OK i should know this one but don't. I know most of the historicl references in this song, JKF the Russian Tsars etc but i'm still confused as to the secton about the troubadour who gets killed before he reaches Bombay. is this something to do with the British Raj or something else ?

i've heard a few different "explanations" of that one - some people say it refers to Gandhi,
some that it means hippie kids wandering around the East - but none of them make any sense to me.
(it's plural troubadours, though, who get killed before *they* reach Bombay)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-25 18:00 by with sssoul.

I actually heard the GNR version the other day and noticed that he said "politics" instead of "politesse".

Am I wrong, is it politics?

Are you asking if Axl Rose is correct? Axl needs to clean the orange fuzz out of his ears and get that word right.

i've always heard it as a plural yes, I just wrote about one to make it easier for myself.

it's the only part of the song that i've no idea what it is referring too. I've looked up Bombay and troubadour on wiki but neither of them reveal anything this could be referring too

[www.stevey.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-03-18 22:17 by schillid.

smile: politesse all the way, CindyC!

... i love the Rolling Stones (sorry, that just came bursting out!)
(but seriously: all that glorious raunch, and they're intelligent & articulate too!
i mean ... i love the Rolling Stones)

I heard that troubadours/Bombay line is aimed at the Beatles and their interest in Indian religion. It wasn't only George Harrison's interest. Mick was with all of them at the Maharishi in Wales but took the proverbial next train home. The Beatles wrote the complete White Album in India. George Epstein committed suicide while they were on their trip (no matter a real or a metaphysical "trip") to India/Indian religion.
Anyway, when I read the lyrics of SFTD I have the impression that it is rather the Devil who is amazed what mankind is able to do and not that we are his "tools".

>> the Beatles <<

... yeah sure, that makes a lot of sense: i guess the "killed before they reached Bombay" part
was a widely-overlooked element of the Paul Is Dead thing

yeah that makes sense.. a troubadour is a singer \ songwriter so that would fit, I can't find anything else about Bombay that would make sense

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with sssoul
and they're intelligent & articulate too!

sometimes...

thanks for the post, schillid! I wanted to do something like that for "Midnight Rambler" when I was in junior high school... I think I did a cover, in fact, a sort of adaptation of the IORR cover to the "Rambler" theme...

I always thought it had something to do with the Crusades - guess they didn't go to Bombay though.

Or maybe it's the mysterious Dr. Bombay from "Bewitched"!

"No Anchovies, Please"

>> guess they didn't go to Bombay though. <<

indeed they didn't. but hey i know: BomBay is just another in the long string
of BB's that the Stones have been puzzling us with for decades.

2 things are funny:
i) I don't know how that Smiley made his way into my posting.
ii) I hope OUR troubadours never get killed as they always play in Bombay (Mumbai)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>> I don't know how that Smiley made his way into my posting. <<

you used a quote mark followed by a close-parenthesis. it's been creeping unwanted into a lot of posts.
the smiley-designer was really not thinking at all when he/she came up with that one.

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with sssoul
>> I don't know how that Smiley made his way into my posting. <<

you used a quote mark followed by a close-parenthesis. it's been creeping unwanted into a lot of posts.
the smiley-designer was really not thinking at all when he/she came up with that one.

So true...
(I forget who said: "You can leave a extra space between your smiley-centric* punctuation marks and the close-parenthesis." )

Unless you prefer ")

*(";",":",""" etc .)

it's weird that it leaves the quote mark intact, so if i wanted that smiley
i couldn't get it without an extraneous quote mark - pisspoor smiley design all the way around.
besides which it's a different style than the others, isn't it. and rather lumpy-looking.

Quote
with sssoul
it's weird that it leaves the quote mark intact, so if i wanted that smiley
i couldn't get it without an extraneous quote mark - pisspoor smiley design all the way around.
besides which it's a different style than the others, isn't it. and rather lumpy-looking.

I agree...

