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Domino Dancing Lyrics
(All day, all day)
I don't know why, I don't know how
I thought I loved you, but I'm not sure now
I've seen you look at strangers too many times
The love you want is of a, a different kind
Remember when we felt the sun
A love like paradise, how hot it burned
A threat of distant thunder, the sky was red
And when you walked, you always - turned every head
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
I thought that when we fought I was to blame
But now I know you play a different game
I've watched you dance with danger, still wanting more
Add another number to the score
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
When you look around you wonder
Do you play to win?
Or are you just a bad loser?
(All day, all day)
(All day, all day)
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day, domino dancing)
(All day, all day)
(All day, all day)
I don't know why, I don't know how
I'd thought I loved you, but I'm not sure now
I hear the thunder crashing, the sky is dark
And now a storm is breaking within my heart
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day, domino dancing)
(All day, all daeheheheheheheh)
(All day, all daeheheheheheheh)
(All day, all day)
(All day, all day)
(Domino dancing)
(All day, all day)
(All day, all day)
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day, domino dancing)
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day)
I thought I loved you, but I'm not sure now
I've seen you look at strangers too many times
The love you want is of a, a different kind
A love like paradise, how hot it burned
A threat of distant thunder, the sky was red
And when you walked, you always - turned every head
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
But now I know you play a different game
I've watched you dance with danger, still wanting more
Add another number to the score
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
Do you play to win?
Or are you just a bad loser?
(All day, all day)
(All day, all day, domino dancing)
(All day, all day)
I'd thought I loved you, but I'm not sure now
I hear the thunder crashing, the sky is dark
And now a storm is breaking within my heart
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day, domino dancing)
(All day, all daeheheheheheheh)
(All day, all day)
(Domino dancing)
(All day, all day)
(All day, all day, domino dancing)
(All day, all day) Domino dancing
(All day, all day) Watch them all fall down
(All day, all day)
Song Info
Submitted by
mopnugget On Apr 13, 2002
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this song is about a man who loves a cheater woman which keeps on falling around with some other guys and her ony joy is to let them fall in love with her and then she just let them down. he describes her as if she is putting all her lovers in one row then she let them all fall down just as the magician does with the domino rows on the magic shows . " DOMINO DANCING " such a beautifull, amazing , briliant magnificent and genius description isn't it
The pain and misconception of falling in love and falling in lust are all expressed deeply here, u can't fail to be emotionally drawn in to the narrator. Tennant's moral here could be that beauty is only skin deep. I only wish in moments of weakness I could have remembered this song!
This is a song about a gay man feeling miserable about his partners large number of lovers. The line "I've watched you dance with danger, still wanting more" says something about the danger (as in AIDS) when having many gay partners. Domino dancing refers to the fact, that when one gay man in a small community gets the virus, it soon spreads to all.
I suppose you're very right here, svengurk - and I agree, this is a very possible explanation. But I also think it can very well describe the dynamics in a straight relationship - or just, any relationship, in which one party is feeling betrayed, cheated on, and cannot do anything but watch from aside. But good songs always have many possible meanings :))
I wonder if the video was made in El Moro fortress in San Juan Puerto Rico? The single cover photo sais "Latin American Party". Agree with svengurk on this one.
Svengurk is right on the mark on this one but I think the line: "Do you play to win or are you just a bad loser?" is a rhetorical question Neil adresses to the AIDS virus.
To the virus itself? How do you figure? (If so, it would have to be rhetorical, wouldn't it! I mean, since I have certainly never heard of HIV-1 or any other virus developing the capacity for complex language in its single-not-quite-a-cell!)
To the virus itself? How do you figure? (If so, it would have to be rhetorical, wouldn't it! I mean, since I have certainly never heard of HIV-1 or any other virus developing the capacity for complex language in its single-not-quite-a-cell!)
These days of course, anybody who has unprotected sex, gay or straight, with >1 partner (or with one partner whose virginity cannot be absolutely confirmed, which it never can) will "dance with danger."
These days of course, anybody who has unprotected sex, gay or straight, with >1 partner (or with one partner whose virginity cannot be absolutely confirmed, which it never can) will "dance with danger."
Am listening to my old recording of this song...there's a thunderstorm outside in the background which makes it especially poignant.
Am listening to my old recording of this song...there's a thunderstorm outside in the background which makes it especially poignant.
What about that...
What about that line, "how hot it burned?" That seems to suggest there was a kind of pain or risk even back in those days of relative innocence....
Agree with Svengurk. I think the mention of thunder refers to the spread of the AIDS virus and peoples attitudes towards it. " A threat of distant thunder, the sky was red" : People considered AIDS a distant threat and didn't take it seriously, They didn't believe it would really ever effect them. "I hear the thunder crashing, the sky is dark And now a storm is breaking within my heart" : The "thunder" arrived, it was no longer just a threat, It was real and devastating, and touched the lives of many who never thought it would.
Well, of course it would be in a metaphorical sense, but I think it's unlikely in any case. For one thing it just seems out of character for the Pet Shop Boys. Also, as I mentioned in my other comment, the term "human immunodeficiency virus" had just been in use for 2 years at the time this song came out, and that's within the medical community; I don't remember exactly when it first became well known to the public. I think the syndrome itself was well known by this time (and hate groups had started claiming it...
Well, of course it would be in a metaphorical sense, but I think it's unlikely in any case. For one thing it just seems out of character for the Pet Shop Boys. Also, as I mentioned in my other comment, the term "human immunodeficiency virus" had just been in use for 2 years at the time this song came out, and that's within the medical community; I don't remember exactly when it first became well known to the public. I think the syndrome itself was well known by this time (and hate groups had started claiming it was God's punishment for homosexuals early on, well before the virus was discovered); it was its cause that was newly confirmed – the virus was discovered independently by two groups of researchers in I think 1983 or '84, but they couldn't agree about its precise nature (they weren't even sure that they had both found the same virus (although it turned out they were), though each group was sure that "their" virus was the cause of the disease), and it wasn't until '86 that they figured out which group was right and renamed the virus (the two research groups each had their own name for it) HIV.
IIRC this song is from 1988's <i>Introspective</i>. At the time, AIDS was just becoming widely known (the peculiar signs of extreme immunocompromise in gay men, Haitians, people with blood disorders like hemophilia, and IV drug uses had first been noted in 1981, the syndrome was named "AIDS" in '82, and the virus was identified and the name "HIV" coined for it in '86; the earliest known case was in 1959 in West Africa). So while, to the best of my knowledge, Neil and Chis never explicitly said that the song was about HIV/AIDS (gay men were still largely very closeted at the time), it seems likely.
"Watch them all fall down" sounds to me like a reference to watching friends die. It always makes me think of a string of several OD deaths in the crowd I went with at university.
Another interesting recollection (this one amusing rather than sad) pertaining to this song: <i>Rolling Stone</i> described the video as the "most homoerotic video ever" or something to that effect, even though it was (superficially, that is) about 2 men in love with the same woman. I was quite young at the time and had difficulty figuring out precisely was meant by "homoerotic." (I was embarrassed to ask anybody, since it was obvious enough from the context that it had something to do with gay sex.)
I agree with all AIDS interpretations of this song. The "most homoerotic video ever" (extended version) reinforces the idea. The girl in the video is "fear of AIDS". She is death. She is playing with everybody in the gay community. Observe her subtle smile and disdain at the cemetery ("I got another one").