The Devil’s Dancers – Song interpretation
I’m listening to this song ‘The Devil’s Dancers’ a lot these days because it reminds me of my friends and Glasgow etc., in it there’s a verse that sings “the future’s here said the pioneer” which keeps popping up in my head, and has got me thinking. I’m a bit obsessed with this verse, to me it epitomises the obsession the past has with the future. That is, to me this obsession with the future is something that characterises the past, say from the post-war until 2020. From the understanding I have of these years, there is an ongoing trend of this yearning for the future, and for all that it promised. Understandably during the post-war recovery, and the rise of capitalism and consumerism and the restoration of the economy, there must have been a very strong yearning for this idea of a better future, which seems to persist beyond the post-war recovery. Maybe I’m talking nonsense, but this is just what goes on in my head when I listen to this song… but it’s really interesting to me, because in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, the world seemed to change so rapidly with the rise of technology and all the other societal shifts that marked those years, which all seemed the result of this longing and romanticisation of the future. So, that’s what this song lyrics represents to me, the idea of a ‘pioneer’ of the future, who is forcing the future onto the present – a critique of this mentality of the romanticised future. It’s interesting, because this notion of longing for the future is undeniably still infiltrated in our society, although now we are starting to see that it is an unhealthy desire.
To listen to this song (which I’m not sure even means to evoke the interpretation I’m having) within the context that we’re living now is even more interesting, because I think this longing for the future stopped with the pandemic. Or at least to me. Of course, it’s likely this is the case because there is a sense of lost hope for the future, but I also think it’s because there is a general feeling of not wanting to advance further, that we finally feel that we are in the future we longed for for so long, and we don’t want to go further, or perhaps we don’t want it now that we know how it is. Which to me is a lesson within itself, and which is why this is a great song and you should listen to it.
What are your thoughts?