Tim: So many good rejects, and so little time, so let’s pretend this whole week is a Saturday, shall we?
Tom: Fine by me. Do I still have to go to work?
Tim: Ermm, oh, why not, let’s all take the week off. BECAUSE IT’S ALMOST ON. But for now, let’s go to Germany, and hear what is basically a sea shanty, so have an advance warning of Dick van Dyke levels of accents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP2-CGwO50A
Tom: They get a few marks for doing an actual shanty here without going too far towards the pirate stereotype.
Tim: I really, really like this – it’s great fun to watch, it appeals to my inner Captain Jack and it would take quite something to beat that for an example of WE MEAN BUSINESS staging.
Tom: Yep, the set design team clearly went all-out with this one. Or just hired a prop ship, one or the other. And musically, if you wanted to merge together “folk shanty” and “Eurovision”, I can’t think of a better way to do it than this.
Tim: What my mind keeps wandering back to, though, is those lyrics, as with voices like that it’s impossible not to hear them, and they’re confusing. (Lyric video here if you need it.) My initial assumption was that ‘fiddler on the deck’ was a nautical metaphor for impending doom or stuff, which would make sense given the lyrics – “he’s the one who laughs when the storm begins to roar”, “when his fiddle starts to play, better hide away, if you don’t wanna die” “he’s like a cutlass in your back/needle in yer neck”.
But no. I can’t find any reference to that, so all I can see is that they’re being literal – the actually fiddler is a right arsehole standing on the boat. Yet he’s on the deck of the boat, fiddling away, so this is basically a song saying “hello, I’m annoying.” Which is fair enough, I guess, but hardly endearing to a continent.
Tom: I just keep hearing it as a euphemism.
Tim: Oh. Oh. Ohh, really?