關於 happy stuff中文歌詞 ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

翻完就直接貼上來了，版面可能會比較亂，
建議用PTT app以獲得最佳閱讀體驗XD


原文網址：
https://www.nme.com/features/new-blur-album-the-magic-whip-graham-coxons-track
-by-track-guide-756613

New Blur Album ‘The Magic Whip’: Graham Coxon’s Track-By-Track Guide
Blur’s new studio album was a happy accident: one that rejuvenated the band
and the relationship between Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon. In this exclusive
interview, Coxon gives NME’s Barry Nicolson an intimate track-by-track of
‘The Magic Whip’…
Blur 全新專輯魔鞭，Graham Coxon的個別曲目導覽
Blur 全新創作專輯是個快樂的意外：樂團的復甦以及Damon 與Graham的關係。在此特
別專訪中，Graham給NME記者帶來每首歌的某些提示...

By Graham Coxon’s own admission, the new Blur album should not exist. As
late as six months ago, ‘The Magic Whip’ was still only a jumble of half
-formedideas gathering dust on a digital shelf, a relic of another
unsuccessful attempt at re-establishing the band as a creative entity. That
they went back to it at all was improbable enough; that it might well be the
best thing they’ve ever done is little short of miraculous.
“A happy accident,” is how Coxon describes the album, calling fresh from
rehearsals for the band’s comeback show at a west London club on March 20.
“It probably shouldn’t have happened in the first place – we shouldn’t
have had that time in Hong Kong to record it, for one thing. Then one day I
was bored and frustrated and I had this idea of getting [‘Modern Life Is
Rubbish’, ‘Parklife’, ‘The Great Escape’ and ‘Blur’ producer] Stephen
Street to go through it all with me. Damon could easily have said, ‘Nah,
I don’t like that idea, I don’t want anything to do with it,’ but instead
he said, ‘Great, go ahead.’ It was a bit like when you’re driving and you
keep hitting green lights all the way home. It felt weirdly like it was
meant to be.”
Graham Coxon承認，新的Blur專輯原本不會出生。至少六個月前，魔鞭這張專輯還只是
一團堆放在滿是蒙塵架上的混亂半成品，一個不成功的遺物，試圖用這些小靈感重建樂
團。他們想靠這些東西來回歸幾乎是一件不可能的事，卻也許可以是他們短暫美妙的小
火花所激發的最美好的事物。
「這是個美好的意外，」才剛結束樂團為西倫敦三月二十演出彩排的Graham如此這樣形
容這張專輯。「這一開始也許根本不可能發生，我們也沒時間在香港錄製整張專輯。有
天我很無聊的苦惱著，想著我應該找Stephen Street*和我一起製作。Damon當時可以簡
單說一句：不要吧，我不喜歡這想法，這些東西我已經不想再管了。但他只是說：『太
好了，就這樣做吧！』這有點像是你開車回家的路上一路都是綠燈，感覺很怪但就好像
原本就應該這樣 。」
*Modern Life Is Rubbish、Parklife、The Great Escape、Blur的專輯製作人

The details behind ‘The Magic Whip’, as announced at a press conference on
February 19, are as follows: when the Tokyo Rocks festival was cancelled in
May 2013, they found themselves with five days to kill in Hong Kong, where
they decided to hole up in a local studio and mess around with some new
material. It was all very informal, but the sessions initially went so well
that Damon decided to announce their intention to make a new record during a
gig at the Asia World-Expo arena that same week. “We had a lot of pressure
to record an album, and when the Japanese festival fell through and this
opportunity to record for five days came up, Damon felt he had enough ideas
on [Mac music software] GarageBand to go in and have some fun with,” recalls
Coxon. “We did it just to fill the time, really – I’d actually been looking
forward to putting my feet up for five days! We all felt that it could be a
start to something, but we didn’t know exactly what. And for a while, it
looked like it was going to be the start of sitting in an airing cupboard
for eight months.”
魔鞭背後的細節，在二月十九日的媒體發表會宣佈時，這樣形容：當2013年三月的東京
搖滾嘉年華取消時，他們發現他們必須待在香港五天殺時間，所以他們決定躲在一個當
地的錄音室，跟一堆新的材料鬼混。這當初是很隨性的想法，但最初的討論太順暢了，
所以Damon決定公布他們企圖在亞洲巡迴演出這週製作新專輯的消息。Graham回憶道：「
我們剛開始對於要錄製新專輯感覺壓力很大，尤其當日本演出取消加上這個五天就要錄
製新專輯的機會，Damon覺得他已經有很多想法都放在GarageBand裡面，隨時可以拿出來
用。我們真的原本只是為了消磨時間，我原本還很期待可以整天翹著腳放空五天！後來
我們大家都覺得這應該是某種開始，雖然我們並不太確定那究竟會是什麼。過了一陣子
，感覺像是待了八個月在虛擬的架子上，然後突然決定要開始了。」

