Echo & the Bunnymen is a British Post-punk band formed in Liverpool in 1978… Read Full Bio ↴Echo & the Bunnymen is a British Post-punk band formed in Liverpool in 1978. The original line-up consisted of Ian McCulloch (of The Crucial Three), Will Sergeant and Les Pattinson. There are many stories, probably apocryphal, that the quartet was completed by a drum machine known as "Echo".

By the time of their debut album, 1980's Crocodiles - a moderate UK hit - the drum machine had been replaced by Pete de Freitas. Their next, the critically-acclaimed Heaven Up Here, reached the Top Ten in 1981, as did 1983's Porcupine and '84's Ocean Rain. Singles like "The Killing Moon" (later used in the soundtrack to Donnie Darko, a film whose imagery owed much to the artwork of the band's early records.), "Silver," "Bring on the Dancing Horses," and "The Cutter" helped keep the group in the public eye as they took a brief hiatus in the late 1980s. Their 1987 self-titled LP was a small American hit, their only LP to have significant sales there.

McCulloch quit the band in 1988. De Freitas was killed in a motorcycle accident one year later. The others decided to continue, recruiting Noel Burke to replace McCulloch on vocals in Reverberation (1990), which did not generate much excitement among fans or critics. Burke, Sargeant and Pattinson split after that, but the surviving three fourths of the original band reformed in 1997 and released Evergreen (1997), What are You Going to Do with Your Life? (1999), Flowers (2001) , Siberia (2005), and the latest addition, The Fountain (2009). The group's old audience liked the return to their classic sound, and they also managed to gain a number of new, younger listeners.

Echo and the Bunnymen were managed early on by Bill Drummond, who went on to be a founder member of The KLF.

Sideways Eight
Echo & the Bunnymen Lyrics

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It's us
Counting the one's we love
On the fingers of one glove
Collate
Count all the one's we hate
And side step the sideways eight

Move on, prove and improve on

You'll get your groove on and you'll get there
I'm sorry, baby don't worry
I'm just in a hurry to get somewhere

It's me
Still put an apostrophe's
In every catastrophe
And it's you
Still making analogy's
While I'm faking apologies

So move on, prove and improve on
You'll get your groove on and you'll get there
Sail on, hail and inhale on
Wagging your tail on
A different air

It's us
Counting the one's we love
On the fingers of one glove

So move on, prove and improve on
You'll get your groove on and you'll get there
Sail on, hail and inhale on
Wagging your tail on
A different air

Move on, prove and improve on
You'll get your groove on and you'll get there
I'm sorry, baby don't worry
I'm just in a hurry to get somewhere

I'm getting somewhere

am I getting somewhere
I'm sorry

Overall Meaning

The song "Sideways Eight" by Echo & the Bunnymen is a commentary on human relationships and how we often categorize the people in our lives into those we love and those we hate. The opening lines "It's us, counting the ones we love, on the fingers of one glove" suggests a sense of intimacy and closeness among the people we love, while "counting all the ones we hate" implies a division between those we care for and those we don't.

The chorus encourages the listener to move forward and improve themselves, with the repetition of "move on, prove and improve on" and "sail on, hail and inhale on." This can be interpreted as a call to break out of the cycle of categorizing people and instead focus on personal growth and progressing toward a better future.

The verse that follows speaks to the tension that can exist in relationships, with one person making mistakes and having to apologize while the other tries to see the bigger picture and make analogies. Despite this, the overall message of the song is one of hope and encouragement to keep pushing forward.

Line by Line Meaning

It's us
We are the ones being addressed in this song

Counting the one's we love
We are making a list of people we care about

On the fingers of one glove
We are keeping track of these people on a single hand

Collate
We are organizing this list

Count all the one's we hate
We are also keeping a tally of people we don't like

And side step the sideways eight
We are avoiding getting stuck in a repetitive pattern of negativity

Move on, prove and improve on
We must keep going and strive to be better

You'll get your groove on and you'll get there
Success will come with persistence and putting in the work

I'm sorry, baby don't worry
I am apologizing for something, but please don't be upset

I'm just in a hurry to get somewhere
I have a sense of urgency and a destination in mind

It's me
The singer is shifting the focus to themselves