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Wanting
It's hunger that
feeds you, hunger that bleeds you:
Several lines of this song ar re-used in Here
Comes the War.
[ Back to Wanting ]
|
Wars of Purification
The song:
This might be over-interpretation, but perhaps like Here Comes the War, Over the Wire and Whirlwind this song is partly
influenced by William Butler Yeats' poem 'The
Second Coming'.
Crucified:
The way Jesus died.
[ Back to Wars of Purification ]
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Water
The song:
"In 'Water' [Justin] states that live without water is impossible.
The refrain goes: 'We're only made of water/ the full moon gets us
high'. Justin too 'goes crazy' three days before the full moon and has
strong bouts of creativity. 'Until 1920 it was counted as mitigating
circumstance when someone committed a crime at full moon.' He laughs at
the thought that the water in the bodies of George
W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden will some day
mingle. 'No doubt this will happen. Both are very similar to each other
any way, they are both convinced that God gave them the right to drive
us into some senseless confrontation' ".
- Source: Justin Sullivan in German Online Magazin
Uncle
Sally's; my translation -
"[. . .] the beginning starts with the heart beat of
my eldest son, Calum"
- Source: Michael Dean in Anthology
booklet -
[ Back to Water ]
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Weak and Strong
Two million into ONE:
[We at New Model Army have rather difficult personalities and are
rather outsiders. But] sometimes it's good to feel connected to people.
I was in Paris after the terror attacks, when two million people took
to the street, and it was an amazing feeling. That's why I sing "love can be stronger than fear" [. . . .]
- Source: Justin Sullivan
Interview with Ox-Fanzine Oct/Nov 2016; my
translation -
The Paris terror attacks were carried out on Friday 13 November 2015. With suicide bombings and mass shootings at cafés, restaurants and a concert of the band Eagles of Death Metal, nine Islamist terrorists killed 130 people.
- Read more: Wikipedia -
Werewolves of London
Soho:
Neighbourhood in the centre of London, to the east of Mayfair. A
popular entertainment district with many cinemas, theatres (Shaftesbury
Avenue), street markets and fashionable clothing shops (Carnaby
Street), prostitution, film companies and music-publishing houses.
Lee
Ho Fook's:
Actually there is a restaurant of this name in London's Chinatown.
Chow mein:
A Chinese dish of stir-fried noodles.
Kent:
County (administrative district) in the southeast of England, between
London and the North Sea coast.
Mayfair:
The fashionable neighbourhood in the centre of London, to the east
of Hyde Park, where you can find important shopping streets (Oxford
Street, Regent Street), and tourist attractions (Piccadilly Circus).
Lon
Chaney:
01/04/1883-26/08/1930. American film actor called the "Man of a
Thousand Faces," whose macabre characterizations are classics of the
silent screen. His role in The Miracle Man (1919) made him a
star. He played Quasimodo the hunchback in The Hunchback of Notre
Dame (1923); the acid-scarred musician who haunted the subterranean
passages of the Paris Opéra in The Phantom of the Opera (1925);
and the dual role of police inspector and vampire in London After
Midnight (1927).
His son, Lon Chaney, Jr. (1907-73),
originally named Creighton Chaney, also appeared in horror films,
chiefly as a werewolf or wolfman.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica -
Pina colada:
A coctail made of rum, coconut creme and pineapple juice.
Trader Vic's:
American chain of Polynesian-themed restaurants popular in the 1950s
and 1960s and still in existence today. Most restaurants are in the
USA, but there is also one in Mayfair in London.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
[ Back to Werewolves of London | Back to Monster Mash ]
Western Dream
Four
letter words:
Swearwords (with four letters, like shit).
Tell
you when to laugh:
At tv shows, stage workers hold up signs which tell the studio audience
when to clap, laugh etc.
Whirlwind
The
song:
Justin: The song is hopeful and threatening at the same time, because
the big bang will come. There is no solution, things change. Societies
rise and fall, history has shown this over thousands of years. The fall
is always caused by famine, disease or wars.
Robert: This society is based on greed, and as long as everybody just
wants to accumulate possessions as fast as possible there is no way to
stop this development.
- Source: NMA in an interview with German magazine Zillo 10/90
; my translation-
Justin says nearly the same things again in an interview about Here Comes the War. Like Here Comes the War, Over the Wire and Wars of Purification this song might be influenced by Yeats' poem 'The Second Coming'.