Impulsivity soon gave way procrastination, however, and the idea was abandoned
until Coxon enlisted Stephen Street. They began the process of editing and
embellishing the recordings – most of which took the form of lengthy,
unstructured 30-minute jams – into tangible songs. Albarn returned to the
process to add lyrics and vocals following a repeat visit to Hong Kong. For
Coxon, ‘The Magic Whip’ was not just an artistic opportunity, but a
personal one. “Part of the reason why I wanted to do it was to make amends,”
he admits. “Damon and I have an increased respect for each other because of
this record, and we’re not ashamed to let each other know about that
increased respect. But what we also have a lot of is history, and our
friendship – like any friendship between two people who are in a band
together – has had to go through a lot. It’s been put to the test, and
we’ve often let each other down. This record was a way of saying,
'Sorry for being such a pain in the arse for the last 20 years!’”
莽撞馬上就導致延期，直到Graham 徵招了Stephen Street，否則這只是一個被放棄的
想法。他們馬上開始編輯和重新架構這些原本很多都只是一些超長30分鐘以上、沒有
組織的即興演奏，直到看得出雛型。Damon 再度加入編輯和並為填詞再訪香港並配唱。
對於Graham而言，魔鞭不只是一個創作機會，更像是更私密的。「一部分的理由是我想
用此作為一種補償，」他承認，「Damon和我都因為這張專輯對彼此更增添了許多敬意，
我們也不在意讓其他人知道我們這份對彼此的尊重。但我們也有很多過往和友情，就像
是更多兩個朋友之間的羈絆，我們也經歷過許多。我們的友情曾經有過考驗，也讓彼此
失望。這專輯就是我們對彼此的表示：抱歉過去20年來我這麼機車。」

Once we start digging into the details of the record, it becomes evident that
Coxon would quite happily sit and talk for hours about these songs, the city
they were recorded in and the unique way it all fell into place. He’s
justifiably proud of the album, even if he’s unsure of whether it will be the
first of more to come, or the last thing they’ll ever release. “I’m not
saying that it wasn’t difficult at times, or that it wasn’t hard work, but
it was a real pleasure to make this album. Whether that means we’re a full
-time entity again is another matter, but it was important to me to be part of
another Blur chapter – even if it’s the last one, I wanted it to be a
positive one…”
一但我們開始深入挖掘這張專輯的細節，Graham開始很明顯的表現出他很樂意花好幾個
小時跟我們分享這些過程，關於他們錄製專輯的城市、如何以這種獨特方式進行錄製。
看得出他對於這張專輯是如此自豪，即使他並不確定從專輯錄製初期到最終完成時的效
果是否滿意，甚至更不確定這張專輯是否會發表。「我不是指那時候一點都不困難，或
不需要特別拼命，但做這張專輯真的很開心。無論這是否代表其中一個重點是我們又再
次成為一個整體，但能成為另一個Blur的新篇章對我來說真的很重要，就算這是最後一
張，我也要他變成一個正面的作品...」

