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Blank Expression Lyrics
Snow is falling all around, seven o'clock and the roads are blocked
So I walk down town, there's no-one around
I walk in a bar and immediately I sense danger
You look at me girl as if I was some kind of a, a total stranger
Where did you get that blank expression on your face?
Where did you get that blank expression on your face?
The streets are dark, and there's no-one about
I wander home and all the ,the lights are out, I keep wondering
Where did you get that blank expression on your face?
Where did you get that blank expression on your face?
Where did you get that blank expression on your face?
Where did you get that blank expression on your face?
So I walk down town, there's no-one around
You look at me girl as if I was some kind of a, a total stranger
Where did you get that blank expression on your face?
I wander home and all the ,the lights are out, I keep wondering
Where did you get that blank expression on your face?
Where did you get that blank expression on your face?
Where did you get that blank expression on your face?
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my absolute favorite specials song. its most likely (probably definitely) just me but this song is kind of like a "fuck you" to someone. kind of saying they are boring and lifeless/ it only makes sense in my head. i guess there is no point in explaining.
Listen to the entire album and a small number of tracks aside, I've always felt a theme or story in it. Despite songs like 'Too Much, Too Young' being classic ska and reggae recreations, I see much of the album recounting a bitter love affair with a woman that wasn't really all that. We've all had one at some time or another!
It's echoed in this track, Little Bitch, Stupid Marriage, Too Much, Too Young, Nite Club ("all the girls are slags and the beer tastes just like piss" seems an overview of 'that' type of woman and the places they go), You're Wondering Now and Dawning of a New Era. You could even argue that most of the other tracks are relevant to many stereotypical males of the time if you really wanted to make a story of it.
I just don't see where 'Do the Dog' fits in. Or maybe I do!
no comments? Anyway, I have the Specials live cd, and that was the first time i heard this song and i LOVE IT!!!! It sounds so awesome live, I wanna hear the album version
one comment!!! thats shocking. Great song though. n e ideas on meaning?
Alright so this is obviously about someone he knows, and their blank expression pissed him off. maybe she gives it all the time, [that would annoy me too]. she's a sinacle, lifeless person. I think due to his tone it sounds like he's telling this girl the story of how he got there, it was difficult and she didn't even care. Maybe she looks at him like she doesn't know him so he leaves, puzzled.
i think it was jerry dammers deep down having a dig at terry hall....there`s an underlying meaning there lol......think i read it in horance panters book lol!!!!!!
The great difference between Traditional Ska and that of the Two-Tone era is the influence of Punk: not simply in speeding-up the tempo, but unconsciously introducing the theme of alienation. In Traditional Ska, the artist and the listener inhabit the same universe, there is the possibility of communication and shared experience. In Two-Tone Ska, and the music of The Specials in particular, the world is a colder and lonelier place. That may have as much to do with an inherited memory within the music, of having formerly been a creation of the warm Caribbean, with its sense of community and togetherness, and of now inhabiting an alien land, full of cold attitudes and Thatcherism as well as stinking weather. "Blank Expression" is a novelty Christmas single with all its warmth and cheer hollowed out: the narrator leaves his street on foot, because the roads are impassable to traffic, and goes in search of conviviality; but all he finds in the bar he enters is a feeling of trepidation and of being unwanted, and the girl he tries to talk to looks back at him as if to a brick wall, "as if I were a, a total stranger". They must already be acquainted, but she shuts him out and refuses to interact. Back home, "all the, the lights are out", no welcome there.
this kind of reminds me of James Joyce's "Araby"
@hajmola: In the way the blind street in winter is described as sombre and lonely? But the girl in "Araby" does acknowledge the boy, does speak to him in a friendly way, and not staring through him as if he were an alien thing.
@hajmola: In the way the blind street in winter is described as sombre and lonely? But the girl in "Araby" does acknowledge the boy, does speak to him in a friendly way, and not staring through him as if he were an alien thing.
Great one-drop drums - love the reggae rim-shots and skanking guitars together with the winter imagery as the guy walks into the bar. What a classic song.
How does he get that singular rim-shot sound?
How I love this album. Ever seen them live on YouTube (or if you were lucky enough to see them onstage during the 70's -80's?
They look like they are having serious fun.
I was sad to hear about the passing of John Bradbury 3 days after Christmas. His drumming skanked in a serious manner.
I honored him with a few blog posts:
https://connecthook.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/too-much-too-young/
https://connecthook.wordpress.com/2016/01/09/stupid-marriage/
https://connecthook.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/specials-skank-it-up-with-dead-girl/