From the recording Family Portraits (Volume V)
"Island Dwellers" is about the idea of paradise. Our culture is suffused with references to paradise islands...and the idea of living in a place like that is always idealised But does the reality match up to the idea? This song is about that question.
Lyrics
Island Dwellers
You take a few flights and then for the last few miles
You’re on a yacht like Duran Duran’s Rio video
Club Tropicana is near as dammit, just as advertised
You can tan like Wham!
And the drinks are heavily subsidised
Robinson Crusoe
Jean Jacques Rousseau’s romantic hero
At least had someone he could talk to
Tom Hanks in Castaway
Had no Man Friday with whom to play
Wilson, the volleyball, didn’t have much to say
Oh, you and I
Could live in paradise
Conducive silence, in the sun
On a desert island
Hemmed in by horizons
Condemn ourselves to having fun!
Very far away from the nearest
megalopolis
There’s a hut on the beach selling drinks out of plastic cups
Rum and coke twice please
You’re wearing your bikini
Blue Curacao liquor
Parasol in my Martini
On Rumrunner’s isle, Jack Sparrow had a narrow
Escape with Elizabeth by his side
Very ironic, the Swiss Family Robinson
Hailed from Bern, which is miles from the ocean
Oh, you and I
Could live in paradise
Conducive silence, in the sun
On a desert island
Hemmed in by horizons
Condemn ourselves to having fun!
Rainy London
What a bummer!
I need to live in endless summer?
Rainy London
Leaves me wondering
If I could chase a place in the sun?
Oh, you and I
Could live in paradise
Conducive silence, in the sun
On a desert island
Hemmed in by horizons
Condemn ourselves to having fun!
Here we are now
Stranded in heaven
Shipwrecked in our dreams
Here we are now
Marooned in heaven
Things aren’t what they seem