🌛◾ℙ𝕃𝔸ℂ𝔼𝔹𝕆 𝕃𝕌𝕃𝕃𝔸𝔹𝕀𝔼𝕊 - 𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕏𝕍𝕀𝕀𝕀.◾🌜

⭐“𝙄 𝙬𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙣𝙤 𝙤𝙣𝙚...
𝙣𝙤𝙗𝙤𝙙𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙧”⭐

Photo credit: Scarlet Page

Hi soulmates,
it's another Wednesday with no important Placebo anniversary, so we meet again for our series of lullabies.

With today's beautiful ballad, we end the era of the Battle For The Sun album, which was not too inclined to slow songs compared to the previous Meds album.

Here we see that this also confirms the departure from the dark Med's ballads towards the light, which does not eliminate the problems of human coexistence, but helps to see them more clearly and positively. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐛𝐮𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.

🎶🔹𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐍𝐄🔹🎶

🔹💬𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗙𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 “𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗬 𝗬𝗢𝗨'𝗥𝗘 𝗚𝗢𝗡𝗘”
”There is definitely a bigger sense of hope and optimism on this record, but Placebo's music and lyrics are never going to be like a dance in a field of flowers you know? There is always the fascination in there with the darker side of human emotions.”
(𝙲𝚕𝚒𝚌 𝙼𝚞𝚜𝚒𝚌, 𝙰𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚕 𝟸00𝟿)

It's the tenth track on the BFTS album, right after Julien, whose energetic sound makes us dance... and then comes this bitter-ironic-melancholic and very emotional ballad.

🔹𝘐𝘯 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘍𝘛𝘚 𝘢𝘭𝘣𝘶𝘮 𝘪𝘯 𝘈𝘭𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘌𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘦 𝘍𝘭𝘦𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘣𝘶𝘮 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘣𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳,

"𝘏𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘠𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘎𝘰𝘯𝘦" 𝘢𝘯𝘥 "𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘦".
🔹Gigwise music magazine included this song among the 11 underrated Placebo songs:
*𝟏𝟏 𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒: 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐁𝐎*⭐'𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐧𝐞'
"A melodic break-up song, ‘Happy You’re Gone’ is rumoured to be about the band’s split from former drummer Steve Hewitt (although this has never been confirmed) and finds Molko in turmoil on its chorus “How many times? How many times? Now I can't look you in the eye”. The swelling strings and more restrained pace were a marker of this period of Placebo, pointing to the direction they’d take on next album Loud Like Love."

Photo credit: Scarlet Page

Okay, it could just be another sad song symbolizing the end of a relationship between two people.
But this lullaby describes exactly the state where you convince your mind that this stage of life is over, while your heart is full of living painful wounds, bleeding and crying.
And Brian really knows how to get me into these emotions.

Not only with his lyrics, but especially with his voice.

How gently he begins...

🔹"𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴... 𝘛𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘳𝘺..."

When I heard it for the first time, I completely melted into the words...But I had no idea what would follow...

🔹"𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘦... 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺...
𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘣𝘺𝘦...
𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴?
𝘕𝘰𝘸 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘺𝘦..."

And then so ironic..
🔹"𝘚𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦... 𝘐𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥...
𝘛𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘺..."

...as if the narrator wanted to say - the memories of what you did to me will haunt you even where you least expect it...

⭐𝗟𝗬𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗦⭐
Breathe me every time you close your eyes
Taste me every time you cry
This memory will fade away and die
Just for today, breathe me and say goodbye
How many times? How many times?
Now I can't look you in the eye
Now I can't look you in the eye
How many times? How many times?
Now I can't look you in the eye
See me, in the eyes of another's child
Turn away, when you see me walking by
Once in a while
This melody will fade away and die
Just for today, breathe me and say goodbye
How many times? How many times?
Now I can't look you in the eye
Now I can't look you in the eye
How many times? How many times?
Now I can't look you in the eye
And I don't even want to try
My my
'Cause every word from you is a lie
My my
How many times? How many times?
Now I can't look you in the eye
Now I can't look you in the eye
How many times? How many times?
Now I can't look you in the eye

Photo credit: MTV Ema 2009 

Could this be a song about Steve Hewitt's bitter departure from the band? It certainly can, and many of you think so.
Honestly, I don't care whose departure cut such deep wounds in Brian's heart that he wrote this song.

