Nick Currie (born February 11, 1960 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, UK)… Read Full Bio ↴Nick Currie (born February 11, 1960 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, UK), more popularly known under the artist name Momus (after the Greek god of mockery), is a songwriter, writer, blogger and artist. Most of his songs are self-referential or postmodern.

For more than twenty years he has been releasing, to only marginal commercial and critical success, playful and transgressive albums on labels in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan. In his lyrics and his other writing he makes seemingly random use of decontextualized pieces of continental (mostly French) philosophy, and has built up a personal world he says is "dominated by values like diversity, orientalism, and a respect for otherness." He is also known in certain circles outside the U.S. as a producer. He is fascinated by identity, Japan, the avant-garde, time travel and sex. Live Momus shows are rare but when he does perform he often sings the crowd favourite 'maf' from the Stars Forever LP.
He wears a patch over his right eye because he lost the use of it after contracting acanthamoeba keratitis from a contact lens case washed with Greek tap water.

Nick Currie currently resides in Osaka, Japan.

Ventriloquists and Dolls
Momus Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

The music hall is dark, the city lies in silence
Traffic lights are changing in the distance
The radio plays Brahms
Opening the door of his Fiesta the ventriloquist
Steps out into the air beneath the stars
Rubs his hands against the frost
And tucks the dummy in her case beneath his arm

Ventriloquists and dolls
Tailors and their dummies
Moving in parallel worlds
Like wolves and little girls
Gangsters and their molls
Ventriloquists and dolls

And slowly on his painful wooden leg the ventriloquist
Clumps up the wooden steps towards his flat
A single room filled up with mannequins
And dangling from the beams on tangled strings, a marionette
And his carving's been so painstaking it looks for all the world
Like flesh and blood
Realistic to a fault, his dolls are portraits carved in wood
Of little girls

Ventriloquists and dolls
Tailors and their dummies
Moving in parallel worlds
Like wolves and little girls
Gangsters and their molls
Ventriloquists and dolls

And opening the bottle with his teeth
He pours the beer into the beerglass on the bed
Drinks it at a gulp, brings up the gas
Takes off his pants, unscrews his wooden leg
And though his face is frighteningly ugly and he takes her by surprise and very fast
The doll he crushes under him immediately agrees to everything he asks

Ventriloquists and dolls
Tailors and their dummies
Moving in parallel worlds
Like wolves and little girls

Gangsters and their molls
Ventriloquists and dolls

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Momus's song "Ventriloquists and Dolls" evoke a sense of eeriness and solitude. The singer is a ventriloquist who lives in a single room filled with mannequins and marionettes, crafted to look as realistic as possible. As he steps out into the dark city, he carries his dummy in a case under his arm. His wooden leg clumps up the steps to his room, and he opens a bottle of beer before unscrewing his wooden leg. In a sudden twist, he crushes his doll under him, and she agrees to everything he asks.

The lyrics allude to the parallel worlds of ventriloquists and dolls, tailors and their dummies, and gangsters and their molls. Momus draws a comparison between the ventriloquist's relationship with his doll and a wolf's relationship with a little girl. The lyrics suggest that the ventriloquist's dolls are like portraits carved in wood, realistic to a fault. The lyrics paint a picture of a lonely and perverted man who finds solace and satisfaction in his dolls, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.

Line by Line Meaning

The music hall is dark, the city lies in silence
The music hall is quiet and the city is still.

Traffic lights are changing in the distance
The traffic signal lights in the far away are changing color.

The radio plays Brahms
The radio is playing music composed by Brahms.

Opening the door of his Fiesta the ventriloquist
The ventriloquist is opening the car door of his Fiesta.

Steps out into the air beneath the stars
The ventriloquist steps out of his car into the open air below the starry sky.

Rubs his hands against the frost
The ventriloquist rubs his hands together to warm them against the cold frost.

And tucks the dummy in her case beneath his arm
The ventriloquist puts his dummy into her container under his arm.

Ventriloquists and dolls Tailors and their dummies Moving in parallel worlds Like wolves and little girls Gangsters and their molls Ventriloquists and dolls
Ventriloquists and dolls, tailors and their dummies, and gangsters and their molls all live in parallel worlds, similar to how wolves interact with little girls.

And slowly on his painful wooden leg the ventriloquist Clumps up the wooden steps towards his flat
The ventriloquist, who has a painful wooden leg, slowly and noisily moves up the wooden steps towards his apartment.

A single room filled up with mannequins And dangling from the beams on tangled strings, a marionette
The ventriloquist's one-room apartment is full of mannequins, and there is a marionette hanging from the beams on twisted cords.

And his carving's been so painstaking it looks for all the world Like flesh and blood
The ventriloquist has carefully crafted his dolls to look lifelike.

Realistic to a fault, his dolls are portraits carved in wood Of little girls
His dolls are so realistic that they appear to be actual wooden sculptures of little girls.

And opening the bottle with his teeth He pours the beer into the beerglass on the bed Drinks it at a gulp, brings up the gas Takes off his pants, unscrews his wooden leg
The ventriloquist uses his teeth to open up the beer bottle, pours it into a glass beside his bed, drinks it quickly, burps, removes his pants, and unscrews his wooden leg.

And though his face is frighteningly ugly and he takes her by surprise and very fast The doll he crushes under him immediately agrees to everything he asks
Although the ventriloquist's appearance is scary and he aggressively jumps onto the doll, the doll instantly obeys his every command.

Contributed by Alyssa S. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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