's is a hundred times better. Played by proper musicians rather than chancers (!), - Mick Karn's bass is especially telling - and given full value for its mixed messages, rather than a zombie vocal. Was Nico born on a Thursday? |
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