God Save The Jungle

Album: I Tell a Fly (2017)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This is a track from I Tell a Fly, a concept album about the voyages of refugees from Aleppo to Calais. The record loosely follows a pair of flies as they flit through various border scenes. On this track they visit the notorious refugee camps outside Calais in northern France, which are filled with desperate people who will use any means to cross the English Channel to the British Isles.
  • Q magazine commented that calling refugees "flies" sounds dehumanizing. Clementine responded: "When you're poor, people look down on you and walk away from you. Everyone is a fly; horseflies, butterflies, houseflies, different kinds of flies that do different things. In Ancient Greece, in painting, a fly symbolised healing."
  • Asked by HMV.com where the album title came from, Clementine replied:

    "Well, I always like it when there's a double meaning to the title of a book, I mean if you look at the title of the first album it's pretty much the same thing. I like to give my audience space to take what I've done and take it to another place. So that's the first thing I thought about and I ambitiously wrote about two flies wandering around the sphere of humanity, so that's how I came up with the title. I wanted it to be easier to remember as well, the album itself I wrote a lot, all the songs I really put a lot of effort into it, it takes a lot of listening to really understand I think, so I thought it was better to make the title a bit easier to grasp."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Marvin Gaye

Marvin GayeFact or Fiction

Did Marvin try out with the Detroit Lions? Did he fake crazy to get out of military service? And what about the cross-dressing?

Modern A Cappella with Peder Karlsson of The Real Group

Modern A Cappella with Peder Karlsson of The Real GroupSong Writing

The leader of the Modern A Cappella movement talks about the genre.

Gilby Clarke

Gilby ClarkeSongwriter Interviews

The Guns N' Roses rhythm guitarist in the early '90s, Gilby talks about the band's implosion and the side projects it spawned.

Kerry Livgren of Kansas

Kerry Livgren of KansasSongwriter Interviews

In this talk from the '80s, the Kansas frontman talks turning to God and writing "Dust In The Wind."

Don Brewer of Grand Funk

Don Brewer of Grand FunkSongwriter Interviews

The drummer and one of the primary songwriters in Grand Funk talks rock stardom and Todd Rundgren.

Timothy B. Schmit

Timothy B. SchmitSongwriter Interviews

The longtime Eagle talks about soaring back to his solo career, and what he learned about songwriting in the group.