Anyway, Brian has been at pains to point out in concerts 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 '𝑵𝑶𝑩𝑶𝑫𝒀'...

It's also possible that Brian is getting a little tired of people making so many parallels, searching for direct connections between each line of every song and his private life...
However, with Brian's sense of poisonous irony, we can also count on the fact that this was someone very important in his life...and maybe it's the rendition of more such relationship breakdowns, just suddenly, in some strange melancholic mood, this ballad was born in the composer's mind.

But...
...at the end of the video from 𝐂𝐢𝐫𝐪𝐮𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐬, 𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐠𝐢𝐮𝐦 𝐨𝐧 𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝟐, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟗 I'm sharing with you, Brian said something very special💗.

Can this help us to better understand this lullaby?

💦“…𝑰𝒕’𝒔 𝒐𝒌, 𝒈𝒖𝒚𝒔, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒃𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐𝒐, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒄𝒓𝒚… 𝑾𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒄𝒓𝒚, 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖?.. 𝑫𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖?!”💦

What made Brian make such a tender statement to all the men in the venue?
We probably won't know the exact reason.

But my thoughts lead me to the topic of men's mental health, which concerns both Brian and Stefan personally and Olga had the same idea in one of her old posts.
While preparing a post about Project Alpha, I learned that the percentage of male suicides in the UK is on the rise. The social paradigm is mainly to blame, it's the pressure that leads men to suppress their emotions because that's how the male role in society has historically been set up. And it is clear that this topic does not only concern men in the UK...
And since human consciousness has been undergoing a profound transformation in recent years, it is time to say:

💗𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒈𝒖𝒚𝒔, 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒄𝒓𝒚, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒃𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒍𝒚 - 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒍.

Soulmates, I hope you enjoy this lullaby as much as I do. And again I will be glad for your open hearts. Let me know in the comments if this song also touches you emotionally and if it connects you with a bittersweet memory. And what do you think of Brian's words at the end of the song?

Post by Marti

🟧▪️𝟏𝟏 𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒: 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐁𝐎 𝑰𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑳𝒆𝒕 𝑴𝒆 𝑮𝒐▪️🟧

While celebrating the release of 𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐌𝐞 𝐆𝐨, a music magazine 𝑮𝒊𝒈𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒆 reminded us of some great older Placebo songs which deserve to be appreciated more than they are, according to Gigwese’s opinion.
🟧𝟏𝟏 𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒: 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐁𝐎🟧
𝑰𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒃𝒐'𝒔 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎 𝑵𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑳𝒆𝒕 𝑴𝒆 𝑮𝒐, 𝒘𝒆 𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒂 𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒅𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒖𝒐'𝒔 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒐𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒉𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒄𝒖𝒕𝒔.

Wembley Arena 2004, credit unknown

🔸'𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐠'🔸
Appearing on fan favourite album Meds, ‘Drag’ would surely have been a single on a weaker record. It’s immediate, catchy and refines Placebo’s early energy with a more refined production. “I had just fallen in love and wanted to write a song about feeling inferior to someone,” Brian Molko told Rock Mag about the song. “You think that the person you love is perfect and you just feel like a piece of shit on their shoe.”


🔸'𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐩𝐬 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞'🔸
A softer, contemplative track on the same album, ‘Follow the Cops Back Home’ is built around a mournful guitar line from Stefan Olsdal and was inspired by visiting Iceland and later meeting Sigur Ros. “Those guys are 25 and already have got 7-year-old kids. Seeing that, I said, ‘are you crazy? Is there really so little to do in Iceland?’” Molko remembers (per Rock Mag). “They replied ‘yeah, that’s why we get drunk and fuck.’ This trip to Iceland inspired us, made us think about what you do when you live in a place like Luxembourg or Iceland where there’s nothing to do. Most of the time, you just go looking for trouble.” Formerly a live favourite, hopefully it finds its way back to setlists again.


🔸'𝐄𝐱𝐢𝐭 𝐖𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬'🔸
The best song from 2013’s overlooked Loud Like Love album, ‘Exit Wounds’ opens with heavily processed percussion and a murmured verse before, right on cue, kicking into the kind of arena-filling chorus that Placebo could write in their sleep by now.
“The way I see it is if I can’t have you, and there’s nothing else I can replace you with then I’d rather be dead,” says Stefan Olsdal about Molko’s desperate lyrics (per Bandwagon). “It’s not something that I personally experience; it is a very extreme place to be in.”


