Dolby promoted himself as a kind of mad scientist, an egghead that had successfully harnessed the power of synthesizers and samplers, using them to make catchy pop and electro-funk. Before he launched his solo career, Dolby had already worked as a studio musician, technician, and songwriter. After starting out as a teenaged live sound man, mixing The Fall, The Members and others using a PA he built himself, he formed the arty post-punk band Camera Club (also known as Bruce Woolley & the Camera Club) with Bruce Woolley, Geoff Downes, Trevor Horn and Matthew Seligman. Within a year, he had left the group and joined Lene Lovich’s backing band and gave her his song "New Toy", which became a British hit in 1981. That same year, he released his first solo single, "Urges", on the English independent label Armageddon. By the autumn, he had signed with Parlophone and released "Europa and the Pirate Twins", which nearly cracked the UK Top 40.
Dolby started playing synthesizer on sessions for other artists in 1982. That year, he played keyboards on Def Leppard’s Pyromania and Joan Armatrading’s Walk Under Ladders. His most distinctive session credit is that keyboard line after the chorus on Foreigner’s "Waiting for a Girl Like You". In that eventful summer, Dolby also collaborating with New York rappers Whodini to create "Magic’s Wand" – a pivotal early hip hop track (the first rap single to shift 1 million copies), and it also single-handedly started the new jack swing movement.
Even with all of these achievements, 1982 was most noteworthy for the release of Dolby’s first solo album, The Golden Age of Wireless, in the summer of 1982, the landmark album reaching number 13. "Windpower", the first single from the record, became his first Top 40 UK hit in the late summer. Other cuts from the album include "The Airwaves", and "One of Our Submarines", a meditation on the futility of empire.
In January of 1983, Dolby released an EP, Blinded by Science, which includes what would become his most well-known track, "She Blinded Me with Science" featuring a cameo vocal appearance by the notorious British eccentric Magnus Pike, who also appeared in the song’s video. "She Blinded Me with Science" was a minor hit in England, but the EP and the single became a major American hit in 1983, thanks to MTV’s heavy airplay of the video. Eventually, the song reached number five on the US charts and it was included on a resequenced and reissued version of The Golden Age of Wireless, which peaked at number 13 in America.
The Flat Earth, Dolby's second album, appeared in early 1984, and harkens back to a time when songs mattered more than the video, even as MTV was discovering its strength. Opening with "Dissidents", conjuring up images of blacklisted authors and ugly snow, gray from oppression, with Matthew Seligman’s bass at the fore, lavish, growling, popping through octaves, funk-a-fied and twinkling with harmonics throughout the album. The title track is an R&B daydream of piano and Motown stabs of rhythm guitar. "Screen Kiss" has a similarly ethereal quality, and the lyrics are lush with imagery. The cover of Dan Hicks’ 1967 "I Scare Myself" is a balmy jazz club cocktail – faithfully nostalgic, right down to a bittersweet trombone solo from Peter Thomas. "Hyperactive" is one part bizarre to two parts infectious; guest vocalist Adele Bertei fuels the fire to what was already destined to be a memorable diversion beyond the reach of Top 40. The single became Thomas’ biggest UK hit, peaking at number 17.
During 1985, Dolby collaborated with artists including Stevie Wonder, Dusty Springfield and Herbie Hancock; and notched up some more high-concept production credits. George Clinton's Some of My Best Jokes Are Friends, Prefab Sprout’s Steve McQueen, and Joni Mitchell’s Dog Eat Dog were all midwifed by Dolby, who also was musical director for David Bowie at Live Aid. Also in 1985, he began composing film scores, starting with Fever Pitch. In 1986, he composed the scores for Gothic and Howard the Duck, for which he credited himself as Dolby's Cube. (That credit led to a lawsuit from the Dolby Labs, who eventually prohibited the musician from using the name "Dolby" in conjunction with any other name than "Thomas.")
Aliens Ate My Buick, Dolby's long-delayed third album, appeared in 1988 to a mixed reaction, although "Airhead" became a minor British hit. That same year, Dolby married actress Kathleen Beller. For the rest of the late 80s and early 90s, Dolby continued to score films, producing and building his own computer equipment.
1992’s Astronauts and Heretics, features guest stars such as Eddie Van Halen, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Ofra Haza. The album opens with "I Love You Goodbye", one of Thomas’ most evocative songs, and ends with "Beauty of a Dream" which is also a contender for that honour. Highlights found inbetween include "Cruel" (a duet with Fairground Attraction’s Eddie Reader), "I Live in a Suitcase" and "Close But No Cigar".
The following year, Dolby founded the computer software company Headspace in Silicon Valley, releasing The Virtual String Quartet as its first program, and also pioneered technology for music on mobile phones. For the rest of the 90s, Headspace occupied most of Dolby's time and energy. In 1994, he released The Gate to the Mind’s Eye, a soundtrack to the animated short film Mind’s Eye. Also that year, Capitol released the greatest-hits collection, Retrospectacle.
Thirteen years after Astronauts and Heretics, Dolby returned to live performance in 2006 with his solo Sole Inhabitant tour, which covered North America and the UK, with Thomas recreating the highlights of his earlier work from scratch, with a camera mounted like a miner’s lamp on his head, and a big screen showing the view from the artist, turning what would be a fairly dull one-man-and-a-rack-of-synths into a fascinating audio visual experience and an unintended masterclass for music technology students.
