Popular Culture

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Track info
  • The lyrics of Popular Culture are about the impact of American culture on our lives, even though we’re not part of that culture. It’s also about whether it’s allright to let yourself influence by mainstream culture. It’s a rather ironic song: Tom wanted it to have echoes of Lennon’s Give Peace a Chance. That song also seems to refer to the lack of success of dEUS in the USA: Tom has said before that he didn’t think it was possible to succeed there as a band unless you put a lot of effort into it.
  • The choir is made up of children of the band’s friends.
Music
Tom Barman
Words
Tom Barman
Credits
  • Guy Van Nueten: piano
  • Annouk, Lore, Lien, Eva, Jade, Bruna, Aaron, Julien, Jules, Tosca, Victor: backing vocals
  • Reinard Vanbergen, Marc Steylaerts: strings

Back to the lyrics overview


Let me tell you a thing
On popular culture
American swing
The British add sulphur
I’ll buy you a beer
If you can compete from here

They throw you a line
Let me see it you catch it
And they’ll give you some time, sure
If you got something to match it
Just as long as you know
Who is running that show, oooohhhh

And I was thinking, well hey
I’m gonna throw it away
Throwing out my popular culture
Cause now you know it’s not great
If you don’t come from the states
You will always be late to be in popular culture

From western slang
To showbiz spells
You’d almost think
There’s nothing else

Can you give me the news
On the romantic actor
No, I don’t really care but his blues
Is for me a distractor
Through his eyes I can see
What is wrong with me… oooooh…

And I was thinking, well hey
I’m gonna throw it away
Throwing out my popular culture
Cause now you know it’s not great
If you don’t come from the states
You will always be late to be in popular culture

From western slang
To showbiz spells
You’d almost think
There’s nothing else

And I was thinking, well hey
Well what the hell is my place
If someone else will dictate
My singular culture
Cause everybody’s a star
And if you don’t think too far
You can define who you are
Through popular culture

It’s like you’re not really seen
Without a fashionable spleen
That is so much alike the one
Your heroes suffered

And so you gotta be strong
You’ve got to just speak in tongues
About how you belong
In popular culture