Bryan Ferry's curt rejoinder to Eno's 'Dead Finks Don't Talk' song - a dig at Ferry that had appeared earlier in the year on Here Come the Warm Jets. This was Eno's first release since leaving Roxy Music and the album featured all the members of Roxy bar Ferry. Casanova more obviously refers to Eno's reputation as a philanderer but could also refer to Eno's 'new home' away from Roxy...Casanova literally means 'new house' and Ferry refers to this dual meaning at the end of the song.
‘Now my finger
Points at you’… perceptive Ferry shows he recognised the origin of Eno’s song title as being with William Burroughs’ ‘Dead Fingers Talk’...the ‘dying fiction’ of Eno’s song.
‘You, an island
On your own’… Ferry referencing Eno’s solo career on the Island label. This might also explain why Ferry ends the song by singing 'my place is here with you [ie on Island] but not together.'
To ‘More fool me bless my soul’ Ferry responds: ‘A precious jewel
Or just a fool’, perhaps questioning how a headless chicken could peck its way anywhere.
‘Innovator
It's in your mind’… there could surely be no greater insult to Eno! ‘Second hand, second rate.’
‘You, the hero / Now you're flirting
With heroin’ is a response to Eno’s own drug-speak references in ‘Dead Finks’
‘I failed both tests / In my place the stuff is all there’
‘My my they wanted the works’.
The tit-for-tat retaliation would continue with the instrumental 'Sultanesque' (or 'Insultanesque'?) on the B side of 1975's Love is the Drug, sounding (convincingly) like a Fripp and Eno composition, countered with Eno's 1976 ambient soundtrack to the short film 'Music for Ferry Terminals'.
Bryan Ferry's curt rejoinder to Eno's 'Dead Finks Don't Talk' song - a dig at Ferry that had appeared earlier in the year on Here Come the Warm Jets. This was Eno's first release since leaving Roxy Music and the album featured all the members of Roxy bar Ferry. Casanova more obviously refers to Eno's reputation as a philanderer but could also refer to Eno's 'new home' away from Roxy...Casanova literally means 'new house' and Ferry refers to this dual meaning at the end of the song.
‘Now my finger Points at you’… perceptive Ferry shows he recognised the origin of Eno’s song title as being with William Burroughs’ ‘Dead Fingers Talk’...the ‘dying fiction’ of Eno’s song.
‘You, an island On your own’… Ferry referencing Eno’s solo career on the Island label. This might also explain why Ferry ends the song by singing 'my place is here with you [ie on Island] but not together.'
To ‘More fool me bless my soul’ Ferry responds: ‘A precious jewel Or just a fool’, perhaps questioning how a headless chicken could peck its way anywhere.
‘Innovator It's in your mind’… there could surely be no greater insult to Eno! ‘Second hand, second rate.’
‘You, the hero / Now you're flirting With heroin’ is a response to Eno’s own drug-speak references in ‘Dead Finks’
‘I failed both tests / In my place the stuff is all there’ ‘My my they wanted the works’.
The tit-for-tat retaliation would continue with the instrumental 'Sultanesque' (or 'Insultanesque'?) on the B side of 1975's Love is the Drug, sounding (convincingly) like a Fripp and Eno composition, countered with Eno's 1976 ambient soundtrack to the short film 'Music for Ferry Terminals'.