I love it when there’s tons of information about a song and you don’t have to listen to me blather on about how fun it is, or how it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.
Tales Of Brave Ulysses is one of those classic songs that thankfully has reams written about it, but there’s not a whole lot you really need to know about the song–other than that it rocks! And rocking is good.
At the same time, the song has some cool, evocative lyrics and a really nice chord progression. The story behind the song and the lyrics can be found at Wikipedia:
The lyrics are inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, an account of the adventures undertaken by Ulysses. This can be seen in the song’s reference to “naked ears … tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,” an event from Homer’s epic. When interviewed on the episode of the VH1 show, Classic Albums, which featured Disraeli Gears, lyricist Martin Sharp explained that he had recently returned from Ibiza, which was the source of many of the images in the song (e.g. “tiny purple fishes run laughing through her fingers”) and the general feeling of having left an idyll to return to “the hard lands of the winter”; Clapton stated in the same show that he had been independently writing a tune based on the Loving Spoonful’s “Summer in the City”, and when Sharp gave him the words (on the back of a bar napkin) they fit the tune.
As a special treat, I give you not one, not two, but three different links to videos:
- Here’s a link to a tribute video
- Here’s a link to a live performance from the 1960’s
- And here’s a link to a reunion tour from a couple of years ago
And of course, the lyrics:
You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun.
And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave ulysses:
How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
For the sparkling waves are calling you to kiss their white laced lips.
And you see a girls brown body dancing through the turquoise,
And her footprints make you follow where the sky loves the sea.
And when your fingers find her, she drowns you in her body,
Carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind.
The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.
Her name is aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell,
And you know you cannot leave her for you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave ulysses; how his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing.
The tiny purple fishes run lauging through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.