It's dumb (It's not at all "concrete" )
It makes me think, "A double-quotation mark turned sideways doesn't even look like it's a winking eye over a sssmile.")

why are the smiley icons even needed? as if they're indecipherable in plain text? just another "feature" that slows the site down, not to mention our intelligence.

hm, to make matters worse, there's another way to form it: semi-colon + close-parenthesis
which is a better idea (since it's nowhere near as likely to crop up in normal writing) -
it's more logical, if one accepts colons as eyes - and it doesn't leave any extraneous punctuation lying around.
i vote we get this intrusive quote + close-parenthesis thing eliminated - LoFL, but now i feel sorry for it :E



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-25 20:53 by with sssoul.

Hi,

troubadours were british long-range fighter-bombers (Mosquitoes) flying gruelling missions over the Burmese jungle for the better part of the 2nd WW. Great novel on them is Purple Plain by Bates, was turned into a movie with Gregory Peck, but haven't seen that one. The name Troubadours refers to the sound of the engines you could here long before you could see the plane - strange metaphor, but if you are sitting in the jungle and you only hear the supply/support plane approaching, rather than seeing it, I suppose you could opt for a sensory metaphor... Dunno, if that is the reason or not, but as far as history geeks go, Troubadours in a modern context means fighter-bomber in Burma. Bombay - well, MJ was either weak on the geography bit there (poetic licence) or the reference is to the pilots returning from a tour of duty. Note that this explanation also keeps the chronology of 20th century history intact. Bolshevik revolution 1917 - Blitz 1939-1941 - Burmese jungle 1941-1945 - Kennedy murders 1963, 68.
As they say, though, these are only my two cents on the question...

cheers,
c77

p.s.: had to re-register for this... See what can motivate a history geek/Stones fan lazy-a** to finally re-register

>> Note that this explanation also keeps the chronology of 20th century history intact <<

finally a theory that almost makes sense! thanks c77 -
can you point me to any good online sources of more information about these planes, please and thank you kindly?
i found this one: [www.aviation-history.com] but can't judge if its any good or not

If you're refering to the chronology of the 20th c. as depicted in the song...

I think the line with Kennedy is sung before Bombay

Hi,

That website looks neat! Really good description, explains well why the Mosquito was used in Burma, where few planes had to fly many types of sorties. Unfortunately, I don't know any aviation history webpages (not really my thing), but as far as I remember, all details are correct, the many I wouldn't know about seem at least very-very credible - you probably don't need a better one, as that one is spot on. But you know, there is always wikipedia... [en.wikipedia.org] has a bit more info.
cheers,
c77

schillid,

yes, you're right... stand here humbled. Misremembering such a famous lyric - I am getting old & chronology argument bites the dust. Still, I think the WWII explanation makes sense overall.
But now I must take my anti-memory loss meds...
c55

No need to act or feel humbled, c77...
You explained -- clari77ified, if you will -- the whole Troubadour thing. The WWII explanation sounds correct...
Even when I was kid listening to SFTD, I think I understood that a Troubadour in Bombay probably was different from Donovan
in mod London in the late 60s... I wasn't sure who they were though.

I always liked SFTD's lyrics. Ditto the studio sound & arrangement.
(Thanks Jimmy Miller.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-25 22:22 by schillid.

yeah, Lucifer clearly isn't into a Linear-Time Thing in this lyric (cf the Hundred Years War reference as well) -
that of course doesn't weaken this cool theory any! so thanks again for posting it, clari1977,
and for the assessment of that Mosquito site, and for the wiki link. i'm still looking for a reference
where the planes are called troubadours - but i like the idea anyway! :E



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-25 22:45 by with sssoul.

For what it's worth...
That illustration above seems specific and literal. For the troubadour part, it shows ships in battle at sea.
?

Thanks for explaining clari77. Never thought of that.

I always thought Mick was referring to the religious violence in Bombay throughout the Sixties. I must admit I have never been able to figure out what 'troubadour' might have meant in that context.

REALLY dumb question...

If troubadours were FLIERS...
then how could anyone "lay traps" to kill them?
( (Esp. BEFORE they got to Bombay... Unless they were un-earthly traps ; ) !)