Heartland

Yes, I know that The Sisters have always been a left-wing institution, but, during their period as a recording entity, this was tempered by a dark sense of humour and Von's ultimately quite patrician vocal style (to say nothing of having the empire etc.) Let's not forget that he confessed to having Norman Tebbit as one of his heroes in MM. This was not anomalous. This was exactly what we would have expected of him at the time.

I see nothing of this erstwhile conflict in Eldritch's recent work: between ethics and aesthetics, between the light and dark sides. I can't imagine him cackling like Palpatine while composing any of his recent lyrics as he surely did when composing those up to and including War on Drugs. There's just no complexity/sophistication to them at all. No irony. No fun.

To be sure, things are s**t and we need to have people out there like Billy Bragg taking the direct approach. I respect the guy but I don't own any of his records. Well, it's also the approach that Eldritch seems to be taking these days and, to be honest, it doesn't really interest me, for the same reasons that Billy Bragg doesn't.

It’s been obvious since the early days that The Sisters are a) political, and b) left-wing. The Reptile House EP made that pretty clear, for example.

To be honest apart from saying that they were left wing I have seen no evidence that they are left wing.

Any pointers in the lyrics... anyone?

(OK Vision Thing but thats just anti american - and AE was OK with the war in Iraq so there...)

GC wrote: ↑09 Jul 2023, 21:22 To be honest apart from saying that they were left wing I have seen no evidence that they are left wing.

Any pointers in the lyrics... anyone?

(OK Vision Thing but thats just anti american - and AE was OK with the war in Iraq so there...)

Off the top of my head Black Planet to me reads like a pretty direct jab at climate change and the negative impacts of industrialization. Fix conveys feelings of anti nationalism, and anti propaganda. I think it's pretty well agreed upon the house that is set to burn down in the song 'Burn' is parliament, although admittedly I don't have very much skin in that game though being an American so my perspective on that isn't gospel by any means. And of course the entirety of Floodland, while not directly throwing any left wing politics in your face is filled with plenty of allusions to anarchy, which isn't necessarily a left wing concept by itself, but is supported as such by plenty of interview quotes around the time from ol' AE himself.

I'd say most of sister's early songs aren't directly tied to any political leanings of any of the band members, and are instead mostly about the life perspectives of Eldritch at the times they were written (i.e. heart break, personal revenge, etc) but that doesn't mean it's completely absent like the with examples above. Either way I think it's important as an artist to write what matters most to them at the time of writing to keep it authentic. It's completely cool if it isn't your cup of tea, I'm just glad he's still rocking, and not sold out or given up on the whole thing to solely become a humble avocado farmer. The great part of recorded media is that even if the new stuff isn't to your liking the old stuff is still there forever and always.

Now if only we could get him into the recording studio to put that new stuff on wax....

Nyth Grandbeard wrote: ↑10 Jul 2023, 00:28

GC wrote: ↑09 Jul 2023, 21:22 To be honest apart from saying that they were left wing I have seen no evidence that they are left wing.

Any pointers in the lyrics... anyone?

(OK Vision Thing but thats just anti american - and AE was OK with the war in Iraq so there...)

Off the top of my head Black Planet to me reads like a pretty direct jab at climate change and the negative impacts of industrialization. Fix conveys feelings of anti nationalism, and anti propaganda. I think it's pretty well agreed upon the house that is set to burn down in the song 'Burn' is parliament, although admittedly I don't have very much skin in that game though being an American so my perspective on that isn't gospel by any means. And of course the entirety of Floodland, while not directly throwing any left wing politics in your face is filled with plenty of allusions to anarchy, which isn't necessarily a left wing concept by itself, but is supported as such by plenty of interview quotes around the time from ol' AE himself.

I'd say most of sister's early songs aren't directly tied to any political leanings of any of the band members, and are instead mostly about the life perspectives of Eldritch at the times they were written (i.e. heart break, personal revenge, etc) but that doesn't mean it's completely absent like the with examples above. Either way I think it's important as an artist to write what matters most to them at the time of writing to keep it authentic. It's completely cool if it isn't your cup of tea, I'm just glad he's still rocking, and not sold out or given up on the whole thing to solely become a humble avocado farmer. The great part of recorded media is that even if the new stuff isn't to your liking the old stuff is still there forever and always.

Now if only we could get him into the recording studio to put that new stuff on wax....

I always thought Black Planet was about a nuclear exchange in europe?

