Sierra Leone

Introduction: In an interview for Smashing Interviews Magazine entitled Marillion's Masterpiece of Waning Moments, h was asked how Sierra Leone fit into the theme of the album. He said, "It kinda doesn't in the sense that it's not a song about the environment or the pandemic. But on the other hand, it is a song which questions consumerism and is more about human dignity. This poor man has just found a diamond as big as his hand, and yet, he refuses to sell it. It’s a symbol of power and defiance, a power he has for the first time in his life. He has a power to say "No," a luxury he has never had before. So he lies on the beach and stares through it into the infinite." Thanks to Paul Rose for sourcing that!

'Sierra Leone'
The Republic of Sierra Leone is a tropical country on the southwest coast of West Africa, bordered by Liberia and Guinea. Named after the Lion Mountains, it has an economy that is substantially dependent on mining, especially diamonds.

'But I won't sell this diamond'
Diamonds make up a significant proportion of the international exports for Sierra Leone. A brutal civil war between 1991-2003 saw the rebel group the Revolutionary United Front largely fund itself from the sale of blood diamonds from captured mines.

The most famous stone from the country is probably the Sierra Leone Diamond, a 709-carat, alluvial diamond found in river sediment in the Kono district in 2017. Renamed The Peace Diamond, the man responsible for hiring the workers that discovered it, Pastor Emmanuel Momoh, considered fleeing to Belgium with the diamond, but decided to gift it to the government to support development in the country. In December 2017, the diamond was sold to a British firm, Graff Diamonds, for $6.5m.

Thanks to Paul Rose once more for providing that information in episode 40 of the Between You and Me podcast.

'Walking free in Freetown'
The capital city and major port of Sierra Leone on the Atlantic coast Freetown was founded in 1792 by abolitionist Lt John Clarkson as a settlement for former slaves. Consequently, the city still has a very ethnically diverse make up compared to the rest of the country.

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1 comment:

Martin J20 March 2022 at 12:48
Although h himself is on record as saying that the song is more a statement against consumerism than a direct reference to environmental issues, he often does tend to choose words with different meanings and to write lyrics with different layers. Admittedly possibly also subconscious ones.
I myself was intrigued by the reappearance of the diamond in Care (iii) Every Cell, "Found freedom in a diamond I won’t trade / Not even for heaven".
It reminded me of a recurring theme in h' lyrics, that first appeared in After Me (1989):
"So if you ever decide that you have to escape / And travel the world, and you can't find a place / Well, you could wind up believing / That paradise is nothing more than a feeling / That goes on in your mind / So if you ever find out what that is /
There's something you could do // 'Cause if I ever hold that golden dream again / I want to tell you / I'm gonna name it after you"
Searching all your life for a feeling, be it freedom, or love, in people and places, whereas you're only ever really going to find it within yourself. Replace paradise by heaven, or peace, and you may find this theme in a few more of h’ lyrics.
In that sense, I think the diamond in the tale of Sierra Leone is also a metaphor in itself, indeed for ‘power and defiance’as h puts it himself, but also for freedom, as directly referenced in Care. The protagonist, here, doesn't need the richess the diamond could provide, finding instead it already opens that little door in his mind that makes him feel he's free in the life he lives. That freedom could perhaps even have been available to him all along; "nothing more than a feeling that goes on in your mind".

Thanks for your comments.

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