Links

Berlin

Introduction: From a Kerrang! article, edition 257, Sept 23 1989: Pre-Season Friendlies by Mick Wall: "I didn't tell him anything about recording Misplaced..., or anything that happened to us in Berlin," says Rothery, anticipating the next question. "I just said there was a piece of music we'd written that, from my point of view, had been inspired by Berlin. The place has such a strong atmosphere, and I thought it might be nice to do something structured around that. John seemed quite intrigued by that and he went away and wrote the initial draft of the Berlin lyric."


'No-Man's land'
Brewer's: "The name given to the area between hostile lines of entrenchments or to any space contested by both sides and belonging to neither."

Between checkpoints, there is usually a patch of ground over which both sides do not formally exercise their laws. This is to provide some definite delineation of borders.


'Dancing in the spotlight to the sound of clapping hands'
A body jerking as it is machine-gunned.

'Intensified light from a rifle... And the day too bright'
Light intensifiers digitally increase the amount of light available to the eyes. They're substantially different from infra-red devices, which rely on the (normally invisible) red part of the spectrum to function.

'bottle boy'
A bottle boy means two things. The first is that the shaven-headed freak has dyed his hair with peroxide; 'bottle blonde' is a term for women with dyed blonde hair. The second is a term analogous to the British term 'lager lout' or 'beer boy'; a yobbo who drinks too much and then tries to have a fight and/or a cheap shag as their idea of a well-rounded Friday night down at the pub.

'Martens'
A reference to Doctor Marten's boots, a combat-style boot that is the staple of the student population of the UK. They're often known as just 'Docs' or 'Doc Martens'.

'Sake'
A Japanese rice-based wine. Do not drink this stuff unless you're prepared to take the consequences. Very strong, very lethal. Tastes nice though!

'The Butcher, the Baker... Tanker, the Tailor'
This parodies an old nursery rhyme which starts 'The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker,' and an old rhyme about 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich man, Poor man, Beggar man, Thief' which was a sort of childish divination rhyme which had some method pointing out which profession a person would supposedly take up upon adulthood.

'The Quick and the Dead'
Literally, 'the alive and the dead'. The phrase is used in the Christian Mass.

Lyrics: Steve Hogarth & John Helmer
Songs with a link have explanations.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for your comments.

All comments are moderated, so apologies if it doesn't appear right away!