Having disbanded in 1998, they reunited briefly in 2005 for a world tour and reformed in 2011, releasing a new album (Anastasis) and embarking on several tours.
Dead Can Dance formed in Melbourne, Australia in August 1981 with Paul Erikson on bass guitar, Lisa Gerrard (ex-Microfilm) on vocals, Simon Monroe (Marching Girls) on drums and Brendan Perry (also of Marching Girls) on vocals and guitar. Gerrard and Perry were a couple who met as members of Melbourne's little band scene. In May 1982, the band left Monroe in Australia and moved to London, England, where they signed with alternative rock label 4AD. With the duo, the initial United Kingdom line-up were Paul Erikson and Peter Ulrich.
The group's debut album, Dead Can Dance, was released in February 1984. The artwork, which depicts a ritual mask from New Guinea, "provide a visual reinterpretation of the meaning of the name Dead Can Dance", set in a faux Greek typeface. The album featured "drum-driven, ambient guitar music with chanting, singing and howling", and fit in with the ethereal wave style of label mates Cocteau Twins. They followed with a four-track extended play, Garden of the Arcane Delights in August. AllMusic described their early work as "as goth as it gets" (despite the group themselves rejecting the label), while the EP saw them "plunging into a wider range of music and style".
A shift in sound followed for the Spleen and Ideal album, with more emphasis on strings, brass and drones being used. A quasi spiritual element also emerged on this album, notably on the opening tracks "De Profundis" and "Ascension". Its worth noting that around this time Lisa and Brendan had been doing tours of European Cathedrals, absorbing the ambience which in turn was reflected in the work.
The highlights of the bands career followed with the genre defining album Within The Realm of a Dying Sun, featuring fan favorite "Cantara", which is where the bands Arabic and World music influences began to appear, and the double whammy of "Summoning of the Muse" and "Persephone (The Gathering of Flowers)." Critics at the time were undecided about the album, mainly due to the fact that the pieces were split according to the vocals. Brendan had the first side of the album, where Lisa took over for the latter half.
The Serpent's Egg was the next album and built on the premise set by the previous album, although the album is slightly uneven in quality and a short listen at around 40 minutes. The album is redeemed by the opening and closing pieces "The Host of Seraphim", and Perry's epic "Ullyses".
For the next album Aion, the band slipped back several centuries and recreated working medieval instruments such as the Sackbut, Viol and Hurdy Gurdy for the distinctly Medieval flavor. Included on the album is "Song of the sibyl" a text from 14th century Spain and now a live favorite. Another text appears in the song "Fortune Presents Gifts Not According To The Book".
Into the Labyrinth was the follow up album and was the album that saw Brendan mastering the use of samples and synthesizers and also the album that brought the band's music to American audiences selling over a million copies worldwide. The track "The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove" was played across on college radio and was instrumental in the albums success.
Spiritchaser was the seventh studio album for the band and brought about an abrupt upturn in musical style, instead of drawing on the historical past the band drew upon South American and African influences which gave the album a very rhythmic ambience. Considered by some to be the bands weakest album, it features highlights such as the percussive "Nierika" which was the most played track on American college radio for that year, and the epic 9 minute trance inducing "Indus".
A 3 CD retrospective simply called 1981-1998 was issued by 4AD and compiled a comprehensive overview of the bands career, and provided diehard fans with the only finished track from the Spiritchaser follow-up sessions called "The Lotus Eaters".
As a live band is probably where Dead Can Dance have gained their reputation. To put it simply, they were phenomenal. The concerts often featured many improvised pieces that to date have never been recorded in the studio. A live album entitled Toward the Within was released in 1994 and allowed fans unfortunate enough to have not attended concerts the chance to hear a few of these songs. A companion video/DVD of the concert was also released allowing people to see these highly ethereal concerts.
After Dead Can Dance ceased to be a functioning band both Perry and Gerrard embarked upon solo careers. To date, Brendan has released one solo album The Eye of the Hunter and has completed work on a new album, 'Ark', to be released in June 2010, whilst Lisa has been more prolific but with mixed results, releasing two solo albums The Mirror Pool and The Silver Tree. Lisa has also collaborated with other artists, namely Pieter Bourke of the band Soma and Irish composer Patrick Cassidy on the respective albums Duality and Immortal Memory. Lisa has also become a sought after soundtrack artist too after a wave of publicity for the Ridley Scott film Gladiator and continues to release work on a regular basis including soundtrack work on Ali, Layer Cake, and Whale Rider. Peter Ulrich, former percussionist of the band has also released two solo albums, Pathways and Dawns and more recently, Enter the Mysterium.
A series of 31 reunion concerts took place in 2005 in both Europe and North America including two memorable sell out concerts at The Hollywood Bowl and Radio City accompanied by 40 piece orchestras. Many of these concerts were professionally recorded and released as a double CD.
In late 2011, the band announced a reunion World Tour, in order to promote their new album, fittingly titled Anastasis, as it was released on August 9, 2012, 16 years after the group's previous album. Anastasis was well received by critics and is also the first album of the band not released by 4AD Records.
The name "Dead Can Dance" is often misleading. Although this group is quite popular among the goth sub-culture with the name appearing to be inspired by the Danse macabre allegory, it should instead be interpreted as 'giving life to something that was previously inanimate' as Perry said:
"The album artwork [of our self titled first album], a ritual mask from New Guinea, attempted to provide a visual reintrepretation of the meaning of the name "Dead Can Dance." The mask, though once a living part of a tree is dead; nevertheless it has, through the artistry of its maker, been imbued with a life force of its own. To understand why we chose the name, think of the transformation of inanimacy to animacy.... Think of the processes concerning life from death and death into life. So many people missed the inherent symbolism, and assumed that we must be 'morbid gothic types,' a mistake we deplored and deplore...".