LONESOME STREET
There are any number of sounds and styles you might expect the first Blur
album in 12 years to include, but you probably weren’t expecting the brass
-necked zest and buoyancy of ‘Modern Life is Rubbish’ and ‘Parklife’ to
be among them. Listening to ‘Lonesome Street’ for the first time, you
can’t help but think that it’s been a long time since Blur sounded so… well,
Blurry: just try suppressing a grin when Damon chirps about catching “the 5:14
to East Grinstead”.
“There’s a definite familiarity with that song,” says Coxon. “We weren’
tin uncharted waters with it, we were well within the realms of the Blur world.
It’s got that cheeky-sounding vocal of Damon’s, that perverse nursery
-rhyme feel, and it all sounds a bit like you’re careening through a night
of chaos.” ‘Chaotic’ is a pretty good way of describing it: this is a song
that seems to shoot off in a hundred different directions, a quirk of the
piecemeal fashion in which it came together. “When I was listening back to it
with Stephen, I thought, ‘Why not go the whole hog and have a really Syd
Barrett-y middle-eight in there?’” recalls Coxon. “So I wrote another
section for it, which is about the way you seem to ride the tarmac in Hong
Kong: you stand on the road, you don’t move, and it’ll take you anywhere
you want to go. It’s a very lighthearted way to start the record.”
冷清的街道
經過了12年再度發行新專輯，眾人一定都很期待各種曲風和效果，但你應該沒有預期到
會再度感受到Modern Life is Rubbish 和Parklife的那種鐵齒般的熱情和無重力感會
再度出現。當你第一次聽到這首冷清的街道，忍不住會回想起Blur好久沒有這麼...模
糊了，當Damon叨唸的唱著：5:14到東格林斯特德，並試圖壓抑他的笑容。
「一定多少都覺得對這首歌有熟悉感，」Graham說。「我們並不是在摸索中，我們置身
在Blur這個王國已久了。裡面帶著Damon厚臉皮的聲線、調皮的韻腳還有一點打翻混沌
夜晚的聲響。」混沌用在這裡描述的很好，這首歌就有點像是來自各個方向的槍響，和
零散的怪僻結合成的。「當我跟Stephen再聽一次的時候，我想說我們要不肢解整首歌，
來點 Syd Barrett*那種副歌的感覺？」Graham回憶道。「所以我另外加了一段進去，
就是那段你彷彿置身在香港柏油路上的感覺，像是站在路中央動彈不得，並且帶著你到
任何你想去的地方。對於這張專輯，這是一種非常輕快的開場。」
*Syd Barrett，Pink Floyd 前主唱

NEW WORLD TOWERS
Following on from the arch, stylised Englishness of the opening track,
‘New World Towers’, with its retro-futuristic sci-fi textures and images
of vast, bustling buildings “carved out of the great white sky”, appears
to be very much a ‘Hong Kong song’ – even the title is a reference to a
skyscraper in the city’s Central district. For Coxon, however, “it’s not
a Hong Kong song at all, because before Damon went back and imbued himself
with the city again, it didn’t have any words, it just had phasers. None of
the stuff I did on the album was done to the words – the lyrics and vocals
all came last. I wanted that song to be a sort of science-fiction
‘Greensleeves’, so I was putting my energy into making it sound very
English, but in a slightly off-kilter way.It’s a bit like that weird
cylindrical planet at the end of Interstellar – I loved that image from the
film, so I was trying to write some chord sequences that sounded quite
traditional, but putting these 1970s-sounding futuristic effects on top of
them. It’s one of my favourites on the album.”
新世界大廈
沿著這種非常英式的拱廊走，作為開場曲，新世界大廈用一種復古未來主義的科幻感帶
領聽者進入到廣大熙攘畫面讓人想像如同「憑空雕鑿出」的建築群中，呈現出非常「香
港歌曲」的感覺，甚至連歌名也直指市中心的一棟摩天大樓。然而對於Graham來說，「
這其實一點都不是什麼香港之歌，因為在 Damon回到香港並將他自己再次沈浸在這城市
之前，這首歌完全沒有歌詞，只有些樂曲片段。這專輯所有東西都不是從歌詞來的，所
有的歌詞和配唱都是最後才出現。我想要這些歌成為某種科幻小說般的綠袖子* ，所以
我將所有精力投注在讓這些聽起來非常英國，但又有一點脫軌感。有點像是某種奇怪的
圓柱狀星球在宇宙煙滅的時候，我很愛那個在某個電影中的場景，所以我試圖寫一些和
弦編曲讓這首聽起來有點傳統，但疊加了一點70年代的未來主義效果。這是專輯裡其中
一首我最喜歡的歌。」
*綠袖子，16世紀著名英國民謠，旋律可參考下面wiki音檔
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Greensleeves.ogg

