Lucretia, My Reflection

I agree with xinnieful and errky that the quoted part is definitely the highlight of the song.

I think most people know what this is about (maybe?), but in the interest of wasting time while I'm waiting for dinner, here it is again:

This is Eldritch's "welcome to the band, Patricia (Morrison)!" song. The whole thing is a metaphor for the release of the new album and the return of the new incarnation of The Sisters after the breakup of the original.

"I hear the roar of a big machine Two worlds and in between Love lost, fire at will Dum-dum bullets and shoot to kill"

The press coverage of the split and the fallout afterwards.

"Empire down"

Everyone thought Eldritch was retired (and/)or dead.

"We got the empire, now as then, We don't doubt, we don't take direction, Lucretia, my reflection, dance the ghost with me"

Translation: "I was the most important one in the band, I'm back, I don't care what anyone else thinks or thinks I should do, I've got a crazy goth bird with me now and I'm going to make a cheeky reference to ex-Sisters member Gary Marx's new band Ghost Dance."

Lucretia Borgia is the obvious reference, but it might also be referring a number of other historical Lucretias. Eldritch: "Patricia always strikes me as a Lucretia-type person" . [ATF] The Family Borgia were notorious power freaks operating in renaissance Italy, famous for their unscrupulous operating techniques, and much admired by Machiavelli. Lucretia Borgia was a notorious poisoner, c.f. Gift .

"Hot metal and Methedrine"

Methedrine is a form of amphetamine and is apparently best taken intravenously. 'Hot metal' is probably a reference to the needle, though it might be something to do with guns. The comparison between guns and drugs is a typical Eldritch riff, notably "a gun for a lover and a shot for the pain inside" from Temple of Love .

"The drug of choice is Methedrine. It's like the eighth gear. I remember taking it once in Chicago, and waking up a week later wondering what had happened in between" - Eldritch (unknown source, quoted on the Dominion mailing list).

"A former proprietary name for an amphetamine, methylamphetamine hydrochloride, a soft drug, but used by drug addicts." - Chambers dictionary.

"Dance the ghost with me"

This is probably a reference to Ghost Dance, the band formed by Gary Marx after he left The Sisters. Ghostdance is also a North American Indian movement which sought to achieve unity with the dead / dead souls in order to return to the lifestyle destroyed by the arrival of Europeans. This interpretation ties in with the situation Eldritch found himself in with respect to previous band members, and the arrival of Patricia signalling the return of The Sisters.

"A long train held up by page on page"

This line makes alot more sense if one thinks about weddings.

"A hard reign"

"Reign" is a pun on "rain". "A hard rain's a-gonna fall" is a Bob Dylan song.

"Once a railroad/Now it's done..."

"Once I built a railroad, now it's done. Buddy, can you spare a dime", American song of the 1930s depression. As an aside, 'Buddy Can You Spare A Dime?' was once piped into the Leeds DHSS offices where it was no doubt warmly received by the punters!

Source: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/1217/

OR. It can be a reference to the Roman noblewoman, Lucretia, who committed suicide after her rape, telling her family about the crime that was done against her beforehand, leading to a huge warlike incident in the Republic, which would make sense as to why the lyrics sound warlike and why Andrew 'Eldritch' sings, "Dance the ghost with me." breath That was quite a run-on sentence. o.O

Okay, I'm going to give this a shot. I'm not a superb Sisters fan, but I do have all the albums, and I love this song in particular. Why? Because its just good.

"I hear the roar of a big machine Two worlds and in between Hot metal and methedrine I hear empire down..."

Is a part of the text, everyone keeps forgetting, and maybe it holds the key of unraveling it all.

The big machine could mean the system, the endless drag we all live in. The program we are all runing week after week, year after year. Stand up, go to work, fall asleep... and try to have some fun in the middle.

Methedrine, is a halluciogenic amphetamine. Wich is pretty rare sort of dope. You start hallucinating and get a psychodelic revelation, but you are also verry active because of the amphetamine part. These types of drugs ussually end up in aggresive behavior like its also found in PCP cases. Hot metal : Methedrine is injected like heroine, so you need to heat up the spoon.