She:
The Earth. As in Living in the Rose, Vanity and maybe White Coats, Justin treats it as female
living organism, which is in accordance with the Gaia
hypothesis.
Goliath:
In the bible, a giant who fights with and is unexpectedly defeated by
the small David.
- Source: The Bible. 1 Samuel, 17 - Read more:
King
James Bible -
Punchdrunk:
Being dazed after recieving blows on the head.
- Siurce: Wikipedia
-
Whiskey in the Jar
Kerry
Mountains:
Kerry is a county in the southwest of Ireland, at the Atlantic Ocean.
Among its highlands are the highest mountains in Ireland.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
Musha:
The words of the chorus don't make any sense.
Cork:
Town near the Irish south coast, in the county of Cork.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
Killarney:
Small town in the southwest of Ireland, in the county of Kerry.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
Kilkenny:
Small town in the southeast of Ireland, in the county of Kilkenny.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
White Coats
The
song:
225 is about a similar topic.
DNA:
Short for Deoxyribonucleic Acid. Organic chemical of complex molecular
structure that codes genetic information for the transmission of
inherited traits.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica - Read more:
Wikipedia -
Luddite
martyrs:
Luddites were organized bands of 19th-century English handicraftsmen
who rioted for the destruction of the textile machinery that was
displacing them. They avoided violence against persons and often
enjoyed local support. In 1812 a band of Luddites was shot down under
the orders of a threatened employer named Horsfall (who was afterward
murdered in reprisal). A mass trial against them at York in 1813
resulted in many hangings and transportations. The movement was soon
ended by vigorous repression and reviving prosperity.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica - Read more:
Wikipedia -
She
will dance on our graves:
Actually I'm not sure if Justin knew it then or if it even was in
existence, but this is a central idea of the Gaia
hypothesis. This theory also appears in Living
in the Rose, Vanity and Whirlwind.
Jonestown:
Former site of the People's Temple commune in northwestern Guyana, near
the Venezuelan border. A religious cult group, the commune ended in
1978 when the cult's founder and leader, Jim Jones, initiated a mass
suicide in which 913 people died.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica - Read more:
Wikipedia -
Beach:
"We did a couple of
good gigs at Folkestone and the Elephant Fayre [26/07 and 27/07/85] . .
. . On the way back home, we stopped on the beach in Polzeath, a
childhood holiday destination of both myself and Justin. We played
cricket and built a big sandcastle with a wall around it. Being a
songwriter, Justin ensured that this would become the last verse of
White Coats two years later, but without the cricket. Shame."
- Source: ex bass player Moose
Harris -
In the Q&A on the NMA board
Justin names Polzeath the place in Britain apart from Bradford that
inspired him the most. It is a small seaside resort on the north coast
of Cornwall.
- Source: Justin Sullivan on the NMA notice
board - Read more: Wikipedia
-
White Light
The
song:
Like Wonderful Way to Go, this song
is about Justin's near death experience.
Here is Justin's side of the story
that he wrote for this FAQ; "I was electrocuted on stage in Porrentruy,
Switzerland in the summer of 1992. We were on the last encore and I
picked up a stage light to shine in the audience. The light wasn't on
and in trying to get a better grip because my hands were slick with
sweat, I grabbed the inside of the casing by mistake. As the current
came on, I found that I was physically stuck to the light and passed
out. I was lying on my back, still attached to the light because of the
massive charge, and everyone thought it was part of the show, so this
went on for 10-12 seconds before a member of our stagecrew realised
what was happening, tried to rescue me, received a shock and then
kicked the light out of my hand. My best friend Brett [Selby] carried
me down to the dressing room and a Swiss Red Cross man started pumping
at my heart to restart it. After about 3 minutes I regained
consciousness. During this time I had the classic 'near death'
experience of the 'white light' and a feeling of warmth, floating, and
perfect peace, unlike anything else I've ever known." Apparently
Justin's heart had actually stopped for a period of time. Joolz also
mentioned that Justin started to come around when he heard Brett's
voice. Sadly the Swiss Red Cross man was killed a month later in a
motorcycle accident. The exact date of the show (I think) was June 6th,
1992 (at Salle De Alle?).
- Source:
Chris
Benn's Chinese Whispers - NMA faq -
Great
North Road:
Major English transport road. I think it is basically the A 1 (or part
of it), which starts in London, leads to Newcastle upon Tyne and then
follows the coast line to Edinburgh. Parts of it date back to Roman
times.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
Armies:
In the UK, there is an evangelical Christian movement called the Jesus
Army.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
Voodoo:
National religious folk cult of Haiti, a mixture of Roman Catholic
ritual elements and African theological and magical elements.