GO OUT
The first taster from the album, chosen, in Coxon’s words, “because it
wasn’t a jolly, winking, over-familiar Blur thing – I realise that a lot of
people love Blur because of those songs, and lot of people hate them because
of it, and people from the camp who hate us probably don’t know much about
the other stuff that we did. ‘Go Out’ struck me as being somewhere between
the two– it’s sort of casual sounding, but it’s also quite powerful. For
me, it felt like a place that we hadn’t really gone before: it’s mildly
familiar because of Damon’s voice, but sonically it’s quite different from
anything we’ve done before.”
出走
被選為這張專輯第一首主打歌，用Graham的話來說就是「因為這不是什麼歡樂、使點眼
色或是太過熟悉的東西，我知道很多人是因為那些歌所以愛Blur，也有很多人因為這些
歌討厭Blur，而那些站在反對陣營的人大概不太知道其他我們做過的歌。出走這首歌對
我來說像是介在兩者之間的攻擊，帶點隨性的音樂，但同時又非常強烈。對我來說，感
覺像是我們從來沒真正到達過的地方一樣，有著 Damon的歌聲中帶著一點溫和的熟悉感
，但在音效上卻又和我們以往所做的相當不同。」

ICE CREAM MAN
A strange little song, built around a blooping keyboard riff that sounds
like it was sourced from an early ’90s Megadrive game. In reality, Coxon
pinched it from Damon’s hard-drive. “Damon’s got all sorts of crazy things
he’s done on GarageBand,” he explains, “and quite a bit of the album was
done by building songs around those ideas and gluing them together with bits
of the jam sessions we did in Hong Kong. So that song started as this little
chord sequence, then Stephen and I chopped up some improvised vocals and made
a chorus out of them.” He also couldn’t resist running with the frozen
dessert theme, echoed in the album’s neon artwork: “The bass solo is supposed
to be a spin on the Mr Softy tune that the ice cream van played when I was a
kid – it’s not exactly the same, but there’s a definite similarity.”
The lyrics are quite oblique, and even seem frivolous at first (“Here comes
the ice cream man, parked at the end of the road”) but there’s a sinister
Pied-Piper air to proceedings: could the line “I was only 21 when I watched
it on TV” be a reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, perhaps? As
Coxon puts it, “the song sounds jolly enough on the outside, but there are
some dark undertones there.”
冰淇淋先生
這是一首有點奇怪的小曲子，建立在短促的鍵盤樂句讓這首歌聽起來像是從某種90年代
電動玩具取樣出來的聲音。實際上，這是Graham從Damon硬碟裡捏出來的。「Damon有各
種他用GarageBand做出來的瘋狂東西，」他解釋「這有點像是這張專輯其實是利用這些
想法和一堆在香港即興演奏黏合拼湊而成的歌曲。因此這首歌是從一些小的和弦進行作
為開端，然後 Stephen和我拆解一些即興配唱，再加上副歌。」他同時也無法抗拒同時
作為專輯霓虹封面的主題－冷凍甜點，「Bass獨奏部分像是一段我小時候看到
Mr. Softy*冰淇淋車旋律盤旋其中，雖然不是完全一樣，但絕對是些共通點。」
歌詞本身相當歪斜，甚至一開始聽起來很瑣碎，（歌詞「冰淇淋先生來了，停在馬路盡
頭」）帶著些許邪惡吹笛手的氣氛，例如「當年我21歲，在電視上看到」這句是不是意
指1989年天安門廣場大屠殺呢？對此Graham回應「這首歌聽起來很歡樂，但也帶著一點
黑暗的弦外之音。」
註：Mister Softee，冰淇淋品牌

THOUGHT I WAS A SPACEMAN
For Coxon, the key theme of ‘The Magic Whip’, both musically and lyrically
,“is this atmosphere of dislocation that’s running throughout, of these odd
sounds that drift in and out, letting you know that you’re not really in the
world you inhabit, the one you’re familiar with – you’ve somehow gone
somewhere else.” That’s certainly the case with this track, which at a shade
over six minutes is the album’s longest. It offers a snapshot of an unfamiliar
–perhaps even post-apocalyptic – earth, which seems to bear more resemblance
to the surface of Mars: “The desert had encroached upon the places where we
lived/ People like me tried to keep the demons hid”. Eventually, in a Planet
Of The Apes-style twist, one of the sand dunes the titular spaceman is rooting
around in turns out to be none other than London’s Hyde Park – scene of the
band’s big comeback gig this summer.
我以為我是太空人
對於Graham來說，魔鞭的主軸是圍繞在音樂和歌詞上的，「這是一種氣氛上的錯置感，
透過這些聲音滲透進出下，讓你感受到你並非真正身處在你所熟悉習慣的居處，就像不
知道為什麼你突然瞬間移動到別的場所。」這首為專輯中最長的一首，六分多鐘的曲目
明確傳達出這個故事。這提供了一種不太熟悉的，甚至像是天啓一般的地球快照，這看
來更像是在火星表面的印象：「沙漠入侵我們的住所，我們壓制內心的惡魔」。最終，
在決戰猩球般的沙丘上，名義上的太空人毫不猶豫的盤據在倫敦海德公園中，成為了這
個夏天樂團回歸的經典場景。