My view of AE is that of a Hobbesian Capitalist... very pragmatic and every man for himself. I see very little of the compassionate left in his lyrics.

GC wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 13:43 My view of AE is that of a Hobbesian Capitalist... very pragmatic and every man for himself. I see very little of the compassionate left in his lyrics.

If that was true, then presumably Eyes of Caligula would be a celebration of Thatcher. It very definitely isn’t.

GC wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 13:43 My view of AE is that of a Hobbesian Capitalist... very pragmatic and every man for himself. I see very little of the compassionate left in his lyrics.

Well, he's always said he was left-wing (and has clarified that as 'old school Labour'), he put something on the Sisters website just before a UK general election (2005 or 2010 I think - not sure which) urging people to vote Labour, he's on the record as despising Thatcher and Thatcherism (which is essentially "every man for himself") to this day and has said so many times over the years, he supports human rights and has a link to Amnesty International on the Sisters homepage, but I guess you can project whatever views you want onto him.

GC wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 13:43 My view of AE is that of a Hobbesian Capitalist... very pragmatic and every man for himself. I see very little of the compassionate left in his lyrics.

I know I shouldn't but... that's not really Hobbes (Ayn Rand maybe). His entire point is that far-sighted and enlightened self-interest leads to a society that protects the individual.Leviathan XIII derives the laws of nature (which in turn ground the structure of the commonwealth) from "the passions that incline men to peace," i.e., "fear of death, desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living, and a hope by their industry to obtain them." His point is that an alliance of the many weak against the few strong creates conditions under which comfortable self-preservation is possible. But it's definitely not every man for himself - that's the state of nature, which he calls a war of all against all. It is to be avoided.

IMHO, The Sisters have always avoided to "become Billy Bragg" except for few moments maybe of, err say joking about their own ways and how they might be perceived by others ... ... after all, though, Sisters lyrics usually offer various layers, even if they might seem straight away political at first sight. OK, Eyes of Caligula looks like clearly an exception ... BUT does it? Now? In 2023?

sultan2075 wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 17:44

GC wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 13:43 My view of AE is that of a Hobbesian Capitalist... very pragmatic and every man for himself. I see very little of the compassionate left in his lyrics.

I know I shouldn't but... that's not really Hobbes (Ayn Rand maybe). His entire point is that far-sighted and enlightened self-interest leads to a society that protects the individual.Leviathan XIII derives the laws of nature (which in turn ground the structure of the commonwealth) from "the passions that incline men to peace," i.e., "fear of death, desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living, and a hope by their industry to obtain them." His point is that an alliance of the many weak against the few strong creates conditions under which comfortable self-preservation is possible. But it's definitely not every man for himself - that's the state of nature, which he calls a war of all against all. It is to be avoided.

You re right and you definetely should. I remeber now, Hobbesian society was all about working together in order to be safe (because we are basically c**t )

lazarus corporation wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 17:15

GC wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 13:43 My view of AE is that of a Hobbesian Capitalist... very pragmatic and every man for himself. I see very little of the compassionate left in his lyrics.

Well, he's always said he was left-wing (and has clarified that as 'old school Labour'), he put something on the Sisters website just before a UK general election (2005 or 2010 I think - not sure which) urging people to vote Labour, he's on the record as despising Thatcher and Thatcherism (which is essentially "every man for himself") to this day and has said so many times over the years, he supports human rights and has a link to Amnesty International on the Sisters homepage, but I guess you can project whatever views you want onto him.

True... but cant really find any proof of this in the lyrics. Any thoughts or suggestions?

I don t believe I was projecting... I may very well have been wrong.....

MrChris wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 16:38

GC wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 13:43 My view of AE is that of a Hobbesian Capitalist... very pragmatic and every man for himself. I see very little of the compassionate left in his lyrics.

If that was true, then presumably Eyes of Caligula would be a celebration of Thatcher. It very definitely isn’t.

Yup thats very anti Thatcher.. just read the lyrics.

Didn't AE say in a recent inerview that he went to see/ is mates with the Levellers because left wing bands have to stick together or some thing along those lines?

GC wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 20:44

lazarus corporation wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 17:15

GC wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 13:43 My view of AE is that of a Hobbesian Capitalist... very pragmatic and every man for himself. I see very little of the compassionate left in his lyrics.

