This is another one of my favourite
Zamora songs, and is quite a rock ‘n’ roll blast from start to finish. It was probably the closest we got to a ‘driving song’, as tracks like ‘
Born To Be Wild‘ and ‘
Crosstown Traffic‘ are often described.
The lyrics appear to be fairly negative when just read on a page, but in delivery they are full of positivity. They don’t necessarily make much sense as a simple message, like with many of my songs, but again is an example of wordplay and the juxtaposition of different images. Sometimes, words that rhyme with each other don’t sit together as natural bedfellows, but the sound they make when they are put together brings its own flow.
The title might have come first, and is a positive start. ‘…boxes that you keep your eyes in’ are contact lens cases, often hanging around the flat I lived in when the song was written and courtesy of the flatmate of the time. The ‘water rising’ is another reference to the flood I witnessed as a child that forms the backbone of the lyrics to ‘
Harry J (Gunslinger)‘.
The next verse, about rocket launches, came to me in parts at the
bookshop I worked in after college, and was scribbled on the back of till receipts in between serving customers, then shoved into a back pocket for safe-keeping, only to find a new life in this song (as with a number of others songs to, some of these lines previously surfaced in songs by
Headland, the outfit I fronted before The Zamora).
It’s also a song for outsiders. The chorus, ‘Je suis l’etranger’, aligns itself with
Camus and the existentialist anti-hero Meursault in the novel ‘The Outsider’ (aka ‘
The Stranger‘, or ‘L’Etranger’ in the original French). Whilst certainly not condoning the actions of the protagonist in any way, it still empathises with the disconnection he feels from that which is going on around him. Perhaps the case with all outsiders.
The song was only recorded as a rough demo, and can be downloaded
here.
Photo of Steve of The Zamora by Dan Paton.
New Horizon
If I could look over the new horizon,
And find the boxes that you keep your eyes in,
And a cheaper way of advertising,
I’d sit down here and watch the water rising.
I got invited to the launch of a rocket.
I found a flyer in my back pocket.
When I asked where the launch would be,
Got told the end of the armoury.
Ooooh, yeah!
Ooooh, yeah!
Life’s a dream that I can’t wake up from,
My sickness grows till I cannot hide it.
Life’s a dream that I can’t wake up from,
My sickness grows till I cannot hide it.
Sometimes I feel as young as a baby,
Sometimes I feel as old as the hills,
I pick myself up off the street,
And sit and peel the skin from my feet.
Why are we so cold about desire,
When we’re at the heart of the fire?
I stick around on the underside,
If I’m right or wrong I can’t decide.
Ooooh, yeah!
Ooooh, yeah!
Je suis l’etranger.
Je suis l’etranger.
Je suis l’etranger.
Je suis l’etranger.
If I could look over the new horizon,
And find the boxes that you keep your eyes in,
And a cheaper way of advertising,
I’d sit down here and watch the water rising.
Ooooh, yeah!
Ooooh, Ooooh, Ooooh, 1,2,3,4.
Dom Pates: Collected Writings 