I BROADCAST
Another track that harks back to the Blur of bratty exuberance and Fred Perry
polo shirts, ‘I Broadcast’ starts out sounding like a slightly askew ‘80s
pop song before Coxon’s crunching guitar riff kicks down the door. Lyrically,
the guitarist reckons it’s all about “when you go to different places, and
the people there know a lot about you, even though you don’t think they do”,
and the song seems to depict a world that’s growing ever-smaller and more
interconnected, where your identity is indexed, your movements are catalogued
and you can never truly disappear – “I love the aspects of another city/
It’s got your number and your blood type”.
我說
另外一首又讓人回味起Blur 那種頑劣又生氣勃勃的氣氛和Fred Perry馬球衫，這首「
我說」由帶著些微80年代流行音樂的旋律緊接著Graham爆裂般的吉他樂句來踢開大門。
吉他手定下了一個抒情的解釋：「當你去到一些完全不同的地點，那邊的人卻對你暸若
指掌，雖然他們自己並不這樣認為。」而這首歌描寫出世界已經成長為更濃縮又內部連
結的狀態，所有的識別記號都被歸檔，你的一舉一動都被展示著，而且永遠別想完全消
失。如同「我喜歡來自其他城市的新觀點、有著你的編號和血型」所說。

MY TERRACOTTA HEART
At the Q&A session for the album’s announcement, Damon played it coy on the
subject of personal lyrics, insisting that “everything was related to being
in that quite claustrophobic island [Hong Kong] with millions and millions of
other people.” That may well be true, but the haunting ‘My Terracotta Heart’
is addressed to one of them in particular: “I knew it was going to be an
incredibly sad song, which is why I put that crying guitar on there,” says
Coxon. “What I didn’t know at the time was that the lyrics would turn out
to be about Damon and I, our long friendship and the ups and downs we’ve
had.”
If Coxon was driven by a desire to “make amends” with ‘The Magic Whip’,
it certainly seems as though something similar was on Albarn’s mind. Looking
back forlornly to a time when “We were more like brothers/ But that was years
ago”, he lays it all out on the lumpen-throated chorus, asking, “Is
something broke inside me?/ Because at the moment I’m lost and feeling that I
don’t know/ If I’m losing you again”.
“It’s a lovely song,” says Coxon, “and again, I think it’s new territory
for Blur. The four of us have kind of met in the middle with this album –
we’ve all been off on our own individual journeys, but when we come together
and something like ‘My Terracotta Heart’ is the result, that’s a good
marriage of all our different tastes and outlooks.”
我的陶土之心
在專輯發表時的問答環節中， Damon靦腆的故作輕鬆說道這首歌的主題是很個人的，他
堅持「整張專輯都關乎於香港這個島上由於過多人所產生的幽閉恐懼症。」這也許是真
的，但很明顯的「我的陶土之心」是在直指他們之中的某位：「我一開始就知道這會是
首傷心的歌，這也是為什麼我會放了吉他悲鳴在這，」Graham說，「但我不知道 Damon
在譜寫歌詞的時候會變成在寫他跟我，還有我們多年友情間的風風雨雨。」
如果Graham是出於拿魔鞭專輯做為補償的慾望為出發點，那麼很明顯的 Damon也是這麼
想的。回過頭看那段絕望的時刻，「我們以前就像兄弟，但那是好多年以前」，他加入
一種如鯁在喉的副歌，「是我的內心崩壞嗎？我當時是如此失落和迷惘，若再度失去你
該怎麼辦」
「這首很可愛，」Graham說，「但同時，對於Blur來說這也是新的領域。我們四個人在
專輯錄製之前有在碰面。我們每個人都經過了很多事，但當我們重聚的時候，我的陶土
之心就變成我們的成果，是一場由我們不同的品味和觀點所產生的美好聯姻。」

