Pusher

Album: This Is All Yours (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This stripped-down acoustic number finds a lonely Joe Newman wishing for a lover as he needs a woman to push him through life.
  • Despite only living in Africa, the red-billed quelea is the world's most abundant wild bird species, with some estimates of the overall population being as large as 10 billion. Newman compares his loneliness to a solitary quelea as like the bird there's so many of us humans and yet he fears he will still end up alone. The quelea is also referenced in the This Is All Yours track "Bloodflood Pt.II."
  • The song's music video was directed by Thomas Rhazi. who also helmed The Dandy Warhols' "The Autumn Carnival" clip. The visual's concept came from Joe Newman, Rhazi commented: "The original idea was Joe's one. It was about a guy breaking his neck in a very poetic way. We spoke about the British Speaker's Corners – all those men and women in the late 70's preaching for their own reasons and beliefs. I wanted this film to be very humanist and as deep and simple as it could be."

    "The hero does the most excessive act because he can't do anything else," he continued, "shaking up people's minds in those dark and sad times."
  • The mysterious French speech that the man gives in the video translates as: "The truth, nor mercy, no pity, violence leads to murder after murder, we can't... We can't... We..ARRRRG."

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