Voodooists believe in spirits called loa, that communicate with
an individual during cult services by possessing him during a trance
state. A peculiar, and much sensationalized, aspect of voodoo is the zombie.
A zombie is regarded by voodooists as being either a dead person's
disembodied soul that is used for magical purposes, or an actual corpse
that has been raised from the grave by magical means and is then used
to perform agricultural labour in the fields as a sort of will-less
automaton. In actual practice, certain voodoo priests do appear to
create "zombies" by administering a particular poison to the skin of a
victim, who then enters a state of profound physical paralysis for a
number of hours.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica - Read more:
Wikipedia -
[ Back to White Light | Back to Fireworks Night | Back to Monster Mash ]
Whites of Their Eyes
Wolfchild:
History and fiction state several cases of children left by their
parents and raised by wild animals.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
Hey diddle diddle:
First line of an English nursery rhyme:
Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
[ Back to Whites of Their Eyes ]
Winter
The song:
'Winter' is about the second or third song we wrote, and it just felt
like the right title [. . . .] It's almost as if for many years we've
been writing about a feeling of uneasyness that things are not going in
the right direction and something is coming like a wave is coming. And
in 'Winter', in the song, it's almost as if an – I read somewhere this
phrase which I stole, which is "age of
consequence", which – I kind
of liked this idea, we're sort of entering the age of consequence in
many many different ways. And then the song is almost an attempt to
look beyond it, you know, after. I fear the age of consequence, I wish
it was over, bring me what's after.
- Source: Justin Sullivan interview with Rock Antenne -
Burn the Castle has a
similar theme.
Winter:
For me winter refers to something still, when things stop. When the
first snow comes up everything stops and I love this idea. We don't
have loads of snow, but I love it when it first falls and when you can
hear that muffled sound. However I love all the seasons. The idea of
Winter in the song is looking beyond the age of
consequence. It was the second or third song I wrote for the album
and I thought it would be a good title for the album really.
- Source: Justin Sullivan interview with French ZicAZine
-
Eyes Get Used to the
Darkness also uses the idea of danger (a storm) coming and looking
beyond it.
Age of consequence:
I
read in a newspaper this phrase which I stole for the song, "the age of
consequence", "we are entering the age of consequence". And it feels
like we are, actually, and I'm very frightened by it. And perhaps the
song is looking beyond it to when everything gets quiet again. [. . .
.] One can start with the sort of damage that human beings have been
doing to the planet. But I think also that the crash of 2008 was an opportunity for
people in the world to see
that the way the financial system in the world works doesn't benefit
anyone except just a tiny minority, and the chance to change it. But we
instead are pretending that everything is OK and we're just driving
into a wall [. . . .] It's a little bit like the 1930s, you have a rise
of demagogues kind of everywhere and you have unhappy people that are
being encouraged to point the finger at other unhappy people and say
"it's their fault, it's their fault". And I think it's because the
feeling is that the elite does not care.
- Source: Justin Sullivan interview with Radio
Bremen -
I could not find a specific source for the term "Age
of consequence". It has been for a long time in many different
contexts.
There is a British documentary, The
Four Horsemen (2012), that uses the
phrase very much like Justin Sullivan does. The script says
"We are entering the age of consequence
A repatious financial system,
escalating organised violence
abject poverty for billions,
and the looming environmental fallout
are all converging at a time when governments,
religion and mainstream economists have stalled
War, conquest, famine and death"
- Source: Script
- Read more: IMDB -
Another documentary with a similar subject matter is
actually called The Age of
Consequences, but it was not widely released before the album Winter came out.
- Read more: IMDB -
[ Back to Winter ]
Wipeout
The song:
Other songs about the sea and surfing are: Big Blue, Happy to be Here,
Marry the Sea, North Star, Ocean Rising,
Southwest, Sun
on Water and
Twilight Home.
Also, this is one of many songs that uses driving as subject matter or metaphor, like After Something, Happy to be Here, Headlights, 125 MPH, Orange Tree Roads, The Price, Stormclouds, Sunrise, Tales of the Road, or Vagabonds.
30:
The A30 is one of the main routes through Devon and Cornwall, leading
directly to Penzance, a coastal town in the southwest of Cornwall, near
Land's End.
Wipeout:
"A term originally used by surfers to describe the experience of being
thrown off their surfboard involuntarily and violently and being
submerged by a wave".
