Remember Me

I'm fairly sure that the second instance of "Increment by increment...etc" the third repetition is instead of increment by increment "Oh, let me be your instrument!". And I also heartily enjoy it when the word "whilst" is used in a bsp song.

I've heard it said that this song refers to the Monarchy. Did half of you pass away? - maybe a Diana reference? The people's princess that only a tiny fraction of the people cared about remotely. When did they begin to disappear?

Rockful song, I randomly saw the video for this the other night and thought it was really creative. The song and its video fit together nicely, My hat is off to British Sea Power.

Its such a great song. I love it! One of the best songs on the album The Decline Of...

Haven't seen the video though.

BSP best song by a mile, they should be doing more songs like this it is powerful and really rocks

"With someone taking it out whilst you were putting it in" I think this line means the general populous is being screwed by the ruling class. It's a never ending pattern of screwing because as each dynasty or regime falls a new one takes its place.

To me this reads more like a breakup song than a political screed. As near as I can figure, the singer in this case is taking the perspective of someone observing a bad break-up, being already in love with one of the parties.

So he's trying, on the one hand, to comfort this person: considerthe line, "Did half of you pass away?/Well, what about the other half?" in the context of a relationship, referring to one's significant other as their "better half." There is the usual consolation that "it happens to everyone," told a bit more poetically--"We're all part of the same old bloody regime" struck me initially as a variation on "All's fair in love and war," while "...someone taking it out, while you were putting it in" suggests that there will always be people less interested in giving love than in receiving it.

And then on the other hand, he's trying to win the affections of this person in their time of need. There's not a whole lot of evidence for this but the line "Let me be your instrument" strikes me as the narrator pleading with this person to let him be the rebound that will make them forget about their previous relationship, repeating "Remember me" as if to say, "When it's all over don't forget about how I stayed and consoled you when nobody else would." So I get the impression of this kind of skewed but genuine compassion with a possibly unconscious ulterior motive lurking just below the surface. Which is pretty good, for a pop song.

I'd initially thought of this song as being just about growing old - worrying about health, "did you notice when you began to disappear" could be like Alzheimers or senility or something, or "did half of you pass away" could be like an old person's wife or husband dying. But then with the video, and the "from the here and now to eternity" (From here to eternity being a film and novel about the second world war) made me think of it in another way - it could be about the veterans of the world wars growing old and dying. The lines about "when you listen to yourself does it feel like somebody else" could refer to them thinking how much they've changed, from being young soldiers in a different world, to old people in the modern day.

I get the impression that this is about isolation and alienation from onesself and society - you can read that either in terms of mental health or from a more political viewpoint. Either way, it's quite easy to make your own meaning from this.

This popped up in my iTunes the other day, and I was brought back a decade ago to when I was really into BSP. So I checked out the video for this on YouTube, and it all kind of makes sense.

This song is very interesting as it was written back in 2001, but remains even more topical in modern day UK.

I'd say (and the music video appears to confirm as much) that this is about the fetishing of military remembrance in UK society, especially regarding World War I - hence the "Remember Me" chorus

The following verse sums it up:

"Did half of you pass away What about the other half Yeah what about the other half Whatever!"

This refers to the young men who went to the front line in WWI - "Did half of you pass away?" And the contempt that was shown to them by the British ruling class at the time, "what about the other half? Whatever!"

Indeed, this is backed up by the following two lines, regarding the contempt of the ruling class in the UK:

"We're all part of the same old bloody regime With someone taking it out whilst you were putting it in"

My take on the repetition of the lines "Increment by increment" is that they also refer to WWI, and in particular the trench warfare aspect of the conflict, whereby battle lines would inch forward into enemy territory at an infinitesimally slow pace.