The Two worlds, and the in between, cleary points out to the psychodelic experience. You can see the real world, the dream world and its all in between... inside your own head. A sort of revelation also found when taken psilocybin (magic mushrooms) you can see visions but these come from toughts in your own head. You can see everything but also the "in between".

"Love lost, fire at will Dum-dum bullets and shoot to kill, I hear Dive, bombers, and Empire down Empire down"

Okay going for a long shot here, but still. The early eighties and the late 70s in music where going to a big frustration. The flower pot people had lost, love was gone, there was still war and peace isnt in reach. The new generation failed to change the world. Love is lost, and bullets are still flying around, the people also got back to there old routine. The peace movements where loosing, war won.

"I hear the sons of the city and dispossessed Get down, get undressed Get pretty but you and me, We got the kingdom, we got the key We got the empire, now as then, We don't doubt, we don't take direction,"

I think the lines that have biggest meaning in this part of the song are the last 3 lines: "We got the kingdom, we got the key We got the empire, now as then, We don't doubt, we don't take direction"

The guy is telling us, we have the power. Its our job to change direction, but we dont do it. We can change the world if we all say : STOP, but we are too lazy, too hooked up in our own routine.

"We look hard We look through We look hard to see for real Such things I hear, they don't make sense I don't see much evidence I don't feel. I don't feel. I don't Feel."

The most of us are searching for the answers: Why? When? What are we doing here? And how should we continue? The singer doesn't see it for real, what he wants is not happening, there is no evidence that it ever will. We just keep making the same stupid mistakes, we go on and on and on on bettering ourselves but we keep shooting the guns. The methedrine gives him an insight, but he doesnt feel anymore, his hearth is pounding like crazy. He's fucked up.

"Lucretia, my reflection, dance the ghost with me"

Lucretia, the woman of a Roman nobleman who got raped, told the people abouth it and afterwards killed herself. He sees a reflection of Lucretia in himself. He sees that he must change, that world must come to a better place. But he doesnt do it, cause no one else is. He's stuck just as we all are. "Dance the ghost with me" , He still admires the tought, the vision of peace. But its a ghost who doesnt seem to get real. And we are all dancing too the same music. We beleve in peace but we are not doing anything abouth it. So we all dance the ghost with him.

Now for some people this may seem far fetched. For others it may seem realistic. annyway, its a diffrent opinion :o) let me know what you think.

Grtz kwèk

This is a song about the blindness of Western Privilege in a world where our foreign and economic policy (said machine) crushes and bombs the other world. And those of us paying for it are oblivious to its effects. We pat ourselves on the back for not having the empire anymore. Even when we try to look at the truth we reject the evidence presented. This is just as relevant today as it was in 1987.

The most important lines in the song are "We got the kingdom, we got the key, we got the empire now as then, we don't doubt, we don't take direction/reflection." That lack of doubt in our rightness from our position of privilege is what stops us seeing.

The train reference is one used often to refer to the supposed benefits brought by the British Empire especially with regard to India. And that was point of the video.

Lucretia is almost certainly the Roman one who brought down the Roman Monarchy with her rape and subsequent suicide.

This a great song with a wicked bass line

For some reason it kind of makes me think of 1984... sort of when England got bombed. or. yeah...

And xinnifel, that's my favorite verse too.

Or, perhaps a referrence to Ghost Dancing (Native American Spiritualism). Either way, a great song. There is something about the vocal qualities of Eldritch that sticks in the brain long after the tracks have stopped playing.

this song is about war (gulf war here) as many of Eldritch's songs (Dominion, Black Planet). He ironically criticizes the war by taking the point of view of the US government (We got the kingdom, we got the key we got the empire now as then...") It should be that as Eldritch is well known for his contempt for the American culture ("a vast, vicious corporate theme-park for junk brains") (sorry for the english, I'm not)

roar of machines