Design Context : Secret 7 research

Secret 7

For this brief i am going to start researching both the elbow song and then the Jake Bugg song, Grounds for Divorce and Strange Creatures retrospectively.

Jake Bugg Song lyrics

Oh, it’s a cold world
But it’s haunting me
Oh, a little ghost of a girl
She came to me
She’s been haunting me
Strange creatures
Oh, yeah, you and I both
Strange creatures
Deep down you and I both
This man knows it all
Don’t have a clue about me
I’m in a nightmare
Not a thing can set me free
If only we could see
That we’re strange creatures
Oh, yeah, you and and I both
Strange creatures
Deep down you and I both

Oooh

Strange creatures
Oh, yeah, you and I both
Strange creatures
Deep down you and I both
Strange creatures
Deep down you and I both

Elbow, Grounds For Divorce

Mondays is for drinking
To the seldom seen kid

I've been working
On a cocktail called
"Grounds For Divorce"
Whoah
Polishing a compass
That I hold in my sleeve
Whoah
Down comes him on sticks
But then he kicks
Like a horse
Whoah
There's a
Chinese cigarette case
And the rest you can keep
And the rest you can keep
And the rest you can keep

There's a hole
In my neighborhood
Down which of late
I cannot help but fall
There's a hole
In my neighborhood
Down which of late
I cannot help but fall

Mondays is for drinking
To the seldom seen kid

There's this
Whispering of jokers
Doing "Flesh by the Pound"
To a chorus of supporters
From the little town halls
There'll be twisted karaoke
At the Aniseed Lounge
And I'll bring you
Further roses
But it does you no good
And it does me no good
And it does you no good

There's a hole
In my neighborhood
Down which of late
I cannot help but fall
There's a hole
In my neighborhood
Down which of late
I cannot help but fall
There's a hole
In my neighborhood
Down which of late
I cannot help but fall
There's a hole
In my neighborhood
Down which of late
I cannot help but fall

Someday we'll be drinking
With the seldom seen kid

About the song

'They re singing about the monday club where out of work locals go drinking cheap booze on a monday daytime. Hence it is a cocktail called grounds for divorce as he ll be well drunk when he gets home.
Theres a hole (dive) in my neighbourhood n he keeps going there.'

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'Talking about being consumed with his divorce and getting his mind off of it by drinking at his local pub... Finding comfort in alcohol rather than think of the bad stuff going on. The whispering of joker and supporters are referring to the divorce court.'

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'Good god, is this ever a song about alcoholism.

Mondays are when the regulars at the bar drink to the narrator's son, whom he doesn't see very often because he's always at the bar.

Unsurprisingly, his wife doesn't like that he's always there. He rarely comes home on time, either; he doesn't even use his compass/watch combo as a watch, so he never knows what time it is.

There's fighting at this bar, too, and plenty of gambling. The "sticks" line refers to billiards. (This point is pretty clearly made in the video.) Guy has bet someone everything he has, but asks to keep a Chinese cigarette case, presumably his most prized possession.

Can I just say that I love the chorus? What a beautiful, tortured sentence!

In the second verse, some guys are sitting around a table playing cards ("jokers") and lending each other money ("flesh by the pound" is a reference to one of Shylock's lines in The Merchant of Venice) while some women look on and make comments. "Aniseed" is used to make absinthe.

He may or may not have taken advantage of the ladies' availability; either way, he has plenty to apologize for. He's bought his wife roses before and he'll do it again, but his behavior doesn't change so he might as well not have bothered.

And, depressingly, we learn that his son will be in here soon enough, following his dad's lead.

I really, really like this song. What a stellar single!'

=====================

Frontman Guy Garvey (From Uncut magazine February 2008): "'Grounds For Divorce' was written when I was in a unhappy relationship. The words tumbled onto the page before I'd considered their meaning: 'I've been working on a cocktail called Grounds For Divorce.' It relates to the relationship I was in, but it's also a light-hearted look at the aftermath of losing my friend (singer songwriter Bryan Clancy who died in 2006), about wanting to get out of my beloved Manchester. I wanted to live somewhere else, just because of how heavy it got round here."

Looking into these 2 songs i think the elbow song has a much stronger meaning behind it, although very depressing it has a lot of visualizing materials that can be used. Such as the fact he goes to drink down at the pub all the time to avoid thinking about his wife/girlfriend who he had a bad relationship with, he used a compass, he used to give her a rose but they were no good, and they didn't mean anything to the woman, so this rose would be dead, as is the relationship, there is also the fact the song has undertones about a friend who he has lost.

Imagery i could use

Dead rose

A bar

A pint

Sad

Angry

A broken heart

Playing cards

Compass

Images

Dead Roses