I’ll be learning this song to play with some people in a band.
It’s a singer’s song, not much for the guitars, bass, and drums to do.
I love the lyrics.
They hint without disclosing too much, they ache of drama and alienation. Does anybody here think they read like a suicide note?
I’ve always taken it to be about a biographer finding out something bad about his hero, and wrestling with the decision whether to put it in the book;
“Why do I find it hard to write the next line?
Oh, I want the truth to be said
…
Take your seaside arms and write the next line”
That’s just my take, what makes it such a great song is you can see it as a more traditional love song too.
Um…“Take your seats and I’ll write the next line…”
You sure? Seems to be too many syllables sung for that, I swear I hear ‘seaside arms and write the next line’. 2:24. Wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve heard it wrong all this time, though.
Edit; SongFacts (so take that how you will) says it’s a line from Lolita.
“A specific lyric that Kemp took from Lolita is “Take your seaside arms and write the next line.””
Just going by the lyrics link in the OP and what I hear. YMMV.
Ah, from the horses mouth:
“Always slipping from my hands,
Sand’s a time of it’s own.
Take your seaside arms and write the next line,
Oh, I want the truth to be known…”
http://www.spandauballet.com/discography/true-2/
Glad I wasn’t hearing it wrong all this time…would be Purple Haze all over again!
Now that I’ve listened to it six times for the first time in years, it sounds like you might be right…though it makes less sense. It’s so nice to watch a video that actually lets you see the performer’s face for longer than a millisecond at a time!
…
Yep, sounds like a suicide note to me.
I don’t hear a suicide note. I hear a couple making sweet love to Marvin Gaye (all night long), and the man is having a hard time telling the woman he loves her. (Even though he knows it’s true-- he’s head over heels when toe-to-toe.)
“I love you” is the line he’s having a hard time writing.
My take anyway.
“I bought a ticket to the world…and now I’ve comeback again”-what the hell is that about?
Sounds like a drug-addled mind (“with a pill on my tongue”).
In my interpretation, he had gone out into the world to seek his fortune, but now he has come back to his hometown girlfriend.
And he says he took the pill to calm his nerves. (Dissolve the nerves that just begun) I think he is trying to have a heart-to-heart with his girlfriend, but can’t get out the words “I love you.” (Or maybe “Will you marry me?”) He is finding it hard to write those “lines.” He is nervous.
My take, anyway. YMMV
I never thought of it before, but “I want to marry you” does fit the rhythm of the “huh huh huh hu-uh huh” line.