General Elektriks is the brainchild of RV Salters. A French national and ke… Read Full Bio ↴General Elektriks is the brainchild of RV Salters. A French national and keen vintage keyboard player (check the RV Music section for records he’s played on at www.general-elektriks.com), he initiated GE just before moving to San Francisco. Using a computer, his oldschool keys and a SM-57 mike, he started sewing together loops, Funky keyboard licks, ethereal melodies and digital tweaking. GE became a musical journal that followed RV through his move to Seattle, then back down to the Bay Area, Berkeley, where he currently resides. There, he started laying keys down for the Quannum crew. Quannum’s own Lateef The Truth Speaker and Chief Xcel returned the favor by guesting on GE. Consisting of 12 songs from the journal, ‘Cliquety Kliqk’ was first released in France by Bleu Electric, then picked up by Compost for Europe and by Quannum for the US.

Aesthetically, GE is a project that refuses to land in a particular bin at the record store. A mix of vintage sounds, hip hop beats, noir riffs, dreamy vocals, cinematic arrangements and digital twinkle, ‘Cliquety Kliqk’ embraces all of RV’s musical addictions. Radically new yet strangely familiar, General Elektriks is like a friend that you meet for the first time but feel like you’ve known all your life.

Bloodshot Eyes
General Elektriks Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Get up, get up, get up,
Wake up in the morning
Looking in the mirror
I open with pain,
Bloodshot eyes again

Coffee for a drifter
Hurt by the light of day

I screw up in day,
Bloodshot eyes again

Get up, get up, get up,

Oooh no no no no no
It's so hard, so hard

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to General Elektriks's song "Bloodshot Eyes" explores the struggles and difficulties that the singer faces with wakefulness and sobriety. The recurring line "bloodshot eyes again" suggests an ongoing battle against addiction or some form of self-destructive behavior. The singer seems to be caught in a vicious cycle of staying up too late and waking up with the physical remnants of his mistakes. The lines "coffee for a drifter, hurt by the light of day" further emphasize the theme of loneliness and isolation. The singer is a nomad of sorts, but he is not wandering freely; rather, he's running away from something, and this something is causing him pain. The pain is not physical, but emotional, as demonstrated in the lyric "I open with pain." The singer seems trapped in his own vices, unable to escape the cycle of addiction and self-loathing, as depicted in the final line "it's so hard, so hard."

Line by Line Meaning

Get up, get up, get up,
Motivating oneself to start the day

Wake up in the morning
The time to start the day has come

Looking in the mirror
Examining oneself physically and emotionally

I open with pain,
Feeling uncomfortable

Bloodshot eyes again
The physical symptom of not getting enough rest

Coffee for a drifter
Seeking temporary relief from fatigue

Hurt by the light of day
Sensitivity to light exposure due to inadequate sleep

I screw up in day,
Making mistakes during daily activities due to physical and mental exhaustion

Bloodshot eyes again
The repeated physical symptom of not getting enough rest

Get up, get up, get up,
Trying to keep oneself going despite the difficulties

Oooh no no no no no
Expressing the frustration of the situation