[ F | Introduction | Song Index ]
F#NY
F#NY:
Apparently this is short for 'F#Newey', as the song has also been called (on
the Bizarre Festival 1996 Video). # is a key in music (major) and F# a chord;
so this is a new song in F#.
Stevie:
Another Stevie appears in Eleven Years.
'79:
The date is possibly also refered to in Eleven Years.
Royal Standard:
Probably a venue in London, because London is where The Ruts initially played
live and because Eleven Years seems to imply
that Justin spent the year 1979 in that city.
The Ruts:
A band Justin named as influence in several interviews. The London based band
that mixed punk with reggae formed in 1978. In the same year they released their
single "In a Rut", a song which New Model Army used
to cover at live performances. October 1979 saw the release of their famous
debut album "The Crack". After their singer Malcolm Owen died of a heroin
overdose in 1980, the band continued under the name of Ruts DC with considerably
less success.
- Read more:
All Music Guide -
[ Back to F#NY | Back to Eleven Years ]
|
Falling
11,000 feet:
Roughly 3,353 metres. In comparison: Mount Everest, the world's highest
mountain, measures 8,848 metres or 29,028 feet; the highest mountain in Britain
is Ben Navis with 1,344 metres / 4409 feet.
[ Back to Falling ]
|
Family
M 6:
Motorway 6 in the north of the UK, roughly between Coventry (near Birmingham)
and Carlisle near the Scottish boarder.
Looking for family:
One of Justin's favourite subjects. Compare BD3,
Dawn,
Family Life, Home,
Inheritance, My
People, No Mirror, No Shadow and
Twilight Home.
Water is thicker than blood:
Blood is thicker than water is an English proverb meaning bonds
between family members are stronger than other relationships.
[ Back to Family | Back to Marrakesh ]
|
Family Live
Family:
One of Justin's favourite subjects. Compare
Dawn, Familiy,
Home,
Inheritance, My
People, No Mirror, No Shadow and
Twilight Home.
Do unto them as they have done to you:
In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus says: "Therefore
all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them"
- Source: The Bible. Matthew 7, 12 - Read more:
King James Bible -
|
Far Better Thing
It's a far better thing I do
/ Than I have done before:
Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities (1859) ends
with the words "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever
done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."
This is one of the most famous novel endings in English literature. The novel is
about the years leading up to the French Revolution and the ensuing Jacobin
reign of terror. The novel's last sentence are the dying words of Sidney Carton,
a reformed cynic who sacrifices his life for another man, a revolutionary and
husband of the woman Carton loves.
Thanks to Jochen from New Zealand for pointig this out.
- Read more:
Wikipedia -
Rifle:
This verse seems to be about an assassination or attack, like
All of This, The Attack
and Flying Through the Smoke
as well as Bloodsports and
One of the Chosen.
|
Fashion
NME:
New Musical Express. A popular British pop music magazine.
My generation:
The Who's song "My Generation" was a major influence on Justin Sullivan.
- Source: Justin Sullivan in an interview with German radio station Delta Radio, March 98 -
Here are the lyrics:
People try to
put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
Why don't you all f-fade away (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
And don't try to dig what we all s-s-say (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
This is my generation . . .
Why don't you all f-fade away . . .
This is my
generation . . .
People try to put us d-down . . .
This is my generation . . .
Cut my hair:
Probably another reference to The Who. On their album "Quadrophenia", which
Justin Sullivan calls "a perfect album" on the "Live 161203" DVD, there is a
song called "Cut My hair":
Why should I care
If I have to cut my hair?
I've got to move with the fashions
Or be outcast.
I know I should fight
But my old man he's really alright,
And I'm still living at home
Even though it won't last.
Ch:
Zoot suit, white jacket with side vents
Five inches long.
I'm out on the street again
And I'm leaping along.
I'm dressed right for a beach fight,
But I just can't explain
Why that uncertain feeling is still
Here in my brain.
The kids at school
Have parents that seem so cool.
And though I don't want to hurt them
Mine want me their way.
I clean my room and my shoes
But my mother found a box of blues,
And there doesn't seem much hope
They'll let me stay.
Ch
Why do I have to be different to them?
Just to earn the respect of a dance hall friend,
We have the same old row, again and again.
Why do I have to move with a crowd
Of kids that hardly notice I'm around,
I have to work myself to death just to fit in.
I'm coming down
Got home on the very first train from town.
My dad just left for work
He wasn't talking.
It's all a game,
'Cos inside I'm just the same,
My fried egg makes me sick
First thing in the morning.
[ Back to Adrenalin | Back to Before I Get Old | Back to Fashion ]
|
Fate
I've killed the things that I love the best:
This seems to echo a verse from Oscar Wilde's poem "Ballad of Reading Gaol":
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
- Read more: Project Gutenberg -
Coward's kiss:
I think this is proverbial (see also the Wilde poem above), but I'm not sure what it means. Perhaps it refers
to Judas' kiss of betrayl?
