A Couple Can’t Avoid a Doomed Romance in “Greek Tragedy” by The Wombats

In The Wombats’ 2015 song, “Greek Tragedy”, a couple faces the dilemma of a failing relationship. We aren’t told what exactly went wrong or who’s done what to whom. But that’s not the point of writing a tragedy. The genre exists to dramatize the many ways humans experience grief.

And the Liverpool band opens the scene with violent karaoke.

Smashing Mics in Karaoke Bars

Singer Matthew Murphy describes a chaotic affair. Initially, the chaos excites him. But he knows the couple can only temporarily avoid the tumult that awaits.

We’re smashing mics in karaoke bars,
You’re running late with half your make-up on.
This method acting might pay our bills,
But soon enough, there’ll be a different role to fill.

Thinking he can will a successful relationship with charts and graphs, the narrator soon finds out he can’t control it. He may try to use reason to save the romance, but he wasn’t reasoned into this in the first place.

I love this feeling, but I hate this part,
I wanted this to work so much, I drew up our plans on a chart.
Cars are flipping, I’m in hot pursuit,
My character’s strong, but my head is loose.

She makes him feel as though he’s in a trance-like state. It’s pure euphoria, which pushes reason aside and replaces it with emotional bliss, fear, desire. Then they blur into nothingness as the relationship spirals toward disintegration.

She hits like ecstasy,
Comes up and bangs the sense out of me.

There’s Just No Landing Pad

“Greek Tragedy” is filled with dramatic irony. The listener knows where this relationship is headed while the characters remain in the dark. Or, to recycle the acting metaphor from the first verse, they portray a couple that has a chance of avoiding the inevitable.

The tarot cards say it’s not so bad,
And the blades rotate, there’s just no landing pad.

Still, there’s no landing pad. There’s just spiraling out of control until the thing finally crashes and burns. This story begins by giving away the ending. But the audience watches anyway because there’s something intriguing about seeing people hurl toward calamity.

Photo by Per Ole Hagen/Redferns