Taro

Album: An Awesome Wave (2012)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song tells the tale of two twentieth century war photographers and their deaths in their line of work. Polish-German Gerda Taro died when a tank collided into the side of a car she was riding on during the Spanish Civil War. Taro's Hungarian companion, Robert Capa, met his end after stepping on a mine in a hostile war zone in Indo-China. "It was only after reading all this that I discovered she was his love interest and they were engaged," frontman Joe Newman told the Guardian. "I liked those two and that story. That really gripped me and I really trawled through as much as I could to get a good song out of it."
  • Speaking to NME about this tune, Newman explained: "The song's about that period just before he steps on the landmine. The two seconds before and two seconds after. It's a four-minute song about four seconds."
  • The song features additional vocals from St Ronan's School Choir, who are based in an independent co-educational prep school near Hawkhurst in Kent. The children also feature on the An Awesome Wave track "Bloodflood."

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