Sure, the song is self explanatory but I once heard an interview w/ Thomas Dolby in which he stated the song was autobiographical. So who is the female to whom this song refers?
@shuboo I think you're thinking about a 1992 Radio 1 interview about Astronauts & Heretics, where he talked about how "Europa" and its new sequel "Eastern Bloc" are semi-autobiographical.
@shuboo I think you're thinking about a 1992 Radio 1 interview about Astronauts & Heretics, where he talked about how "Europa" and its new sequel "Eastern Bloc" are semi-autobiographical.
But there isn't a girl who literally fits all the details of the two songs. This fits with everything else about Thomas Dolby's romanticized past. He wasn't really raised in Cairo, his grandfather wasn't a mad Victorian inventor, Dolby isn't his real middle name, and his 14-year-old sweetheart wasn't a French girl named Europa who became an A-list movie star slash pop singer.
But there isn't a girl who literally fits all the details of the two songs. This fits with everything else about Thomas Dolby's romanticized past. He wasn't really raised in Cairo, his grandfather wasn't a mad Victorian inventor, Dolby isn't his real middle name, and his 14-year-old sweetheart wasn't a French girl named Europa who became an A-list movie star slash pop singer.
He did have a chaste summer...
He did have a chaste summer quasi-romance with a foreign (apparently East German) girl when he was around 14, and he a girlfriend who "I used to think each time we kissed it was for real", and a girlfriend who later became somewhat famous (before he did), but they're not all the same girl, and none of them are anyone whose secret identity would make you think "Ah, now I get it". He's merged them all into one girl, and given her a perfectly symbolic name, and made her French, for the purposes of this song (and similarly for its sequel). Of course they're all important, but only in the same way that anyone's childhood sweetheart is important.
Sure, the song is self explanatory but I once heard an interview w/ Thomas Dolby in which he stated the song was autobiographical. So who is the female to whom this song refers?
She was from Leipzig, behind the 'Iron Curtain". I dont know more than that.
She was from Leipzig, behind the 'Iron Curtain". I dont know more than that.
@shuboo I think you're thinking about a 1992 Radio 1 interview about Astronauts & Heretics, where he talked about how "Europa" and its new sequel "Eastern Bloc" are semi-autobiographical.
@shuboo I think you're thinking about a 1992 Radio 1 interview about Astronauts & Heretics, where he talked about how "Europa" and its new sequel "Eastern Bloc" are semi-autobiographical.
But there isn't a girl who literally fits all the details of the two songs. This fits with everything else about Thomas Dolby's romanticized past. He wasn't really raised in Cairo, his grandfather wasn't a mad Victorian inventor, Dolby isn't his real middle name, and his 14-year-old sweetheart wasn't a French girl named Europa who became an A-list movie star slash pop singer.
But there isn't a girl who literally fits all the details of the two songs. This fits with everything else about Thomas Dolby's romanticized past. He wasn't really raised in Cairo, his grandfather wasn't a mad Victorian inventor, Dolby isn't his real middle name, and his 14-year-old sweetheart wasn't a French girl named Europa who became an A-list movie star slash pop singer.
He did have a chaste summer...
He did have a chaste summer quasi-romance with a foreign (apparently East German) girl when he was around 14, and he a girlfriend who "I used to think each time we kissed it was for real", and a girlfriend who later became somewhat famous (before he did), but they're not all the same girl, and none of them are anyone whose secret identity would make you think "Ah, now I get it". He's merged them all into one girl, and given her a perfectly symbolic name, and made her French, for the purposes of this song (and similarly for its sequel). Of course they're all important, but only in the same way that anyone's childhood sweetheart is important.