THERE ARE TOO MANY OF US
Underpinned by a military marching beat, there’s something ominous and
inexorable about this song, which Damon has revealed was partly inspired by
the 2014 Sydney hostage crisis, but on which the spectre of Hong Kong – one
of the most densely-populated cities on earth – is never far away. “There
are a million ways you can interpret that lyric,” says Coxon of the titular
line, “but for me, when we were in Hong Kong at first, I’d sometimes look
out the window and think, ‘Yeah, there are too many of us.’ I started to
get quite anxious about that, and the fact that we can’t really go on in
this way. I like how the song gets more and more intense as it goes on. I
wasn’t really using the guitar on that one – I thought the synthesisers
would do a better job, so rather than slumming away on a guitar and a
distortion pedal, I was using a lot of these big, fat, death-ray laser
sounds.”
有太多的我們
在軍隊行進的節奏下，這首歌帶著一點不詳和無情的氛圍。 Damon揭露出這首歌部分是
由2014年雪梨人質事件所啟發的，但同時以地球上最稠密的都市－香港的魅影重疊。
Graham解釋，「有很多種方式可以詮釋這首歌詞，但對我來說，當我們一開始到香港時
，我有時候會從窗戶往外看然後想，『嗯，這裡有太多的我們』，我開始覺得對這件事
覺得焦慮，而且事實上我們也的確不太好過。我喜歡這首歌越來越緊張的氣氛。我在這
首歌裡其實沒用到吉他，我覺得合成器用在這會更好，所以與其用吉他和效果器在這邊
製造一堆雜音，我直接用一堆厚重、像雷射死光一樣的聲音。」

GHOST SHIP
“Very much a Damon song,” is how Coxon describes ‘Ghost Ship, and he’s
got a point – you can imagine Gorillaz getting to grips with its skinny
-sounding disco-soul. Again, Hong Kong features prominently in the lyrics –
in fact, the song could even be read as a love letter to the city and the lure
it seems to have for Albarn, who returned there earlier this year in search of
inspiration before recording his vocals: “I got away, for a little while/
But then it came back much harder”. As Coxon recalls, “when we were in Hong
Kong we were going to the studio every day with this kind of rush-hour mindset,
going from the hotel through an incredibly weird glass shopping mall to this
beautifully-tiled subway area where we’d get on the train. And I guess Hong
Kong was sticking to us along the way – we were seeing things, hearing things,
and that somehow came out in the music.”
鬼魂之船
「這是一首非常Damon的歌，」Graham這麼解釋鬼魂之船的，而他抓到一個重點是，你
可以想像Gorillaz帶著慵懶的迪斯可靈魂樂聲調唱著。又一次，香港這個詞在歌詞中
被強調，事實上這首歌可以被認為是寫給這城市的情書，而這城市又不斷的引誘著Damon，
而他也於今年稍早於錄製配唱前回到那裡汲取靈感：「我離開了一陣子，但卻又向我大力
反撲」。當Graham回憶：「我們在香港時，每天都在一種尖峰時刻的心情下到錄音室，
從旅館穿過一段不可思議又怪異的玻璃購物中心，到達我們搭車的地鐵站。我想那時香港
把我們黏的很牢，我們觀察、聆聽，然後透過音樂宣洩而出。」

PYONGYANG
This song has understandably been the source of much speculation – is Damon
angling for a spot on Kim Jong-Un’s shitlist? Talking to GQ last year about
his visit to the North Korean capital, Albarn likened it to a “magic kingdom,
in the sense that everyone is under a spell,” and that quote is key to
understanding ‘Pyongyang’, a bewitched metropolis of empty avenues and
unspeakable sorrow, where “the pink light that bathed the great leaders is
fading”. It’s not the straightforward attack on the Kim dynasty that you
might expect, but something altogether more affecting: a portrait of life in a
beautiful, but desolate, Stalinist Never-Never Land.
Musically, ‘Pyongyang’ is cut from the same cloth as 2003’s ‘Out of Time’
, though it was the product of serious chopping and changing during the
editing process. “It started off as a really bleak dirge, with those little
ding-ding-ding bells and what sounds like a train pulling away,” remembers
Coxon.”It’s got that massive chorus now, but when Steve and I were working on
it, there was no chorus in place, no vocal, so I came up with one to fill the
gap. Later, when Damon came back, he’d written one of his own – his was
better, of course, but you can still hear mine at the end, overlapping with
his. It’s actually a very simple song, but it sounds epic – when Damon hits
that high note in the chorus, it’s one of those big moments.”
平壤
這首歌已經被各種猜測填滿，例如Damon是想幫金正恩的說什麼嗎？去年Damon在GQ的訪談
提到他曾經造訪北韓首都，他將那比喻成「神奇的國度，如同所有人都在魔咒之下」，而
這句話可被視為理解這首平壤的關鍵，被施了咒語的大城市充斥著空蕩的大道和無法言喻
的憂傷，有著「沐浴在粉紅色光線的偉大領導正在消失」的風景。這並不是像你想像的那
樣劍指金氏王朝而去的攻擊，而是某種綜合的傷感：一如畫像般的美麗生活，但卻荒蕪永
無止盡的史達林國土。
音樂上來說，平壤這首是以2003年Out of Time 換裝而來，即使這是經過編輯過程中的一
連串的拆解和變化。「這以一段非常顯眼的喪曲作為開端，帶著一點叮叮叮的鈴聲，聽起
來像是火車正遠離，」Graham回憶道，「現在這看來有一段很龐大的副歌，但當我跟
Stephen 在進行時，這裡並沒有副歌，也沒有歌聲，所以我為了填補這段而編了一段。後
來當 Damon回來，他想自己寫這段，他的當然比較好，但你在這邊聽到最終版本是我的，
並用他的編曲疊加。這其實是首非常簡單的曲子，但聽起來像首史詩，當Damon 唱出副歌
的高音，這真的是很棒的瞬間。」

