A love song to a city, a city filled with "shame and ignorance" but still beautiful and mysterious. It used to be much greater than it now is, but even in decline the singer loves it and wants to know it down to the core.
Which city? Maybe London... maybe somewhere in India? I lean towards something connected with Great Britain because of the "mad dogs and millionaires" line connecting to the Noel Coward lyric ("mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun") which is all about British colonialism. It's a city that these colonial types have tried to change (either a city being colonised, or if London the return of the people who made it wealthy through the colonial system), they've tried to make things "sordid and so bland" with their "banalities," but the city resists that in its core. In spite of the attempts to make it "younger and more free" the city is "perfect" as it is, and the singer longs for the "filthy heart" which has been untouched by these attempts to Disneyize the city by making it pretty and new and just like everywhere else.
A love song to a city, a city filled with "shame and ignorance" but still beautiful and mysterious. It used to be much greater than it now is, but even in decline the singer loves it and wants to know it down to the core.
Which city? Maybe London... maybe somewhere in India? I lean towards something connected with Great Britain because of the "mad dogs and millionaires" line connecting to the Noel Coward lyric ("mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun") which is all about British colonialism. It's a city that these colonial types have tried to change (either a city being colonised, or if London the return of the people who made it wealthy through the colonial system), they've tried to make things "sordid and so bland" with their "banalities," but the city resists that in its core. In spite of the attempts to make it "younger and more free" the city is "perfect" as it is, and the singer longs for the "filthy heart" which has been untouched by these attempts to Disneyize the city by making it pretty and new and just like everywhere else.