🔸'𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐬'🔸
Lowering the curtain on their brilliant 2003 album Sleeping with Ghosts, ‘Centrefolds’ is another barebones piece, Olsdal’s piano backed by a brushed drumkit to deliver Molko’s haunting words. “[It’s] someone telling a washed-up celebrity ‘I’m the best you can get now so you’d better be mine.’ It’s about obsession, questions of status and self-degradation.”


🔸'𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐬'🔸
A real shape shifter, ‘Speak in Tongues’ is full of mystery and menace in its first two minutes, guitar harmonics, tinkling pianos and stuttering drums, before opening up into a widescreen rock chorus, guitars set to “anthem”. The guarded verses are contrasted by a refrain sung with open arms: “We can build a new tomorrow, today”. It’s also touring violinist, keyboardist and vocalist Fiona Brice’s favourite song to play live, so it gets extra points for that.

Photo credit: Sandy Caspers 

🔸'𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐧𝐞'🔸
A melodic break-up song, ‘Happy You’re Gone’ is rumoured to be about the band’s split from former drummer Steve Hewitt (although this has never been confirmed) and finds Molko in turmoil on its chorus “How many times? How many times? Now I can't look you in the eye”. The swelling strings and more restrained pace were a marker of this period of Placebo, pointing to the direction they’d take on next album Loud Like Love.


🔸'𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭'🔸
A punked-up, breakneck rock song that pulses on Olsdal’s inventive bass playing, ‘Second Sight’ is a welcome burst of energy on Sleeping with Ghosts’ side B. “A one-night-stand song saying walk away for your own self-respect,” Molko said simply of the content. Extra credit for simply intoning “Third verse same as the first” in lieu of writing a middle eight.


🔸'𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐞'🔸
The final track on Battle for the Sun, ‘Kings of Medicine’ builds from palm-muted acoustic guitar, culminating in a final chorus splashed with brass fanfares. It’s still restrained though, never hitting the distortion pedal or exploding in a flurry of heavy percussion. The lyrics read as an addict struggling to sober up.


🔸'𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐈𝐐'🔸
An outlier on their debut self-titled record in treading a slower tempo, ‘Hang On To Your IQ’ rolls along on its stoned rhythm, guitars strummed with a loose wrist. For all the world it sounds like the hangover from the debauchery taking place on the rest of the album. “That’s the most story-like song on the album,” Molko said to NME in 1998. “The person in ‘Hang On To Your IQ’ is so self-conscious they can’t operate properly sexually, which we all go through at certain times in our lives.”

Photo credit: Annabel Staff

🔸'𝐏𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐧'🔸
A morose song about abusive relationships, Placebo strip things back to a toy piano and distant drums, with clean guitar strums. A difficult, contemplative narrative, we’ll let Molko (speaking to Rock Mag in 2006) tackle the subject matter. “It’s a song about destructive relationships, violent relationships. After having written it, I realised that it could well have been about family relations as well as between lovers. A lot of songs – mainly Country – talk about women being hit by their husbands. In “Pierrot the Clown,” the target of the violence is a man. A vulnerable man, trapped in a violent and destructive relationship".


🔸'𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐜'🔸
Appearing at the tail-end of 2000’s experimental ‘Black Market Music’ album, ‘Narcoleptic’ uses the disorder as a metaphor for the stupor brought on by drug abuse, with a lackadaisical arrangement of lilting drums and meandering guitar suiting the mood perfectly. Here’s what Brian said “Drugs and love are one big pillow and they can make you forget about so many things and they can make you forget about living and put you into a somnambulist state, like sleep walking.”
Its lyrics gave Placebo the phrase “a place for us to dream”, which they’d later title their 2016 retrospective compilation.
(𝐺𝑖𝑔𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒, 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑐ℎ 29𝑡ℎ, 2022)


⭐️If you ask me, most of the tracks belong to my favourite, so I picked up one of them, 𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐍, to watch with you tonight. The shared video was recorded at 𝑽𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒂'𝒔 𝑹𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒉𝒂𝒖𝒔 on April 14th, 2006.

Post by Olga

#Placebo #PlaceboAnyway #PlaceboWorld #BrianMolko #StefanOlsdal #Molko #Soulmates #PlaceboHistory #PlaceboLive #PlaceboConcert #PierrotTheClown