Tinseltown in the Rain

'Tinseltown' is in fact Glasgow in this instance-home of the Blue Nile and where I recently saw them at the Royal Concert Hall. Fantastic.

The red car in the fountain refers to a Glasgow Pub whose name escapes me where there was in fact a red car in the fountain as part of the set up in the pub. And a red phone box and other such oddities.

I love this song and I can't believe The Blue Nile doesn't have more comments about their songs since they were such a unique and vibrant band.

I don't think the lyrics are trying to pin it down to any one city. Although Los Angeles/Hollywood is often known as "Tinseltown" it can be more generally applied to any city with glamorous things. The implication is, like tinsel, there are shiny and pretty things, but they may just be on the surface instead of having any deep meaning.

When he says "I love you" it is "easy come, easy go" just like the superficial aspects of Tinseltown. I get the impression that this is a new love of infatuation and it's easy to say those things but maybe they aren't all that relevant in the face of time passing since he's seen them all before. What about in 6 months or a year from now, what will have changed in his love and in the city?

The song pulls back to a long view of everything. The city is "a big rhythm" made of men and women going about their lives. Everyone is at the mercy of forces outside of their control. They city is in the rain and despite its glamor and the buildings reaching to the sky it can't change the natural forces of the weather acting on it. The people in the city have their individual lives, but when you look at it from far away, each is a buzzing part of the life of the city and doesn't seem that individual.

At the same time, new love is wonderful and full of possibilities. Maybe in the this big city there is a place or way "to always feel this way" since it's full of endless possibilities.

It's a picture of contrasts, of being in love, of sometime falling out of love, of the personal, the impersonal, the glamorous and the ways the glamor that maybe doesn't mean that much to the forces of nature and maybe an infatuation stand out much in the buzzing of the life of the city where there is so much life and so many loves.

Beautiful song, I think it's maybe about Hollywood as well as Glasgow? Or which ever one you want it to be...

First of all this song is absolutely beautiful. Probably one of the best known songs of the Blue Nile. Tinseltown refers to Hollywood, city of glamour. I think this song is about fast love. Living in the city life goes fast, people come and people go. Saying to each other for the outside world that you love each other, meanwhile knowing that its over and that many people are experiencing the same. The red car could be something factual, but I think it's a symbol for fast love in the rain. Funny that it doesnt even rain in the videoclip. You would expect that.

This song is about the sexual potency of the city.

The city is where the forces of reproductive power are most concentrated.

This mirrors and metaphorises the physical power of the city in its terms of the centralisation and concentration of executive capability.

Power is an aphrodisiac and those who seek to live and work there are attracted to and feed off that force.

We must remember, however, that a song is more than its lyrics and feelings of bitterness, sadness and emptiness underlie the essential content in its musical form - the casual sex, the one night stands, the chasing for no other purpose than conquest (power) and satisfaction of sexual desire are there to be felt in the notes themselves.

Hence the leit motiv of the rain

Tinseltown IS in the rain

and the use of the repeat crescendo which goes nowhere

as people play their games.

We say we "love" to excuse our base desires and instincts.

The city is the locus of genetic forces at their most intense - the "big rhythm".

Live in London or Barcelona for a while and you will see.

Watch the faces of those on the underground.

Its all very sad...

but the way of the world.

Time to see it.

Time to see it

at last...

Wow. What an astonishingly pretentious idiot you are.

It's a about Glasgow. The band say that, everyone who knows the band say that. The subject is the city,

If you knew anything about Glasgow you would know that it's easy to love and easy to leave.

Oh, and it's always raining.