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Get Me Out
Jackal pack:
Jackals are scavengers, i.e. they feed on dead animals.
Ysidro:
A small Californian town, where a man shot people at random in a McDonalds restaurant.
- Source: Justin Sullivan in NMAFC Newsletter 5 -
This shooting was done by a 41-year-old recently unemployed
security guard on 18th July 1984. 21 people were killed.
- Read more:
Wikipedia
-
Melbourne:
At the Hoodle Street massacre in Melbourne, one evening a lone gunman shot people
at random for half an hour around a suburban neighborhood.
- Source: Justin Sullivan in NMAFC Newsletter 5 -
The shooting was done on 9th August 1987 by a 19-year-old
former military cadet. 7 people were killed and 19 severely injured.
- Read more:
Wikipedia -
Wash my hands:
This motif occurs twice in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Persuaded by his wife,
Macbeth kills Scottish king Duncan to climb the throne himself. She tells him
to wash the blood off his hands, but Macbeth, regretting his deed already, says:
"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand? No, this
my hand will rather / The multitudinous seas incarnadine, / Making the green
one red" (Act II, scene 2). However, the first murder causes new crimes, and
Macbeth becomes more and more entangled in guilt. In the end, even Lady Macbeth,
who has less scruples, becomes mad with guilt. One of her gentlewomen and a
doctor watch her sleepwalking:
DOCTOR. What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.
GENTLEWOMAN. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands.
I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
LADY MACBETH. Yet here's a spot.
DOCTOR. Hark, she speaks! I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my
remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH. Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One- two -why then 'tis time to
do't. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have
thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
DOCTOR. Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH. The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What, will these
hands ne'er be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that. You mar all
with this starting.
DOCTOR. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
GENTLEWOMAN. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that. Heaven knows
what she has known.
LADY MACBETH. Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia
will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh! (Act V, scene 1)
- Source: Shakespeare, William, Macbeth. Act II, scene 2 and Act V, scene
1 - Read more: Project
Gutenberg -
Justin and Robert explain that they use this as general image
about the disappearance of innocence; you get yourself into something and can't
get rid of it anymore.
- Source: NMA in an interview with German magazine Zillo 10/90; my translation
-
Buried in the sand:
Ostriches bury their head in the sand (do they really?). This is used as a metaphor
for refusing to face unpleasant realities.
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Ghost of Your Father
Portsmouth:
Portsmouth lies at the south coast of England, about 70 miles (112 km) away
from London. There is a direct road between the two places. In my experience,
the British are very hitchhiker-friendly. I don't know why it took the person
in the song fourteen hours to hitch from London to Portsmouth.
[ Back to Ghost of Your Father ]
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Gigabyte Wars
She's all red in tooth and claw:
Nature, according to Alfred Tennyson's long poem "In Memoriam A.H.H." (1849):
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law?
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed?
- Read more: Poet's Corner - Wikipedia -
Gigabyte:
The basic unit of information in computer storage and processing is byte. Because
a byte contains so little information, the processing and storage capacities
of computer hardware are usually given in kilobytes (1,024 bytes) or megabytes
(1,048,576 bytes). Still larger capacities are expressed in gigabytes
(about one billion bytes).
Stupid Questions:
Seemingly a reference to their 1989 song of that title.
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Gimme Shelter
The song:
This song is the opening track on the Rolling Stone's album "Let it Bleed" that
came out in December 1969. The well-known cover version by the Sisters of Mercy
was the b-side of their "Temple of Love" single (October 1983). British
organization Putting Our House in Order asked different artists to record the
song. All profits went to homeless charities.