Well, he's always said he was left-wing (and has clarified that as 'old school Labour'), he put something on the Sisters website just before a UK general election (2005 or 2010 I think - not sure which) urging people to vote Labour, he's on the record as despising Thatcher and Thatcherism (which is essentially "every man for himself") to this day and has said so many times over the years, he supports human rights and has a link to Amnesty International on the Sisters homepage, but I guess you can project whatever views you want onto him.

True... but cant really find any proof of this in the lyrics. Any thoughts or suggestions?

I don t believe I was projecting... I may very well have been wrong.....

To give just one example: "Valentine" is very anti-Thatcher. "Four million hollow smiles... watch the bodies hit the files" is a reference to unemployment reaching 4 million (perhaps an exaggeration?) under Thatcher, and "waiting for another war" refers to the Falklands.

But the thing is that Eldritch's lyrics, by his own admission are "oblique", so people who have exactly the opposite politics to him can get something out of them. Like the horror expressed in the pages of _Underneath the Rock_ when it turned out that at least some Sisters fans were actual Nazis. I don't mind that he's being slightly less "oblique" if it unnerves some Trumpists or Brexiters who accidentally got into the fandom.

Something else Eldritch has said in interviews is that the songs do not necessarily reflect his personal viewpoint. For example, his famous quip that the lyrics of "This Corrosion" should be entirely in quotation marks, because they're supposed to be a parody of his former guitar player's lyrics

Anyway, there are these interviews on the official site:

https://www.thesistersofmercy.com/gen/v ... ettext.htm

I am not a euro-sceptic, I am a euro-fanatic, for reasons which I could go on about for weeks.

My official residence is in the Netherlands. I am traditionally a Labour supporter despite my anarcho-syndicalist tendencies. Anarcho-syndicalism is all very well, but as they say, "You can't get there from here".

I had my doubts about New Labour and Tony Blair's presidential sliminess, but the new government is showing so much common-sense (so far) that I'll forgive him. Britain could turn into a sensible modern place after all, although the damage done by the Conservatives cannot be overestimated. What a bunch of spivs. It'll take a long time to sort things out.

https://www.thesistersofmercy.com/gen/rrr6/rrr6.html

America carries considerable weight, and should for its own good be trying to move itself and the planet forward. When things go pear-shaped (or crumple from a great height), America should not be reacting by increasing the unilateralism which prompts so much resentment in the first place, and our own defective demagogues should not be reacting to Dubya's unilateralism by indulging in his War On Terrorism, which is so defined as to prevent us ever knowing who/what/how/when and therefore why we're attacking. All we will know is that we'll be surrendering more civil liberties for the cause. Aren't they what we're supposed to be defending? Obviously not. The so-called War On Terrorism is so defined as to make the American executive unanswerable to the American judiciary and the American legislature and the American electorate, let alone anybody else. The American executive has shown by its contempt of international protocols and its actions at home that it is happy to represent the interests of its corporate backers above all others. So that's what we're supposed to be defending. The War On Terrorism is merely a call to the civilised world to join Bush's programme of unanswerable government, for the ultimate benefit of Exxon, Monsanto, Lockheed, etc.

XidiouX wrote: ↑09 Jul 2023, 19:02 I see nothing of this erstwhile conflict in Eldritch's recent work: between ethics and aesthetics, between the light and dark sides. I can't imagine him cackling like Palpatine while composing any of his recent lyrics as he surely did when composing those up to and including War on Drugs. There's just no complexity/sophistication to them at all. No irony. No fun.

I'm very interested in the implication - which seems very Thatcherite in itself - that "irony" and "fun" means posing like a supervillain. Honestly, I think the development you refer to could be best called "growing up".

But... what do you think of the lyrics to "Here"? I am going to bet that you're going to say "I don't understand them lol"

H. Blackrose wrote: ↑12 Jul 2023, 02:53 Honestly, I think the development you refer to could be best called "growing up".

Exactly that. Andrew Eldritch has become Andrew Taylor. With regard to his lyric-writing, he always was. Not exactly newsworthy is it?

GC wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 20:44

lazarus corporation wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 17:15

GC wrote: ↑11 Jul 2023, 13:43 My view of AE is that of a Hobbesian Capitalist... very pragmatic and every man for himself. I see very little of the compassionate left in his lyrics.

Well, he's always said he was left-wing (and has clarified that as 'old school Labour'), he put something on the Sisters website just before a UK general election (2005 or 2010 I think - not sure which) urging people to vote Labour, he's on the record as despising Thatcher and Thatcherism (which is essentially "every man for himself") to this day and has said so many times over the years, he supports human rights and has a link to Amnesty International on the Sisters homepage, but I guess you can project whatever views you want onto him.

