Terracotta Warrior

Album: Odludek (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This slice of baroque pop was originally written by Jimi Goodwin in the late 2000s. He submitted it to Doves for their 2010 Best Of album, but didn't make the cut. Goodwin told Under The Radar magazine: "When I started making Odludek, I remembered this and worked it up some more. I knew it would be the perfect opener for an album. With those big brass stabs, it's like a clarion call, a call to arms. The verses are like a love poem to the music, in this case, music: my love and passion, an elemental force."
  • The Terracotta Army was the buried clay army of Qin Shi Huang, who became the first Emperor of all China in 221 BC. They were constructed to protect him in the afterlife after his death. The figures were discovered in 1974 by farmers digging a well looking for underground water and over a thousand terracotta warriors and horses have been uncovered since then.
  • The song opens the Odludek album, Jimi Goodwin's first solo project. He told NME: "Odludek Is a Polish word I picked up that means various things: loner, Pilgrim clock, traveler, permit or even misanthrope. It's perfect for me doing this without the safety net of collaborators, without (Doves' Williams brothers) Jez and Andy."

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