The actual song was suggested . . . we were approached by
the charity and the song was suggested anyway. This charity was called 'Shelter'
or 'Putting Our House In Order' and it was basically about rehousing the homeless
so the song was already suggested. The idea at the time was that you would collaborate
with someone else and our secretary at the time came up with the idea of Tom
Jones. We thought 'no way', it wasn't like we weren't going to do it, we thought
'no way, its not going to happen'. A lot of people judge Tom Jones as playing
in front of middle aged women throwing knickers at him. We recorded the track
separately and Tom Jones sang on it in L.A. and then it was brought back to
England and mixed and all that stuff and the first time I heard it I thought
'oh yeah, this sounds like us, NMA, with all the rough edges and when Tom Jones
started singing there was a mixture of laughing because it was like 'bloody
hell that's Tom Jones!' But it was an incredible vocal, just an amazing singer.
We got together and did a video outside the BBC studios in Shepherds Bush in
London. I think it was a bit strange for him, he's thinking 'everyone has a
manager and everyone is choosing their career moves' and he's probably asking
questions like 'who is this New Model Army'? Because we still remain like an
underground band. He was a really nice guy, very funny, very sharp but generally
a very warm character and like I said, an excellent singer.
- Source: Robert Heaton in an
interview
with Chris Benn in May 1997 -
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Grandmother's Footsteps
Game:
Grandmother's steps or footsteps is a children's game where one
child (the "grandmother") stands facing a wall and turns round quickly every so often trying to
catch the movement of the rest of the children who are trying to creep up and
touch grandmother on the shoulder. A child caught moving has to go back to the
start, while the child who succeeds then becomes the
grandmother.
Lambs go to the slaughterhouse:
An image frequently used in the bible. In several passages it applies to Jesus
Christ, who gently and willingly sacrifices himself for all human sins: "He
was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought
as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he
openeth not his mouth".
- Source: The Bible. Isaiah, 53.7 -
30 silver coins:
The price Judas is payed for betraying Jesus Christ to the Jewish priests who
want to have him executed. When Jesus eats the passover with his disciples he
predicts that Judas will betray him. Later they all go the garden Gethsemane,
where Jesus prays. Judas comes with a group of armed people and kisses
Jesus so the priests know whom to arrest.
- Source: The Bible. Matthew, 26.14-56 - Read more:
King
James Bible -
[ Back to Grandmother's Footsteps | Back to Courage | Back to Fate
|
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Great Expectations
Great Expectations:
There's a novel of that title (1860) by English Victorian writer Charles
Dickens. It's about poor orphan Pip who learns that a mysterious gentleman is
going to pay for his education and leave him a fortune. This wakes great expectations
in the boy about a life in luxury and a happy match with adored Estella. Of
course everything turns out differently, and Pip experiences great disillusionment
before eventually . . . . This has probably nothing to do with the song, but
I just love to talk about literature.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
England team:
The English national football team. In some live versions Justin sings "Watford
team" instead; Watford is a district in the county of Herfordshire, on the northwest
periphery of London, with a football club playing in the English Premier Division.
[ Back to Great Expectations ]
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Green
Green:
The colour green has many different symbolic meanings, including hope, bad luck
and inexperience. It is also the colour of the uniform of the U.S. American and some regiments of the
British Army.
- Read more: Wikipdia -
Cedar trees:
Trees native to the mountains of the western Himalaya and the Mediterranean
region.
- Read more: Wikipedia -
[ Back to Green ]
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Green and Grey
The song:
[The song was originally an insrumental, but we thought it would be a shame
to leave it without lyrics. So Justin wrote some of his best lyrics ever. Almost
every band writes about how they had to leave their town in order to get ahead.
In such a situation you consider everybody else as opponent you have to fight.
Our song describes the situation of the one who stays behind.] It's very sad
but it's a very good song. I think it's based on true - it represents any town,
and everybody who's been in that situation will know what the song's about exactly.
It's when someone leaves your town, and then they come back to you a year later
and say, "Oh you're still here, you're still doing the same thing. We're somewhere
else doing great". It makes you feel down.
- Source: Robert Heaton in an interview with German radio station Radio Bremen
4 in February 1989 (the part in [ ] is my translation, as I couldn't always
hear Robert because of the German voice over) -
Never never land:
In James Matthew Barrie's novel Peter Pan (1904), a dream world
to which only children have access.
16/06/2007