True... but cant really find any proof of this in the lyrics. Any thoughts or suggestions?

I don t believe I was projecting... I may very well have been wrong.....

A very pertinent part at the very end of the interview on the official site that H Blackrose linked to above regarding "proof in lyrcis" (my emphasis in italics):

The Sisters, with that cynical, non-rosy world-view seem better adapted than most to cope with and document the changes occurring in the world Does it inspire you as an artist? (As a listener I must say my reaction was to use music to escape, to try and forget about it. Played a lot of Cocteau Twins in September.)

I don't know whether it "inspires" me, it's just there. When things come to a head, like the miners' strike or the fall of the Wall, one is tempted to pitch in with a blunt musical instrument, but I think the Sisters are better at documenting inter-personal fallout than sloganeering. 'Dominion' and 'Vision Thing' are about as obvious as we get, and I think they're good, but most of our songs aren't quite like that.

I didn't feel the need to escape, but then I no longer live in or next to military installations, and there's always a bigger non-escapable threat which I've always lived with as a child of the Cold War. I don't mind this stuff running around my head; it always has, and it doesn't only pop up when one building falls down. That's the way the world is, for the moment, and I've never viewed music as an escape from it.

If it weren't for the reaction of the US administration, and the way that most European governments subsequently tagged along with it, I wouldn't personally feel that September 11th was any kind of watershed. It was waiting to happen. FBI and CIA field agents saw it coming, and it didn't surprise me.

Left on Venom and Revenge should go down well, then.

Off the top of my head Black Planet to me reads like a pretty direct jab at climate change and the negative impacts of industrialization.

Unfortunately I don't have a reference to hand but do recall reading in an interview Eldritch denying that Black Planet had anything to do with climate change etc. and that it was about a very literal black planet.

1985 would have been very early to have been talking about climate change. "Run around in the radiation...run around in the acid rain" So maybe nuclear war, but no climate change reference there I don't think.

MrChris wrote: ↑17 Jul 2023, 14:55 1985 would have been very early to have been talking about climate change. "Run around in the radiation...run around in the acid rain" So maybe nuclear war, but no climate change reference there I don't think.

I dont think climate change as a term was widely used but pollution from industries/ oil slicks/factories etc was very much talked about.

This was also against the background of total "climate change" in the event of a nuclear war.

I think that if you refer to Karl Marx in your lyrics, you are definitely a lefty (although Marx isn't really being explicitly endorsed).

Most of how I know where he stands, i.e., left wing, are random interviews that I have read over the years, but which I can't recall. But I seem to recall that he was following the election night returns in Vegas while performing on a tour and being all in for Obama when he ran for office back in 2008.

Here's a hypothesis.

The Sisters emerged and evolved in the shadow of that dark sun, the hydrogen bomb. Perhaps, before the fall the Berlin wall, Eldritch felt that nothing really mattered with the threat of total annihilation looming as heavily over him as it did then, to the extent that he might as well play with it, with things coming to a head as he drew analogies with scrotum-quaking, dick-detonating orgasms on Floodland. And if you're going to play with the bomb, then everything else is surely fair game. In particular, if you can see the bright (yes, I know) side of the bomb, then you need have no inhibitions about pointing out that of Norman Tebbit or Nazi uniforms, eh? But you're still a good person, right? You're still Jimmy Stewart, i.e. a good guy who can shoot. You go though the dialectical process and end up synthesising an Aristotelian 'Eldritchism': the simultaneous maintenance of mutually contradicting ethics and aesthetics.

No problem with Julie Andrews's tits though, at least there are no complications there.

But what happens when the bomb doesn't go off? You can keep taking the p*ss for a while, for one more album anyway, but maybe there comes a time when you have to start taking the world, as it is, that you're stuck in, seriously?

But 'growing up'? No, that's precisely my complaint. Regressing to student politics level rhetoric isn't growing up. Growing up is all about appreciating the complexity of the real world as it is and that our big problems don't have simple solutions.

But... what do you think of the lyrics to "Here"? I am going to bet that you're going to say "I don't understand them lol"

Well, you shouldn't have made that bet because I'm simply going to say that I don't understand them without the "lol", lol. I don't know what the author's intended meaning is. I take it you do. Care to enlighten us in the appropriate place?