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.”
Valley Of The Mind's Eye
Thomas Dolby Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Que le monde a changé depuis ma derniere lettre.
Ainsi ce soir je prends ma plume,
non pas pour me merveiller
sur l'epoque ou nous vivons,
mais pour declarer l'amour
qui est dans mon coeur.
I would ride through the night to you
There's a moon on the rise
And I'm drawn on the tide to you
And I will be with you
And I will stay with you
And I will dream with you
If you need me to
Anytime, anywhere
In a corner of your mind's eye
Planets will cool, Josie
Tyrants will rule, Josie
I will be here for you
Oceans divide, Josie
Stars will collide, Josie
Nations will rise and fall
And never see the world through these eyes
Dreams of falling - dreams of flying
A man who never dreams goes slowly mad
The dawn of science, the age of reason
This is the voyage of the mind's eye
And I will be with you
I will stay with you
And I will dream with you
If you need me to
Anytime, anywhere
In a corner of your mind's eye
In a corner of your mind's eye
The song "Valley of the Mind's Eye" by Thomas Dolby is a beautiful tribute to the power of love and the human mind. The song is about a man who is deeply in love with Josephine, and he expresses his feelings through a letter. He mentions how much the world has changed since his last letter to her, but his love for her has remained the same. He talks about how he will always be there for her, no matter what, and he will dream with her anytime and anywhere, in a corner of her mind's eye. The man is aware of the changing world, and how it is affected by tyrants, oceans, and nations, but he is sure that their love will remain constant and the strength of their connection will surpass all obstacles. The bridge of the song speaks to the importance of dreams and the human imagination, and how they can help us navigate through life despite its challenges.
The lyrics of the song are poetic and nuanced, and the melody is equally lovely. In some interpretations, the song is seen as a depiction of the power of the human mind to dream and imagine, and its ability to transcend time and space. Others see it as a reflection of the experiences of people in a rapidly changing world, where love and connections take on even more significance. Overall, "Valley of the Mind's Eye" is a beautiful ode to the human spirit and the power of love.
Line by Line Meaning
If a song was a road
If my feelings for you could be conveyed through a song, I would travel to be with you.
I would ride through the night to you
I would travel in pursuit of being with you, no matter the hour.
There's a moon on the rise
Tonight, there is a bright and clear moon in the sky.
And I'm drawn on the tide to you
I find myself hopelessly attracted to you, as if I'm being pulled by a tide that's out of my control.
And I will be with you
I promise to be by your side.
And I will stay with you
My presence by your side will not waver.
And I will dream with you
I want to share and create new stories and dreams with you.
If you need me to
I'm always here to provide my support and care whenever you need me.
Anytime, anywhere
I'm willing to be wherever you are, whenever that may be.
In a corner of your mind's eye
I'll remain with you as a memory, even if we're apart.
Planets will cool, Josie
Time will pass and the world will undergo changes.
Tyrants will rule, Josie
There will always be oppressive people in positions of power.
I will be here for you
Despite the world's changes, I will always be here for you.
Oceans divide, Josie
Physical distance may separate us, like oceans between two lands.
Stars will collide, Josie
Sometimes the universe's natural order may be disrupted or chaotic.
Nations will rise and fall
Political and social powers may shift or disappear over time.
And never see the world through these eyes
Despite the world's changes or shifts, people may never recognize or understand each other's unique perspectives or experiences.
Dreams of falling - dreams of flying
We may dream of soaring to great heights or of losing ourselves in a fall or loss of control.
A man who never dreams goes slowly mad
The imaginative world and poetry of dreams are a vital part of maintaining one's sanity and hope.
The dawn of science, the age of reason
The progression of history and human society through the scientific and practical applications of reason and knowledge.
This is the voyage of the mind's eye
This journey and reflection of life is an internal, personal experience.
Contributed by Brody A. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Christina Rae Martinez
If a song was a road
I would ride through the night to you
there s a moon on the rise
and I m drawn on the tide to you.
And I will be with you
and I will stay with you
and I will dream with you
if you need me too
anytime, anywhere
in a corner of your mind s eye...<3
Hylia
I remember seeing the Mind's Eye trilogy on PBS as a teenager back in the Nineties, and this song always stayed with me. It's so lovely, and I'm glad to be able to hear it whenever I please, now.
WebX
I hadn't heard this song SINCE the 90's, and it kept coming back in my head randomly for the past 2 decades. I had to remember what it was from and backtrack from there, and just found it again. Found out very quickly why it stuck for 2 decades.
kevinski1966
I totally have the same feelings. Awesome song!!!!
googleisaspy
The words in French translated to English - My dearest Josephine,How the world has changed since last I wrote. So tonight I take up my pen, not to marvel at these wondrous times, but to declare the love that is in my heart.
Sean Reilly
I love it
Philip
Neat, somewhere around 25 years after first hearing this I now know what the words mean.
Josephine Joy Manno
Ahhhhhh💕🎶
Kevin D
I have not heard this song in ages. A lost classic. Thanks for posting.
Coffee Cat
Always one of my favorite songs from the Mind's Eye videos.
Captain Skywarn
Coffee Cat: Yes, mine too. A great song with great lyrics, and from a great series! Yet this will also stand on its own as a great music video. 😊