- Source: Wikipedia
-
[ Back to Wipeout ]
Wired
Home is where the
heart is:
English proverb meaning "your home will always be the place for which
you feel the deepest affection, no matter where you are".
- Source: The New Oxford Dictionary of English -
Gunmetal:
Gunmetal is a kind of bronze, originally used chiefly for making guns.
It is also called red brass in America. Gunmetal is also a name for a
shade of grey colour.
- Source: Wikipedia
-
Throw:
The "High"-booklet reads "through", but the official NMA website has
"throw", which makes more sense and sounds more like what Justin
actually sings.
[ Back to Wired ]
Wonderful Way to Go
The song:
"One thing I learned from being electrocuted on stage was this: don't
be afraid to die".
- Source: Justin Sullivan at Bizarre Festival 2001 according to Kai at
snelsmorewood.de noticeboard -
Another song about Justin's near death experience is White Light.
[ Back to Wonderful Way to Go ]
You Weren't There
The song:
Justins always announces this song with
"Never believe what you see on TV"
Small
world:
"I
like to go to new places I haven't been before. You know they say the
world is very small, no, no, no, no the world is very, very big and
there are a lot of things I haven't seen and I will never see."
- Source: Justin Sullivan interview with Rock-Interviews.com
-
Club Class:
The expensive, or First Class, on planes.
Far-east:
A somewhat eurocentristic term for the countries of East Asia, i.e.
China, Taiwan, japan, both Koreas, and Mongolia.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
Sheraton:
A hotel belonging to a big worldwide chain.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
CNN:
Short for Cable News Network. American company engaged in 24-hour live
news broadcasts. They have news bureaus in cities throughout the world.
CNN gained worldwide attention in 1991 for its around-the-clock
coverage, much of it broadcast from Iraq, of the Persian Gulf War.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica - Read more: Wikipedia -
Waco:
City in north-central Texas, USA. On 19th April 1993, after a 51-day
standoff with federal agents, members of the Branch Davidian religious
cult set their compound near Waco on fire, and 74 people, including
their leader David Koresh, were killed.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica - Read more: Wikipedia -
Kosovo:
A mostly Albanian province in southern Serbia, former part of
Yugoslavia in eastern Europe. After peaceful attempts by the Albanian
majority to gain independence from Serbia were unsuccessful, from 1996
to 1999 an Albanian guerilla group fought against Serbian and Yugoslav
forces for independence. In 1999 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, a military alliance of most western countries) forces
joined the war and bombed Yugoslavia for three months. During the
conflict roughly a million ethnic Albanians fled or were forcefully
driven from Kosovo, 10-12,000 were killed. Many civilians became
victims of Serbian massacres; Serbs also engaged in a deliberate
campaign of cultural destruction to wipe out Albanian culture and
tradition. Kosovo is now under transitional UN administration, but
inter-etnic violence has not yet altogether ceased.
- Read more: Wikipedia
-
Walking
arm in arm with crowds:
I do that quite often. I quite like doing that sort of thing [going to
demonstrations]. [. . .] I think it just feels better than throwing
bricks at the television in your living room. You go out and you
realize that you're not alone in your fury at the government, or
whatever it is. [. . .] I don’t think it changes anything, except, in
the end, that it gives you a sense of strength. You’re not isolated.
You’re among other people that feel the same way.
- Source: Allan
MacInnis: "New Model Army: Tribal Warfare and Western Civilization.
Telephone interview on May 18th, 2008 -
Bradford:
Bradford has been the location of several
riots as result of tensions between ethnic groups;
Brother and perhaps Carlisle Road
are about this.
Young, Gifted and Skint
Young, Gifted and
Skint:
A famous song by American Jazz singer Nina Simone (1933-2003) is
called "To Be Young, Gifted and Black". It was covered by Soul singer
Aretha Franklin on her 1972 album Young, Gifted and Black. The
last two lines go "To be young, gifted and black/Is where it's at".
- Read more:
Wikipedia
-
Skint means without any money.
- Source: Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English
-
Money
makes the world go round:
"Make the world go around" is often used with "Love" or "Money" (a
famous example of this is the song from the musical Cabaret, especially in Liza
Minnelli's interpretation from the filmed version (1972)) and means
"play an essential role in causing the things in life to work as they
should".
- Source: Wiktionary
-
[ Back to Young, Gifted and Skint ]
[ W-Z | Introduction | Song Index | Updates ]
16/11/2014; last update 23/07/17