One of our submarines

[Squeech]

I picked up a CD copy of Thomas Dolby's Golden Age of Wireless over the weekend, and listened to it half a dozen times through in 48 hours. I've always been enthralled by his sounds-- he was arguably one of the best synthesizer programmers of all time, not to mention using echo and similar processing on a par with Pink Floyd-- but it has slowly dawned on me how good his songs were as songs. I happened to mention "One of Our Submarines" to a friend of mine, and he told me that it was inspired in part by a distant relative of Dolby's who was a casualty in the Falklands...

One of our submarines is missing tonight
Seems she ran aground on manoeuvres
One of our submarines

A hungry heart
To regulate their breathing
One more night
the Winter Boys are freezing in their spam tin
The Baltic moon
Along the northern seaboard
And down below
The Winter Boys are waiting for the storm

Bye-bye empire, empire bye-bye
Shallow water - channel and tide

And I can trace my history
Down one generation to my home
In one of our submarines
One of our submarines

The red light flicker, sonar weak
Air valves hissing open
Half her pressure blown away
Flounder in the ocean
See the Winter Boys
Drinking heavy water from a stone

Bye-bye empire, empire bye-bye
Shallow water - channel and tide
Bye-bye empire, empire bye-bye
Tired illusion drown in the night

And I can trace my history
Down one generation to my home
In one of our submarines
One of our submarines
One of our submarines

One of our submarines is missing tonight
Seems she ran aground on manoeuveres
One of our submarines

[commander bunnypants]

1. Was it yellow?

DDQM

[Kolesar]

2. That song has soul and melancholia

Sometimes when I read bad headlines about world events, I hear "Bye-bye empire, empire bye-bye" playing in my mind.

[Parche]

3. SUBMARINES

52 of our Submarines never came back in the Pacific, during WWII
I was at Pearl Harbor in April, and saw the memorial circle
listing all of the subs, it is very moving

[redqueen]

4. Love Dolby

Thanks for mentioning him. :)

Lots of his stuff is worth a closer listen, IMO.

[Richardo]

5. That is a GREAT album - one of my faves...

Thanks for that earworm, Squeech. :D

[htuttle]

6. Every now and then at work, I still find myself exclaiming....

"Science!"

:)