Turn It On Salvador is a song by Toy Matinee, written by Kevin Gilbert. It was written in memory of Salvador Dali. The song is pleasant and upbeat, although the lyrics are strange... if you're not familiar with Dali's work, the song sounds downright psychotic.

The music is filled with references to Dali's artwork and habits, and I've marked out the ones I know... I'm sure that there are several that I don't get.

Turn It On Salvador

Turn it on Salvador
Drag the bound priest across the floor1
Skin to shed, God is dead, what to do, so are you
Are you?
Wake them up, shake 'em up
Death and a Gala Premiere2

Turn it on Salvador
Brutally offensive, but never a bore
Ants in hands1, no demands, eying out a point of view
Or two3
Bang them out, hang them up
Nothing is what it appears

Chorus:
Didn't he say how he likes to make the holes?
Time melts away4 while he tries to make the holes
Turn it on Salvador

Turn it off Salvador
Holy rotting donkey carcass1 butterfly5 eeeeee...
Even tied, eggs you fried6, out of luck
What the (Some 15th Century German word)
(Some 15th Century German word)
Books are guns, biking nuns
Ants, sirs, they crawl from the wounds1

Chorus

Da da da da da da...

Chorus


  1. These passages are all references to Un Chien Andalou, a movie that Salvador Dali co-created with Luis Bunuel in 1928. The entire movie was an experiment in shocking imagery, and include shots such as a donkey dragging a priest, and ants swarming around a man's hand which has a cut on it.
  2. This phrase is not what it seems, as most of Dali's paintings are. Gala was the name of Salvador Dali's wife. She was an inspiration to him, and appears in many of his paintings, often nude.
  3. Many of Dali's surrealist works use separate pieces of a painting to make a larger image that isn't obvious at first.
  4. This refers to both The Persistence of Memory, his most well-known work, and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, its sequel.
  5. One of his later paintings is Paysage aux Papillons, a pleasant painting featuring two butterflies and their shadows.
  6. This refers to Eggs on a Plate Without a Plate, one of his earlier surrealist paintings.

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