Well in just a few moments we're off to Hawaii to join Steve McGarrett and the team in tonight's adventure...
The
eeriest and most
sinister of the tracks on the eerie and sinister album
Reproduction by the
Human League. We're talking
hypnotic Old Human League here, this is Joy Division stuff, none of your post-split Phil and the girlies going ooh-wah-bop. This is
spooky and evil. It begins with a television announcer in the distance, then an aeroplane landing.
Announcing flight... from...
It then describes a
curse on the land as a fairly routine police matter for McGarrett, but abruptly switches into a horrifying, cruel, echoing account of how the Circus of Death is leaving a trail across the land. It doesn't really say what kind of
death, just conveys the impression that it's some appalling indescribable horror .
The narcotic that forges their union
Is a substance known only to one
To the clown it is known as Dominion
It's a secret that he'll give to none
Now this being pop music and all there are probably references in here, and as they actually mention
drugs of some nature (a loathsome, evil, irresistible nature) there might be some more mundane
subtext in here; but frankly I don't want it. The story stands alone, timeless, twisted, beyong comprehension. I don't want the air let out. I like being creeped out by things from beyond my ken: in this song, at least.
The drug which gives a clown power
Means the Circus can never be stopped
And his dream can go on unhindered
Until the last human being has dropped
The first and last parts are sung in a weak,
fearful way; but the central verse I've quoted here is in a
cynical, cruel tone, and amazingly disturbing if you have any predisposition to a
fear of clowns. And who hasn't? So what the
hell does it mean?
It tapped into my primal fears created an early age by the Doctor Who episode 'The Celestial Toymaker'.