Anthem - Intellect

Anthem
coherently. The UK rock band Psychedelic Furs’ ‘Sister Europe’ (1979) never actually
mentions ‘Europe’ except in the title, and is a poetic allusion to some kind of decay
and decline, with sailors drowning, talking, drinking and falling, a broken radio
playing Aznavour out of tune, and new cars falling to dust. Echoing the song title, the
chorus line ‘Sister of mine, home again’ may perhaps hint that this is a depiction of a
gloomy continent where ‘even dreams must fall to rules’ and ‘words are all just useless
sound’—a suitable phrase to characterise this song itself. A listener thinks the song ‘is
about the continent of Europe’, and offers a quite complex reading of it:
Europe is seeing all these people doing stupid things and acting out
their petty, futile dramas. Europe is there the whole time through
many generations and sees the same mistakes being made over and
over and how everyone dies with nothing to show for it and everything
eventually falls to dust. I think the person is calling Europe ‘sister of
mine’ because he sometimes steps back and sees the big picture and
starts to identify with things that are less transitory like the land which
could represent the eternal witness or something. When he does this
he feels like he’s home. 438
The lyrics of American indie rock band R.E.M.’s ‘Radio Free Europe’ (1985) are hard
to understand or even hear. The ‘I’ seems to get off a ship in Europe (presumably from
America) and expresses some kind of media critique: ‘Raving station, beside yourself
/ Calling on in transit / Radio Free Europe / Decide yourself, calling all of the medias
too fast’. Most listeners seem to agree that while the song touches upon Cold War
radio propaganda, its precise meaning is deliberately vague and open. 439
The meaning of Australian post-punk Birthday Party’s ‘Dumb Europe’ (written by
Nick Cave and Christoph Dreher, 1983) is equally hard to pinpoint, as it alludes to
an intoxicated and dizzy state of mind: ‘On this European night out on the brink
/ the cafes and the bars still stink / The air is much too thick for seeing / but not
thick enough for leaning’. It then talks of utopia and destruction, catatonia and death,
possibly referring to Australia’s history of participation in twentieth century European
wars, but it is far from clear what is meant by the chorus words ‘we could all just die
of shame / dumb Europe’.
In ‘Fortress Europe’ (2003), British electronica band Asian Dub Foundation offers
one of the rare examples of a direct critique of European migration policies. From
the initial ‘Keep bangin’ on the wall / of Fortress Europe’ to the concluding ‘Break
out of the detention centers / Cut the wires and tear up the vouchers / People get
ready it’s time to wake up / Tear down the walls of Fortress Europe’, the song takes a
clear stand for free movement and against boundary controls: ‘We’re the children of
globalization / No borders, only true connection / Light the fuse of the insurrection /
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