About The Song
“The Chauffeur” is a song by English pop rock band Duran Duran. It is the ninth and final song on their second album Rio, released on 10 May 1982.
The lyrics of the song were first written by Simon Le Bon as a poem, which he later used when he was auditioning for the band in 1980. The lyrics were later used in “The Chauffeur”.
“The Chauffeur” has been described as a dark-gothic romantic track with the help of keyboards from Nick Rhodes when recording of the song first started. AllMusic reviewer Donald Guarisco wrote that “Simon Le Bon croons the lyrics in a lascivious fashion against a purely electronic soundscape composed of icy synthesisers and throbbing drum machines” and that the song “avoids conventional pop song structure in favour of staccato phrases that meander high and low in a dreamy fashion”. British music magazine Classic Pop described the song as a “sinister synth-infused comedown”.
Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger calls it a dub record: “The bass drops out, the beats drop in, the skinny digital tick-tock start-stop of them is interweaved with found sounds (casino chips dropping, the creak of metal, looped and warped speech) and more beat hiss, the last two minutes bring the flute back, echo it.” Ewing also highlights other unuusual elements in the track, including the “the skronky sound of a guitar pretending to crack” at 0:15, the bass (which “rears, buzzes [and] purrs” throughout) glitching at 1:00 and 1:08, and the synth flute solo at 2:15 that switches the song into an art rock-styled march.
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Lyrics
Out on the tar plains, the glides are moving
All looking for a new place to drive
You sit beside me, so newly charming
Sweating dew drops glisten fresh in your side
And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind
The front of your dress all shadowy lined
And the droning engine throbs in time with your beating heart
Way down the lane away, living for another day
The aphids swarm up in the drifting haze
Swim seagull in the sky towards that hollow Western Isle
My envied lady holds you fast in her gaze
And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind
The front of your dress all shadowy lined
And the droning engine throbs in time with your beating heart
And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind
The front of your dress all shadowy lined
And the droning engine throbs in time with your beating heart
Sing blue silver
And watching lovers part, I feel you smiling
What glass splinters lie so deep in your mind?
To tear out from your eyes with a thought to stiffen brooding lies
And I’ll only watch you leave me further behind
And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind
The front of your dress all shadowy lined
And the droning engine throbs in time with your beating heart
And the sun drips down bedding heavy behind
The front of your dress all shadowy lined
And the droning engine throbs in time with your beating heart
Sing blue silver
Sing, sing blue silver
Known as Albert Schweitzer
There’s more to this kind of camouflage? More than just colour and shape
Who’s crawling now in the tall grass near my tent?
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