Why "Floodland" is the ultimate 1980s album

[Big Si]

Although the west may envision Russia as male, I think russians themselves refer to Mother Russia.

Aye Germany - Fatherland, and Russia - Motherland, it goes back to the War

[Suleiman]

The Mother of all Motherlands.

;]

[darkparticle]

Nadia81 wrote:

Although the west may envision Russia as male, I think russians themselves refer to Mother Russia.

Aye Germany - Fatherland, and Russia - Motherland, it goes back to the War

I only questioned it because Mother Russia is a controvertial icon, which is maybe what Von alludes to...

It was used in propoganda when the Tsar reconstructed his absolute monarchy into a constitutional one. The image was popularly mocked for it's over-romantic form and in the great war denounced for stealing sons. It was re-used by the red army who modelled it on the 'hard working mother' seen in communist/sociaist graphics. This overcame the original problem the people found in the image, who were now supposed to identify with the new symbol of state.

rain,reign, rhein, reins,rains, reigns, reigned, rained? which meaning to take down. This is the insubstantial bit I mentioned last post, if you take the words any way meaningfully, their suggestivness is lost and suggestivness is the art of a poet.

[Being645]

I think, within the films of Andrej Tarkowski the various extensions
of "Mother Russia" come out well ... and without all to many efforts
for a verbal definition ...

[darkparticle]

verdinglichung

[Being645]

like the wind ...

[darkparticle]

poetically shooting the breeze

[Being645]

... slightly ...

[Toaster Mantis]

Although the west may envision Russia as male, I think russians themselves refer to Mother Russia.

Aye Germany - Fatherland, and Russia - Motherland, it goes back to the War

So WW2 was actually a case of a domestic squabble on a truly epic Jungian-archetypical scale right down to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact? Always knew that a marriage between Wotan and Baba Yaga wouldn't last long!

It was re-used by the red army who modelled it on the 'hard working mother' seen in communist/sociaist graphics. This overcame the original problem the people found in the image, who were now supposed to identify with the new symbol of state.

Don't forget that the Soviet Union was one of the first countries whose military admitted female soldiers, so there might have been another reason for the Red Army to personify Russia as a woman in their propaganda.

[darkparticle]

Yep I don't forget that but 's use of Soviet Union icons may symbolise the negative or positive reflections of the old dear, who knows but Andrew? I don't think it's a simple translation of East meets West.

Again this complexity of metaphor happens with the 'white house in a red square' - America's white house or a white army hide-out? The white army connection might be proven with the 'white treason' but who knows if that's about differences in skin tone and prejudice?

...he's a mercurial one

[Toaster Mantis]

Yeah, I keep wondering what "white treason" refers to and I keep thinking the pro-Czar White Army in the Russian Revolution. As for the "white house in a red square", could it mean that the Soviet Union's leaders had more in common with the United States' than either wanted to admit?

[Big Si]

As for the "white house in a red square", could it mean that the Soviet Union's leaders had more in common with the United States' than either wanted to admit?

Or a pun on both being quite un-democratic regimes

The GUM Department Store (re-opened in 1953) on 'Red' Square is rather white in colour

After reopening as a department store in 1953, the GUM became one of the few stores in the Soviet Union that was not plagued by shortages of consumer goods, and the queues to purchase anything were long, often extending all across Red Square

Sounds like Capitalism in effect to me



p.s. The Russian word 'Krasnaya' means "Red" or "Beautiful", so it's actually "Beautiful Plaza"

[Being645]

Krass ... ...

[stufarq]

just to make sure: i was joking when i was writing about 1959 and DLtS as another example of cold war comentary.

Yeah, I realised that. I was just covering all of the songs.

It is well known MR is about Chernobyl. It is also well known that the snow, in one of its guises, is nuclear fallout

and as paint it black point it MR was wrote after chernobly disaster when AE were trapped in some communist block country (any info which one ?).

So it is. But the fallout is described as rain not snow.

edit to add. for the avoidance of doubt, TC is pre-gift

Sorry, I should have made myself clearer there. TC is about the collapse of the previous line-up ie the pre-Gift Empire of Lucretia.

[markfiend]

There's allusions to other songs in there: for example
"Mother Russia rain down down down" references A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
"Once a railroad, now it's done" in Lucretia is a reference to Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
There's loads more which I shall leave as an exercise for the class

(See also Detonation Boulevard == Desolation Row, another Dylan reference)

[Suleiman]

There's allusions to other songs in there: for example
"Mother Russia rain down down down" references A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
"Once a railroad, now it's done" in Lucretia is a reference to Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
There's loads more which I shall leave as an exercise for the class

(See also Detonation Boulevard == Desolation Row, another Dylan reference)

Not to mention "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again".
Bliss.

[stufarq]

"The bitter comes out better on a stolen guitar
You're the blessed, we're the Spiders From Mars"?

[DerekR]

Fuck me, and I thought it was just a Sisters album wi' keyboards on

[Toaster Mantis]

The keyboard-heavy style is another thing that makes it so deliciously 1980s.

[Nadia81]

I think Big Si is on to something here-The big GUM department store in Red Square.Someone once said the Berlin wall came down not because people wanted freedom and democracy but because they wanted Pepsi-cola and Adidas.Western gods-consumerism,materialism-are everywhere,even in a communist shrine like Red Square.

[Being645]

... yeah, probably because even within Communist shrines there are those
who have and those who have no access to the best standards a country can afford ...

Having to live with Stasi and such stuff does really not seem to serve much
of a problem to most consumers, as we can observe everywhere in the
Western world nowadays under the rule of War on Terror as much as under
the headings of telecommunication data collection for the sake of serving
consumer demands and with state trojans like this ...

http://www.bundestrojaner.net/ ...

------------------------------------------
Baby, won't you try some ...
Baby, won't you buy some ....

[Bartek]

Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.

[Being645]

... and therefore, everything that's left is the common human lifestock trade, so behave! ...