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I Can See Now
Dead Can Dance Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Ever loved a man who made you feel small?
If you were a sailor
I'd raise the anchor
To sail the sea
In search of you and me
And God
Conjures currents to break our fragile boats
And both the innocent and the damned
Are swallowed up in his wake
If you were a huntress
I'd be your bow
For your silver arrows
To seek out his heart
Ever loved a woman who made you feel tall?
Ever loved a man who made you feel small?
Who are you to complain
For lack of understanding?
We are all created equal
In just one thing alone
Alone in your thoughts that consume you through your life
They'll take you outwards to the dark edge of time
And there's nothing more dangerous
Than a man with nothing to lose
Nothing to live for
And nothing to prove
The lyrics to Dead Can Dance's song "I Can See Now" explore the complexities of relationships and the power dynamics that exist within them. The song begins by asking a series of rhetorical questions about love and its ability to affect our sense of self. The lines “Ever loved a woman who made you feel tall? Ever loved a man who made you feel small?” touch on the idea that love can both uplift and diminish us, depending on the nature of the relationship.
The song then shifts to the metaphor of sailing the seas, suggesting that love is an adventure in which we are all searching for something greater than ourselves. The chorus “And God conjures currents to break our fragile boats And both the innocent and the damned are swallowed up in his wake” suggests that even though we are all on this journey together, we are subject to the whims of fate and destiny.
The final verse explores the idea that love can sometimes be dangerous and even deadly. The lines “And there's nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose Nothing to live for and nothing to prove” hint at the idea that when we feel hopeless and lost, we can become unpredictable and possibly even violent.
Overall, “I Can See Now” is a deeply introspective song that asks important questions about the nature of love and our place in the world.
Line by Line Meaning
Ever loved a woman who made you feel tall?
Have you ever been in love with a woman who has made you feel powerful and confident?
Ever loved a man who made you feel small?
Have you ever been in love with a man who has made you feel insignificant and small?
If you were a sailor
I'd raise the anchor
To sail the sea
In search of you and me
And God
If you were lost and far away, I would do everything in my power as a sailor to find you and reunite us, even if it meant searching the entire sea with faith in God.
Conjures currents to break our fragile boats
And both the innocent and the damned
Are swallowed up in his wake
God can cause turbulent waters that can damage and destroy even the strongest of vessels, causing harm to both the innocent and the guilty.
If you were a huntress
I'd be your bow
For your silver arrows
To seek out his heart
If you were a skilled huntress, I would offer myself as your most dependable companion in your mission to find and conquer your greatest adversaries.
Who are you to complain
For lack of understanding?
We are all created equal
In just one thing alone
Why do you complain about not fully understanding the world? We are all created equal in the sense that none of us truly understands everything about life.
Alone in your thoughts that consume you through your life
They'll take you outwards to the dark edge of time
When you are lost in your thoughts that occupy your mind, they can take you to the limits of time and space, where you are all by yourself in the darkness.
And there's nothing more dangerous
Than a man with nothing to lose
Nothing to live for
And nothing to prove
A man with no attachment, purpose, or desire is the most dangerous being in the world since he has nothing to lose.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: BRENDAN MICHAEL PERRY
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
eoannassos
1. i can see now,
Ever loved a woman who made you feel tall?
Ever loved a man who made you feel small?
If you were a sailor
I'd raise the anchor
To sail the sea
In search of you and me
And God
Conjures currents to break our fragile boats
And both the innocent and the damned
Are swallowed up in his wake
If you were a huntress
I'd be your bow
For your silver arrows
To seek out his heart
Ever loved a woman who made you feel tall?
Ever loved a man who made you feel small?
Who are you to complain
For lack of understanding?
We are all created equal
In just one thing alone
Alone in your thoughts that consume you through your life
They'll take you outwards to the dark edge of time
And there's nothing more dangerous
Than a man with nothing to lose
Nothing to live for
And nothing to prove
2. american dreaming,
I need my conscience to keep watch over me
To protect me from myself
So I can wear honesty like a crown on my head
When I walk into the promised land
We've been too long American dreaming
And I think we've all lost the way
Forlorn somnambulistic maniacal in the dark
I'm in love with an American girl
Though she's my best friend
I love her surreptitious smile
That hides the pain within her
And we'll go dancing in the rings of laughter
And live along by the shores
Yeah-ee, on the lea the rising wind blows
Fay-hee, on the lea the rising wind blows
How long how long?
Forlorn, In the grounds of religion
sailors we've left behind
Turned back by the foot of the doorway
Never lost and found
We've been too long American dreaming
I think we've all lost the heart
We've been too long American dreaming
I think we've all lost the heart
Forlom Somnambulistic maniacal in the dark
Yeah-ee, on the lea the rising wind blows
Fay-hee, on the lea the rising wind blows
How long how long?
James AKA Kimo
I can listen to these two songs a thousand times and never tire of them...
Mike James
me to
Lil'
yep! Same here!!
Jeroen de Vries
Agree :)
Varanasi Sunrise
Definitely agree
Jochen Rettig
Never
Jesus Vidal
SON DOS CANCIONES QUE SIEMPRE DEBEN IR JUNTAS,
EN EL MISMO ORDEN EXPUESTO EN EL ALBUM.
ES PERFECTA LA SINCRONÍA!!
Lil'
ja!!!! 👍👍👍👍👍👍
Dantres
Instant goosebumps in the 1000th listen.
NU91
Musicians in this epically talented band, answered their calling.