visions
| Visions
on Alphaville´s music by Alphaville, from various
sources: Afternoons in Utopia (album 1986) The International Aquarian Opera Interview Title (´the Golden Path´ #3 & 4, spring & summer 1989) Why is your new LP called ´Afternoons in Utopia´ ? "In the album we speak about nuclear power plants which should have to dissapear, injustice which shouldn´t have to excist, and all the things like that, even if it could seem like a Utopia. We imagine a person who listens to our album and dreams with our songs. An afternoon like the others but which becomes an afternoon in the hope that Utopia will turn into reality." Afternoons in Utopia, the last album, in which illusion and dream mix, has a certain sad reality. A talking position more direct, without ambiguity about today´s problems. Is this a disturbing legacy ? Or a message to decipher ? Ricky - "Afternoons in Utopia is an Aquarian opera. Each song is a mini-history which shows how everybody tries to change his destiny with another he thinks better, but which is just Utopia. What we wanted by our music and our lyrics, is not just to make people dream, but also to invite people to think. Dreams, when they´re compared with the sad reality, disturb, drive to act..." Marian - "If you think of Chernobyl, everybody dreamt, everybody lived in Utopia, everybody thought this was impossible, and then nobody really moved. Reality suddenly explodes and so we are surprised and we start to act, to want more information - but with everything it´s just, as always Utopia. nuclear is only one of the means of the power to impose it´s law, to rule the world. Otherwise, what´s the reason to dominate nature ?" Dance With Me (´the Golden Path´ #3 & 4, spring & summer 1989) A dance song like ´Dance With Me´ (title of the first single from the album ´Afternoons in Utopia´ 1986) that speaks about dance and pleasure means something different, doesn´t it ? "Yes, it does. We don´t believe dance means stupidity, and so we´ll keep on playing music that today is considered ´silly´, hoping that also ´silly´ people will understand the song." Dance With Me (´the Golden Path´ #3 & 4, spring & summer 1989) Dance With Me, has a poetic text where dream reaches `the Gardens of Delight` with a video that, because of it´s reality, disturbs and schocks. The same image of Alphaville - a symbol ? Ricky - "I think that the image is stronger if text and visuals are contradictory: Utopia and reality, each one is symbolic. Marian -"The text talks about love, the image shows us prostitution. An insupportable phenomena, when you know that soem children have to give themselves to prostitution, in order to live. Dance With Me is actually a symbol, a new way to touch public opinion, to render sensitivity to the problems of our civilisation." Universal Daddy (11/1996 German fc Faithful & True website) About God, what do you think about interpreting Universal Daddy into being a song about God? "I wouldn't deny that. It's a very cheap lyric, isn't it? It was meant like that, like if God would be commercialised on TV. I had been in America and there were these guys doing prayers on TV and it's a little bit about that (likheter med DM´s Personal Jesus?..egen anm.). It's not directly about God. If I'm talking about God I use the word ´God´, but if I say ´Universal Daddy` it's a more ridiculous term and I mean it like that. I hate the song by the way, you would never ever see me playing this song live because I hate it. It was a complete mistake, it was the worst song I have ever written in my life! (skratt)" Lassie Come Home (Moonpaper No. 2 + 3/95) Does the American Blues singer, Billy Holiday have something to do with Billie Holloway or perhaps Mona Lisa ? "Near London there is an old Gothic building which is used by pop bands as a video location. It was once a lunatic asylum. We shot the inside footage for ´Forever Young´ there. I found this name on the door of one of the patient´s rooms in the Nightingale section of the house: Billie Holoway". Lassie Come Home (Alphaville´s mailinglist Wed, 24 Jan 2001) "Dear Alphavillians! I think this list gets more and more fascinating and inspiring with every new digest. I've been very touched by the madhatter's comments to ´Lassie Come Home´. Thank you for that. I would like to mention that AIU was originally planned as a kind of musical. Since we finally decided not to tour at that time, the moment unfortunatly got lost in the past. But I am still playing with the idea of writing a bigger, conceptional orchestral piece (which might include many of the older songs (not only from AIU) because I think that for some strange reason the whole lot av-songs represents a kind of unsolved puzzle which has never been released in its "correct" order and still needs to be put together to create a complete, interactive picture. What picture would that be? In some wild moments I feel like I get a glimpse of that hidden structure but then again an inner voice tells me that I haven't written all the necessary music it needs to understand those mysterious connections between the already existing songs. I read your comments regarding the lyrics, may they be positive or negative, with great joy. After all you are my friends and companians in this virtual universe called The Web and I understand each and every criticism from you as an encouragement towards new challenges. Love & Inspiration" Marian Gold Lassie Come Home (Moonpaper 1986) ABOUT THE FOURTH LEVEL OR WHY ONE MUST NOT UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE MOST IMPORTANT; AS SHOWN IN THE EXAMPLE, ´LASSIE COME HOME´. Lassie is an almost mythical figure of the 20th century and like all saga figures she represents an archetype of a certain group of people. The song attempts to describe this group in depth. Each of the three verses confronts in it´s episodes: first of all, certain situations of loneliness and confusion and the effects thereof on the consiousness of the particular protagonist, and secondly, the new realities which these induce. Both levels of reality connect in the lyrics and form a third level, exactly the one which the lyrics describe. The puzzling character of these descriptions is intended and if it functions, it should release new associations, which then (finally!) are the products of the listener´s phanatasy. Therefore, the lyrics shouldn´t be interpreted further by their originator, since this phantasy (yours, not mine) IS the key to the fourth level. Your personal reality/dreamworld, your utopia, your untouchable realm, the promised Kingdom, in which somewhere the source of your creativity bubbles: GO DIRECTLY THERE. DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT (a ridiculous) 200 DOLLAR$. YOU WILL SEA MUCH MORE. YOU SEEEEAAA? D O W HA T Y O U W I L L . Okay?! !!! .. . |