Chocolate

Album: Music For Cars (2013)
Charted: 19 80
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Songfacts®:

  • The 1975 are a British Alternative Rock band from Manchester, England. The group who all met at school comprise vocalist Matthew Healy, guitarist Adam Hann, drummer George Daniel and bassist Ross MacDonald. This dreamy guitar-laced tune is the lead single from their third EP, Music For Cars, which was released on March 4, 2013 via Dirty Hit Records. It became their first song to chart in the UK Top 20.
  • The 1975 took their name from a book of beat poetry that Matthew Healy found in Ibiza. He explained to Somekindofawesome: "I met an artist on holiday. It sounds a bit more bohemian, idealistic than maybe it was but I met him and ended up leaving with a book that must have been treated almost like a diary by a previous owner, so when I read it there was all these mad scribblings and notes, and the person had dated it 'the 1st of June The 1975.'"

    The writings and the use of the word "the" in front of a year, "1975" really impacted on Healy and the band's name was born.
  • The song finds Healy taking on the persona of a gangsta as he sings about fleeing the police in his car with a stash of weed. (Chocolate is their euphemism for marijuana.) Matt Healy explained to The Richie T Experience: "It's a love letter to the authority figures in our town – you know about small town boredom, both by the kids and by the police."
  • This won BBC Radio 1's A List Vote, which was a 2013 poll of the station's listeners regarding the best song of the preceding five years. The 100 most played tracks on Radio 1 since 2009 were put forward for the vote, with 1975's hit tune coming out on top. The tune was closely followed by Bastilles's "Pompeii" at #2 and Fall Out Boy's "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)" at #3.

Comments: 2

  • AnonymousI completely agree with you. These lyrics are a reference to the unrest in Wales during the early 1840s.
  • Teresa from WalesI believe that 'Chocolate' by The 1975 contains loose references to the 'Rebecca Riots' that took place in South and Mid Wales between 1839 and 1843 as an uprising against the poverty and oppressive taxation imposed on Welsh rural folk at that time. The male rioters dressed in their womenfolk's clothes, and quoted the bible; Genesis 24:60, which concerns the biblical figure Rebecca and her children. The lines, "With guns hidden under our petticoats..." and "Said Rebecca ought to know.." seem to indicate a connection. I would be interested if any of the band members would like to confirm or deny the link. More about the Rebecca Riots can be found on Wikipedia.
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