March 16, 2016 | |||||||||
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Lyrics: Wild kind of look to the day
Maximum big surprise Stretching my luck down the way Maximum big surprise By roads and backways Shouldn’t be asking Maximum big surprise Re-election day… |
Today, I feel like getting my eighties on, and when I’m feeling the eighties, I often reach for Arcadia’s Election Day—a mid-1980s hit from Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, and Roger Taylor. While brothers Andy and John Taylor was away sowing their power pop oats with Robert Palmer and The Power Station, the other Duran Duran boys formed a side project named Arcadia. Unbeknownst to this audiophile—until I started my research about this track—the band name, Arcadia, was inspired by the Nicolas Poussin 1637-38 painting Et in Arcadia ego, which depicts a pastoral scene with shepherds clustering around a tomb. The painting is currently held at the Louvre in Paris. And because we strive to entertaining and educational here at Dances With Bass Industries, here is a picture of that inspirational painting:
Arcadia dropped just one album—the platinum selling So Red the Rose—before Duran Duran (minus Andy Taylor) went back to their previously scheduled new wave stardom with Duran Duran. In addition to the hit, Election Day, So Red The Rose contained two additional hits, The Promise and Goodbye Is Forever. Le Bon described the album as being “the most pretentious album ever made.” AllMusic, however, called it “…the best album Duran Duran never made.” So Red the Rose featured a who’s who of talent guest talent including Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, David Bowie guitarist Carlos Alomar, pianist Herbie Hancock, Sting, Grace Jones, and Mark Egan of the Pat Metheny Group. Awesome tunes, excellent backstory, and classical French Baroque style painting—all in one post. It’s been a good day here at Dances With Bass Industries. We’re off to have a much-deserved cocktail now. Enjoy, my babies. Video: You Might Also Like:
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