Introduction: Steve Hogarth wrote on marillion.com "The King of Sunset Town had already taken shape within a couple of hours of our first meeting (Jan 24 '89) in Pete T's garage in Aylesbury. In Brighton we just spent time arranging it. I rewrote the lyrics later in the year after the Tiananmen Square murders on the 4th of June. What started out as a mythical idea was overtaken by events and Deng Xiaoping became main contender for King... He even rhymes..."
In an interview conducted by Martin Jansen for the Web Holland in September 1992, entitled An Interview with John Helmer, the lyricist stated, "That was really writing about homelessness, to a certain extent. And it's one of the lyrics where (which I do occasionally) I use a lot of other fictive material. There are lines in it quoted from Shakespeare, the title comes from a Chesterton novel, there's a chapter in The Man who was Thursday, The Two Poets of Saffron Park, which refers to a part of the west of London, where I was living at the time and which is sort of the sunset part of London. But it's set on Brighton beach. The idea is that you see this tramp-figure and that would be a catalyst for contemplating the idea that some people are very rich, some very poor. 'Some go thirsty, some just drown'. People can kill themselves with an excess of the material things of life or can be starved out of them by the terrible inequalities of almost all society it seems. There are references to King Lear, where this is very much a theme; there's the line 'Some go up, some go down', with a line in King Lear about this but a metaphor all the way through the play of a big wheel turning.
(The
Earl of Kent, once favoured by the King, is banished, but returns in
disguise. While disguised, the Earl is placed in the stocks overnight
and laments this turn of events at the end of Act II, Scene 2 "Fortune,
good night, smile once more; turn thy wheel!" - Ed)
"Steve added verses at the time it was being written and he related it to what had happened in China. Something with 'butterflies and paper crown', I think, but I can't remember exactly. In my original draught, I originated the character of the spectral figure of the title, who I imagined appearing on Brighton beach. Steve's elaboration of the idea was to have the character appear also in other times and places; including, if memory serves, a First World War hospital ('the corridors of this white place') and Tiananmen during the student uprising of 1989. In doing this he changed my original concept of a tramp-transfigured-by-butterflies into something far more ambiguous and supernatural, but what was gained more than compensates for any meaning that was lost in the process."
Steve Hogarth (In Freaks Nederland, 16. Oct '89): "We were recording the album when the troubles in China began. We saw it on the news and we were shocked. The lyrics of Sunset Town had never said enough for me, so I asked the boys if I could rewrite it."
An anonymous contributor said: "One thing about the KoST lyric was that the original imagery by Helmer was a bit more 'streamlined' than what we got in the end. According to Helmer in an old interview in The Web magazine, the whole idea was to describe various historical events through the eyes of a sort of 'wanderer', someone present at the various events. In the end the only clear imagery that was left was the part about the Tienanmen Square, because Hogarth wanted to keep that as a powerful statement rather than an epic tale describing several different occasions.
"The idea of being the KoST refers to someone holding onto an old set of beliefs, i.e. in this instance the rigid hard-line communism of China, when the rest of the world at that time was turning away from it. Yet in the face of the student demonstration the Chinese 'Lords' decided that they were having none of it,even though everybody knows that their political reality must change sometime soon."
Martijn Buijs said: "Tiananmen means something like 'Square of Heavenly Peace'." Pretty close; the square
takes its name from the nearby Tiananmen Gate, whose name translated means 'Gate of Heavenly Peace'."
'Fourth of June'
Pears Cyclopeadia: "In the spring of 1989 the Communist government (of China) faced a serious challenge to its authority, triggered by the death on 15 April of Hu Yaobang, the disgraced former party general-secretary. Beijing University
students demanding his rehabilitation staged a sit-in outside the Great Hall of the People. On the day of his funeral, 22 April, there were demonstrations in a dozen major cities. Deng Xiaoping warned of possible bloodshed. But on 27 April a march of 100,000 students in Beijing, calling for democracy and attacking party corruption passed off peacefully. On 4 May 300,000 demonstrators filled Tiananmen Square signifying growing popular support. Students began a hunger strike in the square on 13 May, demanding political reforms of the kind being enacted in the Soviet Union, their presence disrupting a visit by Mr Gorbachev on 15
May.
"The hunger strikers called for a televised dialogue with the government as, on 17 May, a million people marched in Beijing, others demonstrated in 20 cities, and workers announced they would strike in support of the students. Divisions opened in the party hierarchy, with Zhao Ziyang apparently favouring dialogue while the Prime Minister, Lia Peng announced that martial law would come into force from 20 May. The people of Beijing massed in the square to prevent troops from entering.
"As the students in the square perceptibly tired, hard-liners within the party prevailed. On 4th of June thousands of troops and scores of tanks moved in, staging a bloody massacre in which 2,500 were initially reported killed."
'Before the 27th came'
Pears Cyclopedia: "With the world watching the carnage on television, China appeared on the brink of chaos. Sporadic clashes continued in Beijing and in cities throughout China over the next two days. There were reports that the 38th Army, which had refused to enforce the martial law decree, was facing the 27th Army and a clash seemed possible.
"But on 8 June, Lia Peng appeared on television and praised the troops who had put down the protesters. The following day, the party leadership, minus Zhao Ziyang, presented a united front on television. The official government media circus called on citizens to inform on 'Counter revolutionary' dissidents. Arrests of activists now began alongside a government propaganda campaign to minimise the extent of casualties in the Tiananmen Square massacre. By 21 June 1, 500 activists had been
arrested, including Guo Haifong, a prominent student leader. All independent student and student workers were ordered to disband. As the arrests continued, protesters received heavy punishment and nine were publicly executed in Shanghai."
Lyrics: Steve Hogarth & John Helmer
Interesting... It has nothing to do with "sunset towns", also known as "sundown towns". White towns in the U.S. that prohibited blacks from being there after sundown.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town