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.”
White City
Thomas Dolby Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Keith was the sole inhabitant
Keith woke beside the fountain
From his dreams of china mountains
Far from the clatter of these autobanks
That keep chucking up money
It turned into the kind of joke
White City
White City
Keith talked in alphanumerals
Keith talked in alphanumerals
Keith built a drug cathedral
Shape of an octahedron
Where he could hide from young Orwellians
Who would trample their brothers
A thin white powder film on everything
But soot is the colour of
The White City
White City
White City
So, are you happy
With this vision you've created?
Should have known you'd never rest
Til we're all incinerated
And you know you are the best
The opening lyrics of Thomas Dolby's song "White City" paint a picture of a desolate urban landscape with a single inhabitant named Keith. Keith wakes up beside a fountain after dreaming of mountains in China, far from the noise of the city's "autobanks" that generate money endlessly. The image of Keith as the solitary figure in an otherwise empty and mechanized world is a powerful one, evoking a sense of isolation and helplessness.
The narrative then shifts to Keith's actions in building a "drug cathedral" in the shape of an octahedron, where he can hide from the "young Orwellians" who he believes will trample their own brothers. The lyrics suggest that Keith is a visionary and a risk-taker, willing to escape from conformity and create his own world where he can be safe. However, the choice of "drug cathedral" as the centerpiece of Keith's refuge hints at a darker side, suggesting that Keith may be escaping into addiction or other forms of self-destruction.
The final lyrics bring the song's themes to a climax, with the singer directly addressing Keith and asking him if he is happy with the vision he has created. The repeated refrain of "White City" punctuates the sense of despair and danger, suggesting that the city is suffocating and inescapable. Overall, the song is a powerful commentary on the dangers of modernity and the human impulse to escape into alternative worlds, even if those worlds may be self-destructive.
Line by Line Meaning
Keith was the sole inhabitant
There was no one else except Keith living in the area
Keith woke beside the fountain
Keith woke up next to the fountain
From his dreams of china mountains
He dreamt of China Mountains and that was why he woke up beside the fountain
Far from the clatter of these autobanks
He was far from the noise of banks that make money
That keep chucking up money
Banks regularly create money continually
It turned into the kind of joke
The situation had evolved into a situation that wasn't funny
That Keith feels isn't funny
Keith did not find it amusing
White City
The name of the city is White City
Keith talked in alphanumerals
Keith has now started talking in alphanumerals
Keith built a drug cathedral
Keith has constructed a drug cathedral
Shape of an octahedron
The drug cathedral was in the shape of an octahedron
Where he could hide from young Orwellians
It was a safe place for him to hide from young Orwellians
Who would trample their brothers
Siblings were not safe from the actions of the young Orwellians
A thin white powder film on everything
Everything was covered in a thin white powder film
But soot is the colour of
However, there is soot everywhere
The White City
The city was still known as White City
So, are you happy
Are you content?
With this vision you've created?
Are you pleased with what you have envisioned?
Should have known you'd never rest
It should have been anticipated that you would never relax
Til we're all incinerated
Until everyone is burnt alive
And you know you are the best
You are aware that you are the best
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: Thomas Morgan Robertson
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind