(Themes & Thoughts) This Delicate Thing We’ve Made, Track 16: Neverland 

Overview

Okay so I was going to do songs in order but I might make exceptions when there’s something I really want to talk about.

Today we’ll talk about Neverland. I can’t wait months to cover this song, it’s too important a song in Darren’s catalogue to not go through sooner.

Themes and thoughts

For Neverland, we hear Darren taking on a slightly higher overall pitch for the entire song. Which makes sense, as it’s told from the perspective of his childhood.

Neverland talks about the period of time during Darren’s childhood where he was living at home with his abusive father. He’s talked about this many times over many interviews and songs over the years, but Neverland takes us deeper in to that situation and the time and place.

I remember seeing this song live for the first and only time I ever did. The song immediately breaks in to lyrics with a child’s nursery rhyme-like beat and Darren performed ‘patty cake’ with a backup dancer. 

“Long ago when Mercury descended high on the moon…

Far below 
When little hands are making shapes in the room
The shadows they dance
And they cheer up this place…”

Were taken in to Darren’s childhood room, he and his siblings are playing, colouring, having a typical kids day.

“The face
That’s staring through the tiny crack in the door
Eyes so wide
He’s never seen a women fall on the floor”

Never breaking tone, which I’ve always enjoyed about Darren’s music, it’s often here’s some trauma to a merry beat. One day we’ll talk about Euphoric Equation LOL.

The song quickly descends in to the chorus, 

“I swear daddy’s killed her this time
Should I made a rocket
Should I try to fly away
Should I make a hammer
Should I try to smash his face
Should I make a bullet
Should I try to shoot the gun
I’m sure the judge will let me off real soon”

Neverland is a powerful song about childhood limitless imagination and the lengths it will go to, to try and break a kid out of their terrible situation.

I think of Neverland as a ‘core’ Darren song, it’s one of those songs you listen to avidly if you really care about his personal stories. To this day I think it might be one of his most important songs.

The song flippantly talks about all the creative solutions little Darren has for saving himself and his family from his father.

If you want to travel down the ‘childhood father trauma’ timeline, arguably this song is a predecessor to ‘Two Beds and a Coffee Machine.’ 

The song is hugely striking in its tone versus lyrical contrasts. 

“He can draw an alien
He can come and take them home
He can draw a cartoon
He can draw a safety hatch
He can draw a hot bath
He can plug a toaster in
And wait till daddy’s nice and warm
Toss it in”

All meanwhile sounding like a literal nursery rhyme. 

It’s a song about wanting to save your family, but you’re too young, you don’t know how to fix these grown up issues, so you imagine the various solutions your kid brain can come up with. 

Obviously Darren never threw a toaster in his father’s bath, last I read they had a pretty reasonable relationship in adulthood. But I love the honesty of this song. 

It’s not a track I listen to a lot, heavy subject matter and all, but I appreciate the hell out of it as one of Darren’s most honest and important pieces of work. 

Tags

Videos

Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYS4DIcsbiY

Live performance, The Time Machine Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkiPy4FhXhE

Something missing?

Do you have a piece of interview footage, information or missing media related to ‘Neverland’? Please get in touch if you’d like me to add it to this page!

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