ONG ONG
A jaunty, joyous little curveball of a song, featuring slightly wonky Beach
Boys harmonies and a chorus that’s just begging to be played at Hyde Park
this summer. “It’s a bit of a knees-up,” agrees Coxon. “When Damon did
the lyrics and I went to listen to the vocal he said to me, ‘I’ve gone a
bit populist with this one,’ but there’s not an awful lot you can do with
a song like that: it kind of has to be a beers-in-the-air singalong. The
‘I wanna be with you’ bits remind me of being on a beach and there’s palm
trees swaying, the colours are a bit much, you’re feeling a little bit sick,
there’s ice cream everywhere and some rock stars scattered around getting
sunburnt… it’s like some kind of weird advert for the Bahamas. I really like
it, but sometimes a song will ask some weird stuff of you, stuff that you might
not necessarily like doing but the song has told you to do it, and so you have
to obey!”
嗡嗡
如同一個歡樂愉悅的曲線球，伴隨著帶著海灘男孩搖擺的和聲，在今夏海德公園演出時
更邀請觀眾一起大合唱的副歌。「這是有點吵鬧，」Graham同意，「當Damon 譜寫歌詞
時我正好去找他，他對我說：『我該讓這首歌來點流行感。』但這不是什麼恐怖商業歌
曲，有點像是喝酒歌大合唱的感覺。我想跟你在一起的那句讓我回想起在海邊還有著棕
櫚樹搖擺的畫面，顏色有點多到讓你覺得有點反胃，到處都是冰淇淋和遍佈著想曬黑的
搖滾歌手... 有點像是某種奇怪的巴哈馬旅遊廣告。我真的很喜歡，但有時候一首歌會
向你要求一些奇怪的東西，雖然你不是很喜歡那些東西，但既然這首歌命令你了，你就
只能遵從。」

MIRROR BALL
After the jollification of ‘Ong Ong’, the album ends on a more contemplative
, melancholic note with this track, which is structured around a tremolo
-heavy guitar riff that recalls, amongst other things, Arctic Monkeys’ ‘I
Wanna Be Yours’. “It’s another of those fairly simple songs, but again,
it sounds very big and emotional,” says Coxon. “I’ve always loved playing
massive, reverberated chords and bending them with the tremolo arm – I like
the dissonance you get from bending the strings, like in Chinese and Indian
music.”
鏡球
在Ong Ong 歡慶過後，這張專輯以重顫音吉他樂句架構出一種沈澱、憂傷的曲調做為結
尾，帶著一點Arctic Monkeys北極潑猴的I Wanna Be Yours感覺。「這就是其中一首簡
單老實的歌，但再說一次，這其實既沈重又帶著許多情緒，」Graham說，「我一直很愛
玩這種厚重的回音和弦，再用顫音臂拉扯這些和弦，我喜歡這種拉扯琴弦造成的不和諧
音，有點像是中式和印度音樂。」


＊＊翻譯筆記，因為我沒有專業的音樂知識，有些專業用詞可能有誤，如果有地方需要
修正，拜託告訴我喔！ <3

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※ 編輯: color5bird (118.163.96.135 臺灣), 10/21/2020 15:53:51