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I Love the World
The song:
The album is called 'Thunder and Consolation'; the music is thunderous
and the lyrics console a few people, we think and we've been told so.
The opening track is called 'I Love the World', which some people say
is a cynical outlook on the destruction of our world. And we don't
think it that way; man is killing the world but we love it. And if we
can do something to save the world then we will do. And the chorus goes
"I love the world, I love the world, I love the world" etc. It's a very
simple statement: we love the world!
- Source: Robert Heaton in an interview with German radio station Radio
Bremen 4 in February 1989 -
The line occured to Justin Sullivan while recording
the Thunder and Consolation
album at Sawmill Studios in Cornwall: "walking along the railway line
on a warm, sunny, misty winter's day wondering what to do with one
particular song. We'd had the verses and bridges for some weeks but
could never find the right chorus and then it just came into my head
because at that moment the line was the one and only truth. 'I Love The
World.' "
- Source: Between Dog and Wolf
Magazine -
Petergate:
A small street right in the centre of Bradford.
Ark:
The Ark is a symbol for the hope that amidst all destruction of the
earth we will survive. In the Genesis, the first book of the bible,
when God sees how sinful man is he decides to destroy the earth with a
flood. He only saves one man, Noah. God orders him to build a huge
ship, the Ark, and to take his family as well as one female and one
male of every kind of animal on this ship. Then he lets it rain for
fourty days, until every living thing on earth has drowned. After a
hundred and fifty more days God makes the water slowly disappear. Noah
sends out different birds a few times, until finally a dove brings back
an olive leave, so that Noah knows the ground is dry again, and
everybody leaves the Ark and lives happily ever after. Noah, by the
way, is 600 years old when all this happens . . .
- Source: The Bible. Genesis 6-8 - Read more: King
James Bible -
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I Need More Time
The song:
"Everyone I know says 'I need more time'. When you're young you think,
I'll do this and that, I'll look at that, I'll travel there. . . And
now I'm older and realise I won't do all the things I planned to. I'll
not play football for the England team.
One of my favourite movie scenes is in Blade Runner,
when the android played by Rutger Hauer goes to his maker, and Tyrell
says to him, 'What seems to be the problem?' And he says: 'Death.' "
- Source: Justin Sullivan on Corso.
My translation back from German - Read more: IMDB on Blade
Runner -
[ Back to I Need More Time | Back to ACAB ]
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I Wish
Grey eyes:
The person in Eleven Years has also
grey eyes.
[ Back to I Wish | Back to Eleven Years ]
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If You Can't Save Me
Calvary Hill:
The place where Jesus Christ was crucified
to death. According to the Gospels of
Matthew, Marc and Luke, on the cross Jesus was mocked to save himself,
if he really was the son of God, a notion echoed in the lines "You're
never going to save the world/If you can't save me". The Gospels also
report that after Jesus died the sky went black.
- Source: e.g. The Bible. Matthew 27, 38-43 - Read more: King
James Bible -
Mary:
There were several women named Mary present at Jesus' crucifixion, one
of them his mother.
[ Back to If You Can't Save Me | Back to Too Close to the Sun ]
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Inheritance
The song:
At some stage in your life someone will come up to you and say 'you're
just like your mother'. And they'll be right, cos it's true. The
personalities of your parents will rule your life, and there's no way
you can get away from that. You may live your life and think that
you've broken away from the mould, but what you're really doing is
leading your life in exactly the same way as your parents would do if
they were you. However different you might think you are from them,
whether you like it or not, eventually you'll end up being very similar.
Some parents I think defend you all the time, whether you're right or
wrong, and some parents go to the other extreme, and lead you to
believe that whatever you do isn't good enough. Mine are like the
latter. Therefore, I go through my life believing that whatever I do
isn't 'good' enough. In some ways that's a pain in the neck but in
other ways it's really good because you're always trying to get better.
