Maybe there's some deeper meaning here, but I suspect this is just a celebration of what a great year 1984 was for sci-fi/comic geeks.
The Ballad of Halo Jones was a then-current Alan Moore comic strip in 2000 AD. The first point of the strip was to do far-future sci-fi with a strong female heroine while managing to avoid the standard (especially for 2000 AD) tropes of "guns, guys, and gore"; Halo was just an everyday girl living everyday life in the future. The other point was to use the comic medium to completely avoid exposition: the reader should learn everything there is to know about 50th century life by paying careful attention to the scenery and the background action.
I think the lines about "perfume and flags" also relate to Halo Jones, but I don't have a copy to check, and it's been a long time… So maybe they're a reference to something else.
Cybernetic rabies, neon houses, Hangover City… Cyberpunk was brand new and exciting. Instead of trying to predict centuries in the future, writers just extrapolated a couple decades (or "15 seconds"—the Max Headroom movie was also 1984) to mega-cities filled with shiny tech and grimy alleys, where everyone is a junkie skating by on the edge of survival.
I have no idea about the malaria nights. That whole verse has more of a 19th century African adventure feel than 80s sci-fi. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was another 2000 AD strip or something.
And finally, "And all these unforeseen things tumble down. I've got a love and it won't stop burning." No idea.
Maybe there's some deeper meaning here, but I suspect this is just a celebration of what a great year 1984 was for sci-fi/comic geeks.
The Ballad of Halo Jones was a then-current Alan Moore comic strip in 2000 AD. The first point of the strip was to do far-future sci-fi with a strong female heroine while managing to avoid the standard (especially for 2000 AD) tropes of "guns, guys, and gore"; Halo was just an everyday girl living everyday life in the future. The other point was to use the comic medium to completely avoid exposition: the reader should learn everything there is to know about 50th century life by paying careful attention to the scenery and the background action.
I think the lines about "perfume and flags" also relate to Halo Jones, but I don't have a copy to check, and it's been a long time… So maybe they're a reference to something else.
Cybernetic rabies, neon houses, Hangover City… Cyberpunk was brand new and exciting. Instead of trying to predict centuries in the future, writers just extrapolated a couple decades (or "15 seconds"—the Max Headroom movie was also 1984) to mega-cities filled with shiny tech and grimy alleys, where everyone is a junkie skating by on the edge of survival.
I have no idea about the malaria nights. That whole verse has more of a 19th century African adventure feel than 80s sci-fi. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was another 2000 AD strip or something.
And finally, "And all these unforeseen things tumble down. I've got a love and it won't stop burning." No idea.