UK indie label Invisible Hands Music released a CD and DVD box set recorded on the Sole Inhabitant tour. These fresh and modern reinterpretations of Thomas’ work to date precedes a new studio album due in 2008, which is as-yet untitled, but does include a song about Britney’s ex Kevin Federline (“K-Fed”) who used an uncleared sample from "She Blinded Me with Science" and did not respond to legal approaches until a ‘cease-and-desist’ was posted in the comments field of his MySpace page. That song is called "My Karma Hit Your Dogma", and bodes well for a mighty return to form, combining Thomas’ humour and intelligence with a unique musical vision.
2011 saw Dolby get busy by returning with a new studio album A Map of the Floating City on 29 October. The album is broken down into three genres of Urbanoia's tales of city experiences; Amerikana as Dolby's take on his years living in America and it's roots music; and Oceanea: songs of life by the sea in his home country of England. The music was debuted first as download EPs to Dolby's online community and then previewed by a transmedia interactive game also called the FloatingCity.com.
Thomas Dolby is taking the music back on tour as a solo artist and with varying line-ups of bands, doing two tours of the UK in 2011, and has his first trip to Australia in February 2012 followed by dates in Japan. In March Dolby kicks off the Time-Capsule.tv tour at the SxSW Festival in Austin playing dates in USA and Canada through April. He will have a trailer parked at venues on his tour where you can produce a 30 second video offering words of wisdom to whoever will be walking the earth in the future. Dolby wants to give people a chance to “explain to an alien visitor what went wrong with our civilization. Our species may not be around on this planet much longer, so you might as well leave a welcome message for the next guys.”
I Scare Myself
Thomas Dolby Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I scare myself when I'm without you
I scare myself, the moment that you're gone
I scare myself when I let my thoughts run
And when they're running
I keep thinking of you
And when they're running
I scare myself and I don't mean lightly
I scare myself, it can get frightening
I scare myself to think what I could do
I scare myself, it's some kind of voodoo
And with that voodoo
I keep thinking of you
And with that voodoo
What can I do?
And with that voodoo
I keep thinking of you
And with that voodoo
What can I do?
But it's so, so very different when we're together
And I'm so, so, so much calmer, I feel better
'Cause the stars already crossed our paths forever
And the sooner that we realize it, the better
And then I'll be with you and I won't scare myself
And I'll know what to do and I won't scare myself
And my thoughts will run and I won't scare myself
And I'll think of you and I won't scare myself
It's me I'm scaring
It's me I'm scaring
It's me I'm scaring
The lyrics of Thomas Dolby’s song “I Scare Myself” express the idea that the singer is overwhelmed by obsessive thoughts of someone that they are in love with, to the point that it scares them. The repetition of the phrase “I scare myself” throughout the song emphasizes the fear that the singer experiences. When the person they are thinking about is near, they feel calm and safe, but when they are apart, they become anxious and frightened. The singer compares their feelings to voodoo, suggesting that there is something mysterious and powerful that is beyond their control.
The lyrics suggest a lack of control over one’s thoughts and emotions when in love. This is emphasized by the line “And when they’re running, what can I do?” implying that the singer feels helpless in controlling their thoughts. However, when they are with the person they love, they feel more balanced, suggesting that the person brings them emotional stability.
The final lines of the song “It’s me I’m scaring” suggest that the singer is aware that their obsessive thoughts are not healthy or rational, but they cannot help feeling this way. It suggests an inner struggle to balance their feelings of love and fear, and the acknowledgment that their fear is caused by their own thoughts.
Line by Line Meaning
I scare myself just thinking about you
The mere thought of you scares me
I scare myself when I'm without you
When you're not around, I get scared
I scare myself, the moment that you're gone
I start getting scared as soon as you leave
I scare myself when I let my thoughts run
I get scared when my thoughts go out of control
And when they're running
When my thoughts are running wild
I keep thinking of you
I keep thinking about you
And when they're running
When my thoughts are going wild
What can I do?
What can I do to stop them?
I scare myself and I don't mean lightly
I get really scared, it's not a small thing
I scare myself, it can get frightening
It's so scary that it can become frightening
I scare myself to think what I could do
I'm even scared of what I might do
I scare myself, it's some kind of voodoo
It's like some magic or voodoo that scares me
And with that voodoo
And with that magic or voodoo
I keep thinking of you
I keep thinking about you
And with that voodoo
And with that magic or voodoo
What can I do?
What can I do to overcome it?
But it's so, so very different when we're together
Things are completely different when we're together
And I'm so, so, so much calmer, I feel better
I'm so much calmer, I feel more relaxed
'Cause the stars already crossed our paths forever
Our destiny is already written in the stars
And the sooner that we realize it, the better
And the sooner we come to terms with it, the better
And then I'll be with you and I won't scare myself
Once I'm with you, I won't be scared anymore
And I'll know what to do and I won't scare myself
I'll figure out what to do and I won't be scared anymore
And my thoughts will run and I won't scare myself
Even if my thoughts run wild, I won't be scared anymore
And I'll think of you and I won't scare myself
When I think of you, I won't be scared anymore
It's me I'm scaring
I'm the one scaring myself
It's me I'm scaring
I'm the one scaring myself
It's me I'm scaring
I'm the one scaring myself
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: Dan Hicks
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind