Black Planet

I love this song. It stirs up something dark and evisceral as you listen to it. I wonder if indeed it's all about nuclear war, or just the despoiling of the planet in general: either way, the results are dreary, and the song is fantastic.

After I saw the video and read the lyrics I think I figured out what this song is about. In a nut shell, as put in a previous post, it’s about the despoiling of the planet. Perhaps, more specifically about pollution through the burning of fossil fuels. This is the result of what began in Europe, industrialization and capitalistic expansion. European's western expansion ends on the west coast of the U.S., manifested in gas guzzling cars and endless highways, the final frontier, perhaps the final stand of European culture, and maybe the final stand of humanity.

Evidence from the videos: Both videos depict a car being driven around. In the original video shots of palm trees, California oil wells, power plants and various other industrial structures are included.

Evidence from the song: "In the western sky" - European expansion doesn't go much farther west than California.

"So dark all over Europe" - The remnants of where the process began.

"And I ride down the highway 101. By the side of the ocean headed for sunset." - After much research this must literally mean U.S. Highway 101. It is the westernmost in the U.S. highway system, stretching from Los Angeles to Olympia, WA. The highway passes through San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge and is within eyesight of the pacific ocean for many portions of its length.

“Headed for sunset. For the kingdom come” — It’s possible that this is a reference to Sunset Blvd, but I find that unlikely. The sun sets in the west. Add in the kingdom come and choose your allegory: the end of the world, the end of humanity, the end of western civilization. In other words, the sun sets on us and we’re off to heaven.

“Black planet hanging over the highway. Out of my mind's eye. Out of the memory. Black world out of my mind.” — We continue towards this scenario through our actions and continue to ignore the consequences.

“So dark all over Europe. And the rainbow rises here. In the western sky.” — This indicates it’s dark already in Europe, and thus "here" is somewhere else other than Europe, i.e. California.

“At the end of the great white pier.” — California, maybe even Los Angeles is the end of the pier. The final western stretch of white European economic and cultural expansion. The “white pier” that stretches from the beaches of Europe to California.

You can be pretty sure that it is about the third world war. the eighties were all about it. We who grow up then, lived with the nuclear holocaust as a reality, with the newest numbers of warheads presented almost daily in the papers.

The likely scenario was Battlefield Europe, with both parts fighing it out in Europe, devasteting the continent in the process, both parts reluctant to bomb the other sides homeland due to M.A.D. (Mutual Assured Destruction). That is why Europe are mentioned specifically in the text.

But Eldritch had apparently (for very good reasons) that the nuclear waste and of course the constant winter predicted as an effect of a A-war would not encompass USA as well.

In short, that is why Europe is specifically mentioned but why death seems to reign in USA as well.

Ohh.. the song. It is a very good one, not Sister's best, but among them.

Nuclear war? yeah. Industrialization? Capitalism / communism? This video is set in Russia along the "101" with a skyline polluted with every ugly nuclear injdustrial generator for profit I can imagine, just an ugly surreal, scary landscape of what a country's quest for power has become, and how this direction is not beneficial to the quest for spirituality, growth, and evolution so far away from the "minds eye". Andrew knows it, we know it. Everybody should. I suppose the great white pier has something to do with the blinding light of a nuclear blast, or maybe not? If someone wishes to emphasize feel free but all I can see is the black polluting by-product of mans futile conquest for world domination and phallic achievement.

I always figured this song was about california. In particular hollywood. When I say hollywood I mean All that hollywood is and stands for. Hollywood= will do anything for a buck, and the bullshit that mentality produces. Who knows? thats my take on it. I have some proof.

And I ride down the highway 101 (U.S. Highway 101 also known as the pacific coast highway or PCH) By the side of the ocean headed for sunset. (literally an ocean sunset? Probably Sunset boulevard. Approximately 22 miles (35 km) in length, the famous boulevard passes through or near Echo Park, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, Bel-Air, Brentwood, and Pacific Palisades)*

perhaps the most diverse 22miles in california. You drive through some of the seediest parts of L.A.(west hollywood) through the most affluent.(beverly hills)

Makes me want to drive it again while listening to this song.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_Boulevard

I've always been pretty sure Andrew Eldritch mixed up Highway 101 and Highway 1. And, contrary to what sandyclaws057 suggested, I think "sunset" actually does refer to Sunset Blvd.

Driving down Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) heading for Sunset Blvd., you're driving by the side of the ocean, and heading for a street that's both the metaphorical symbol of LA decadence, and (well, in the 80s; things have changed since then) also the rough physical border of urban civilization.

Cliffs on the left, undevelped beach on the right, only minimal signs of commerce... until you come around that last curve before Sunset, when you're suddenly in a traffic jam, with a supermarket and a minimall to the left and an ostentatious private beach club to the right.

And things only get denser ahead until you each the great white Santa Monica Pier. (Technically, PCH turns inland there; if you drive onto the pier, you're on the end of Route 66, not the end of PCH. But.. close enough.)

The only problem is that PCH isn't (US) Highway 101, it's (CA) Highway 1. Highway 101 is the freeway that runs from East LA through downtown and eastern Hollywood (which is where it meets Sunset Blvd.) to the northern suburbs. It doesn't go anywhere near the side of the ocean along the way.

But plenty of people have confused two of LA's most famous highways--including two commenterss here. It's not like Andrew is an LA native; he's a Brit who'd been there a couple times on tour. If an American sang about circling round and round the city on the M5, you'd guess he actually meant the M25 orbital, not that he was singing about getting confused by a temporary detour around Taunton on the way to Exeter.

If you interpret "heading for sunset" as heading for the sunset, as in heading west, rather than heading for Sunset Blvd., then you can make it work, but only by placing the song way outside LA. For example, in Pismo Beach, the coast turns almost straight west rather than north-by-northwest, and the 101 goes alongside the beach boardwalk. But LA is the end of the world, the final stage of the cancer of western civilization; Pismo is a sleepy beach resort town that people have only vaguely heard of because of Bugs Bunny making a wrong turn on the way there.

Other than getting these details wrong, I think sandyclaws and techgeist are right about what the song means.

It's about nuclear war, brotha.