Heartland

Is that song about war?

i've always thought it's an existentialist allegory about life as it is. two persons - a man and a woman - who want to reach each other - and the distance between them.

Wots with all the references to the British Empire? And the video is filmed in India, in some kind of factory (sweatshop?) is it about the (alleged) evils of collonialism?

Black Shuk wrote:
Wots with all the references to the British Empire? And the video is filmed in India, in some kind of factory (sweatshop?) is it about the (alleged) evils of collonialism?

alleged? I can tell you the aftermath of collonialism is pretty evil.

Yup.

Indeed!

Black Shuk wrote:
Wots with all the references to the British Empire? And the video is filmed in India, in some kind of factory (sweatshop?) is it about the (alleged) evils of collonialism?

After Dave Thompson's book "The Dark Reign of Gothic Rock..." (page 187) it was filmed in Bombay cotton factory.
Still I don't want to believe the song itself (the lyrics) is about colonialism.

Always thought it was about Patsy.

Karst wrote:Always thought it was about Patsy.

with the line "I hear the roar of a big machine" I think you could be correct.

not a single reference to pies though.

)

Karst wrote:Always thought it was about Patsy.

Yeah, there be an ol' article/interview with Pat called Sister Midnight (If memory serves ) twas in Melody Maker a 3 page spread with some piccies. In it she talks about her "relationship" with Andy and what Lucretia is all about.

I think Andy backs this version in the Record Mirror Interview. Although this is mainly concentrates on Dominion

and there is also a bit in the Baktabak interview where he calls Lucretia his "welcome on board Patricia" song.

I think i take things much too literally sometimes.
I always thought it was about machines, metal, empires falling, ghosts and dancing.

lucretia is indeed a mysterious song.

This is my favorite song of All Time. The bass lines are great inspiration for when your making love.

It's a love song.

And It's a masterpiece.

Black Planet wrote:This is my favorite song of All Time. The bass lines are great inspiration for when your making love.

Interesting idea, I'll have to try that sometime.

and the extended version of the song lasts about 8 minutes - just enought time for a quick shag.

LOL
It's all in the rythym! And the 8 min version....tis wonderful.

Black Planet wrote:LOL
It's all in the rythym! And the 8 min version....tis wonderful.

only 8

you should try 10 like the promo

The Big Machine features in Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny (which incidentally inspired the Hawkwind song of the same name & not a million miles away from Detonation Boulevard either if you've read it).

The main character in the book had been told that the world was governed by The Big Machine & wanted to be its engineer.


cheers


M

Years ago when i wrote a review about the 3 Sisters albums, and knew close to nothing about Eldritch, i made an observation about how his worldview evolved through the 3 albums.

Lucretia, in that scheme of things, was expressing the dividing line between his own world and the world of people in general...that is, alienation.

Yes, i know now about Patsy and Wayne and how his lyrics are often written, but...Eldritch is an artist, and art is transcendental. Would we really listen to This Corrosion or Giving Ground if there was nothing there except complaining about Wayne?
No, the thing with his lyrics is that they are written intelligently, reflecting the world, or at least his worldview, through those particular instances. That is to say, when he writes about how stupid Wayne is, as an artist, he manages to say something more than just that.

That is my unwavering take on Sisters as art, and that is the only way i can understand why Sisters songs speak to me. Some clever chap whining about his buddies wouldn't be all that interesting to me. (But as things are, i've had hell of a lot of "fun" learning about the incidences that inspired his poems).

dei

Oh, and by way of an explanation, i quote somebody about art (and the quote is not exact, but the idea is): the artist sees and goes through the same things as anyone else, but he experiences the world differently from other people.

dei

1. I hear the roar of a big machine
2. two worlds and in between
3. hot metal and methedrine
4. I hear empire down
5. I hear empire down

Line one refers to the music industry, I'm not sure what the roar refers to (possibly laughing because they're going to make money through all the press the break up is getting?).

Line two refers to his position in life. He's between two lives, the old TSOM and the new TSOM.

Line three is about the rumours in the music industry about his drug use and whether or not he's dead. Hot metal is a method of printing, which is a clue that it's about the printed press, the NME, etc.

Lines three and four are about people saying his empire, his band is down for good.

Basically, this is setting up the scene for Patricia to come up.

1. I hear the roar of a big machine
2. two worlds and in between
3. love lost, fire at will
4. dum-dum bullets and shoot to kill, I hear
5. dive, bombers and
6. empire down
7. empire down

Lines one and two say what lines one and two of stanza one say, since they are identical.

Line three is saying his love for his old band members, and their love for him, is gone so it doesn’t matter to him if they’re crushed in this battle so go for the kill.

Line four is saying what line three is saying and perhaps “dum dum bullets� is a bit of a joke? Maybe he’s saying Wayne is dumb and the bullets have his name on them.

The rest of the stanza is pretty self-evident.

1. I hear the sons of the city and dispossessed
2. get down, get undressed
3. get pretty, but you and me
4. we got the kingdom, we got the key
5. we got the empire, now as then
6. we don't doubt, we don't take direction
7. Lucretia, my reflection, dance the ghost with me

He hears that Wayne and Craig have form a new band and stolen his Band’s name, depriving him of his property, gets a down payment for recording Gift which is undressed, raw yet pretty… the rest of the chorus is a celebration and he asks her at the end to dance the Ghost with him, to be his new Marx and to reform the Sisters.

1. we look hard
2. we look through
3. we look hard to see for real
4. such things I hear, they don't make sense
5. I don't see much evidence
6. I don't feel
7. I don't feel

I always feel as if this line is Von and Patricia going through papers with a lawyer to make sure they own the rights to the band, and it’s clear they do.

1. a long train held up by page on page
2. a hard reign held up by rage
3. once a railroad
4. now it's done

Is long train a reference to the song, which is a b-side to the Lucretia single which, at the time, would have been new?

Line two, I think, is him saying that this is never going to happen again. He’s going to make sure he has strict control over the band, its name and its management and this is fuelled by a rage at what Wayne and Craig attempted to do.

Railroad can mean “to convict (a person) in a hasty manner by means of false charges or insufficient evidence: The prisoner insisted he had been railroaded.�

Also: Long Train wasn't new, it was released in 1984.

I agree with the "spare a dime" analysis. Or maybe spare 25,000 of them?

This song is actually quite a good example of the multi-layered meanings in Von's lyrics. The more you dig the more you uncover, and the more you end up tangling things up.

FYI, I think "dum dum bullets" are hollow points. I'm not sure where I picked that up though.