- Source: Justin Sullivan in an
interview with House of Dolls Fanzine in 1989 -
Compare BD3, Dawn, Familiy, Family Life, Home, March in September, My People, No Mirror, No Shadow and Twilight Home for other explorations of the theme of family and home.
Munsters:
Very human family of monsters in the classical American sitcom of
the same name that was aired between 1964 and 1966.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
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Into the Wind
We took all the
holy books and we burned them:
I
think anyone who looks at the modern world sometimes thinks, "Why don’t
we just take the Bible and the Torah and the Koran and oh, fucking burn
the lot?" Because the endless arguments and conflicts over which God
said what to which Prophet are all nonsense, and people know it’s
nonsense.
[. . .] I am from a religious background. By the time I got to about
19, I’d been through quite a few religions, and what I had worked out
quite early in my life was that they were all the same. And
interestingly enough there’s kind of a mystical element to all of them,
which is about light and truth, and not about words. [. . .] They’re
all the same, at the top end, once you get past the "We’re right and
everybody else is wrong." The thing about the religions of the book,
and, up to a point, the other great religions of the world, is that
they’re all cults, and the reason that they survive is that they’ve got
a built-in hostility to outsiders.
- Source: Allan
MacInnis: "New Model Army: Tribal Warfare and Western Civilization.
Telephone interview on May 18th, 2008 -
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Island
The song:
"On the Easter Island they build massive statues of stone. In order to
transport them they had to chop their trees. There was a successful
civilisation on this island, but it needed more and more land. One day
the last tree was chopped, and the soil eroded, with underfeeding and
diseases as result. Moreover they couldn't build anymore ships to get
off the island. Since as Briton I am an islander, too, the song tells a
lot about my own feelings. You could even read the fate of the Easter
Island as prophecy for the fate of the whole planet".
- Source: Justin Sullivan in German Online Magazin
Uncle
Sally's; my translation - Read more:
Wikipedia -
[ Back to Island ]
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Killing
The song:
"This is a song about something that's happening in England over the
last five years, perhaps the front line against the government is the
Road Protest Movement."
- Source: Justin Sullivan, 21/08/98, Sumpfblume, Hameln -
"The road movement in England is partly as it
appears, in the sense of an ongoing eco-battle with the powers that be.
England is a small country and there is 462 of these roads pending and
if they go on doing this there will be nothing left, road after road
after road. And it isn't the answer. Thatcher didn't like anything that
was even lightly public because it smacked of socialism, so she'd
destroyed the public transport system so there wasn't anything except
cars. Everyone loves cars, I love my car and I love driving and all the
rest of it. It isn't the answer. So on one side, it is a movement
against roads which I think is gathering support. On the other side, it
is the only direct confrontation with central power that is going on at
the moment in Britain. I think that since the collapse of the Berlin
wall, it has thrown the old left wing into disarray combined with the
destruction of the old industries which led themselves to strong
unions. So the point there, confrontation there, is more likely to be
these kind of eco-things."
- Source: Justin Sullivan in an interview
with Chris Benn in February 1997 -
Snelsmore Wood is also about the Road Protest Movement.
St George's Hill:
Place in the county Surrey, southwest of London, not very far away from
Newbury. The place is famous because in April 1649, during the English
Civil War, a group of Diggers, nonviolent agrarian communists,
assembled there and began to cultivate the common land. They claimed
that God had created the Earth for everybody to share and provide for
their basic needs. Their activities alarmed the Commonwealth government
(i.e. the government of Oliver Cromwell and the parliament) and
roused the hostility of local landowners, who were rival claimants to
the common lands. The Diggers were harassed by legal actions and mob
violence, and by the end of March 1650 their colony was dispersed.