[ Back to Fate ]
|
51st State
The song:
"... a friend of the band, Ashley Cartwright, ... had
written it for a local band that he was in called 'the shakes'. The band did not
go anywhere and NMA reworked the music and lyrics (Justin added the 3rd verse),
and recorded it not thinking that it would become the hit that it did."
- Source:
Chris Benn's Chinese Whispers - NMA faq -
The song is a reaction against the American influence on Europe in general and America's military presence with Cruise Missiles in Britain in particular.
W.A.S.P.s:
White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. the ruling class of the USA.
Star-spangled:
Like the national flag of the USA
Union Jack:
The national flag of the UK.
Reds under the bed:
Socialists and communists are called reds; the phrase was "used during the
cold war with reference to the feared presence and influence of communist
sympathizers in a society."
- Source: The New Oxford Dictionary of English -
Land of opportunity:
A slogan usually used for the USA.
Corridors of power:
The Pentagon, the American Department of Defence.
- Source: German magazine Zillo 6/93 -
[ Back to 51st State | Back to Master Race | Back to My Country ]
|
Fireworks Night
The
song: Robert Heaton was New Model Army's
drummer for 16 years and co-wrote many of their songs. He died of pancreatic
cancer on November 4th 2004. Fireworks Night: Further on than I ever went: City:
"Justin's musical monument for Rob Heaton. The relationship between the two
was rather difficult. Justin wouldn't call Rob 'friend'. Their problems
culminated while working on their album 'Strange Brotherhood' that took three
and a half years! 'We had both lost faith in each others artistic work. I did
not trust his judgement anymore, and he did not trust mine. Everybody around us
wodered what took us so long. We lost perspective. With hindsight it is no
wonder that Ro changed, because a tumor the size of a golfball grew in his
brain.' The tumor was successfully removed, but after surgery Rob left the band.
Only a few years later Rob died of cancer. Justin bravely sang 'Green and Grey'
at his funeral, one of the major hits the two had written together. 'It was some
kind of death watch and is one of the most difficult things I have done in my
live. It was fort Robeert, a great musician.' "
- Source: Justin Sullivan in German Online Magazin
Uncle Sally's; my translation -
- Read more: Wikipedia
- Rob Heaton on
the official New Model Army Site -
The Guy Fawkes Night, which is annually celebrated in the UK on November 5th to
commemorate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up the Houses
of Parliament in 1605.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
Possibly a reference to Justin's near death experience
in 1992.
Probably Bradford, which lies between 'hills and
moorland' and was Rob's hometown.
Flying Through the Smoke
Tunnel vision: The bomb in the bag: [ Back to Flying Through the Smoke ]
Defective sight in which objects cannot be properly seen if not close to the
centre of the field of view.
Informal: the tendency to focus exclusively on a single or limited objective
or view.
- Source: The New Oxford Dictionary of English - Read more:
Wikipedia -
This is reminiscent of All of This as well as
The Attack and Far Better Thing
as well as Bloodsports and
One of the Chosen.
Freedom '91
The song: Another song about the end of the
DDR is Lurhstaap.
Dresden: Idiot's gold: The caves and the trees: 121st Street: Crack: German cars: Tinseltown: Malcolm X: In 1992 his life was made into a movie - called Malcolm
X - by Spike Lee with Denzel Washington in the title role.
[ Back to Freedom '91 | Back to Lurhstaap ]
Written after Justin took a train trip through the newly "liberated"
countries of eastern Europe at the beginning of 1991.
- Source: Lost Songs booklet -
Beautiful city in the former German Democratic Republic. In World War II it
was almost completely destroyed by the Allies' air raids. The GDR did not have
the means to rebuild or even maintain their cities, so that even today many
places still look shabby and broken.
- Read more: Wikipedia -
Fools's gold is a substance that looks like gold but isn't.
Where humans lived before civilisation (caves) and before Evolution turned them
from apes into humans (trees).
Maybe this refers to the 121st Street in Manhattan, New York City.
A really nasty synthetic drug.
German cars are very prestigious and expensive, at least outside Germany.
Derogatory term for Hollywood with it's superficial glamour.
19/05/1925-21/02/1965. American black militant leader who articulated concepts
of race pride and black nationalism in the early 1960s. After his assassination,
the widespread distribution of his life story - The Autobiography of Malcolm
X (1965) by Alex Haley - made him an ideological hero, especially among
black youth.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica -
Frightened
Ratrace: Brand new Britain:
24
A way of life in which people are caught up in a fiercely competitive struggle
for wealth or power.
- Source: The New Oxford Dictionary of English -
Perhaps Britain under Margaret Thatcher, Britain's
Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, who cut down social welfare, privatised puplic
companies and supported individual responsibility rather than compassion and
solidarity.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-