Ironically, today there is an exclusive housing estate for celebrities
and wealthy people on St George's Hill.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica - Read more: Wikipedia -
Leon Rosselson wrote the song "The World Turned Upside Down" about this event, which was covered by Billy Bragg (on the "Back to Basics" compilation), the Oysterband ("The Shouting End of Life") and Attila the Stockbroker ("The Siege of Shoreham"), who also spoofed it ("The Liggers' Song" on "This is Free Europe"). I can only highly recommend all four albums. This is how it goes:
In 1649
To St. George's Hill,
A ragged band they called the Diggers
Came to show the people's will
They defied the landlords
They defied the laws
They were the dispossessed
Reclaiming what was theirs
We come in peace they said
To dig and sow
We come to work the lands in common
And to make the waste ground grow
This earth divided
We will make whole
So it will be
A common treasury for all
The sin of property
We do disdain
No man has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain
By theft and murder
They took the land
Now everywhere the walls
Spring up at their command
They make the laws
To chain us well
The clergy dazzle us with heaven
Or they damn us into hell
We will not worship
The God they serve
The God of greed who feed the rich
While poor folk starve
We work we eat together
We need no swords
We will not bow to the masters
Or pay rent to the lords
Still we are free
Though we are poor
You Diggers all stand up for glory
Stand up now
From the men of property
The orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers
To wipe out the Diggers' claim
Tear down their cottages
Destroy their corn
They were dispersed
But still the vision lingers on
You poor take courage
You rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share
All things in common
All people one
We come in peace
The orders came to cut them down
Stanworth Woods:
I think a place in Lancashire in the North West of England, were the
M65 motorway was completed in 1997.
Marking crosses
upon doors:
This might be a biblical reference: The second book of Moses, Exodus,
tells the story of how the Israelites flee form a famine in their Promised Land and settle in Egypt, where they
are oppressed by the Pharaoh. God then sends a series of plagues onto
Egypt. The final plague kills all first born sons, passing over the
houses of the Israelites who have sacrificed a lamb and marked their
doors with the blood.
- Source: The Bible. Exodus, 12 - Read more:
King
James Bible -
[ Back to Killing | Back to Ten Commandments ]
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Knievel
The song:
"Well,
when Marshall joined the band he was obsessed with Evil [sic] Knievel
from when he thought he was a stuntman at ten years old on his bike, so
we started talking about it. And when we went to Montana to Evil
Knievel's home town after he'd died, we were in this Chinese restaurant
that hadn't changed since the fifties. So we are in this weird
windswept desolate place and we asked the waitress about Knievel and
she said 'oh that bastard!' (laughter). No one liked him and he wasn't
a very nice character but a very interesting one. Nowadays all stunts
are very scientifically worked out for safety, but his weren't and half
the time he thought he probably wouldn't make it, yet he took off
anyway. And of course he didn't always make it. A very interesting man.
When I came to write the album I found I'd written a lot in my notebook
about him, I'd never read a book, it was just from conversations with
Marshall and that line in the chorus [Do they come to see a man fall –
or to see him fly?] was just one of the lines
I'd written. It seemed like a good metaphor for a lot of things - all
the way down to The X Factor."
- Source: Justin Sullivan in Yorkshire
Times -
Robert Craig 'Evel'
Knievel (October 17, 1938 - November 30, 2007) was an American
motorcycle stunt performer.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
The
X-Factor
is a television show in which aspiring singers compete with each other.
Some of the contestants are really talented, but others make complete
fools of themselves.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
Gone twenty-nine
days:
After one of his accidents Knievel was in a coma for 29 days.
- Source: Wikipedia -
The river is deep,
the valley is wide:
Perhaps
the Snake River Canyon in Idaho that Knievel tried to jump in a
steam-powered rocket in 1974. He failed and crashed, but only had minor
injuries.
- Source: Wikipedia -
Heaven:
A few month before his death Knievel publically announced his
conversion to the Christian faith.
- Source: Wikipedia -
Have a crack:
To have a chance to attack or compete with.
- Source: The New Oxford Dictionary
of English -
[ Back to Knievel ]
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Knife
A dream in a dream:
There is a famous poem called "A Dream Within a Dream" (published 1849)
by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) that questions the
way one can distinguish between reality and fantasy.
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream:
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
- Source: Project Gutenberg -
[ Back to Knife ]
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15/12/13; last update 17/06/17