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Roxy Music’s Do The Strand

•    The opening song on Roxy Music's sophomore album For Your Pleasure is a theatrical homage to a fictional dance craze called "The Strand." As is typical for Roxy Music, the lyrics contain numerous art and cultural references. Frontman Bryan Ferry explained to The Mail on Sunday in 2009:

•    "There was a particular genre of songs based on dance crazes, like 'The Twist,' 'The Jerk,' and 'The Madison Time' etc. which I found amusing, and 'Do the Strand' was a nod in their direction, although it attempted to be more highbrow, or a bit further uptown, in as much as I wanted to turn 'The Sphinx and Mona Lisa/Lolita and Guernica' into a rhyming couplet."

•    Ferry revealed in the same interview with The Mail on Sunday that this song was inspired by Broadway standards songwriter Cole Porter. "I had long been a fan of Cole Porter and other songwriters from that era, and in particular I admired the sophistication of their lyrics," he said. "'Do the Strand' was an attempt to emulate that style of writing, with a lot of cultural references that I found interesting."

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/roxy-music/do-the-strand

(From movie: I’m thinking of ending things. Poem by Eva H.D.: “Bonedog”)

Coming home is terrible, ,
whether the dogs lick your face, , Or not, ,
whether you have a wife, , 
or just a wife-shaped loneliness; ; waiting for you; ;
Coming home; ; is terribly lonely; ;
so that you think; ;
of the oppressive ; ;barometric pressure; ;
back; ;where you have just come from; ;
with fondness; ;
because everything’s worse; ;
once you’re home; ;
You think of the vermin; ;
clinging, to the grass stalks; ;
long hours on the road; ;
roadside assistance, and ice creams; ;
and the peculiar shapes; ;
of certain clouds; ;and silences; ;
with longing; ;because you did not want to return; ;
Coming home is; ;; ;; ;
just awful; ;
And the home-style silences; ;and clouds,
contribute ; ;to nothing
but the general malaise; ;
Clouds; ;such as they are; ;
are in fact suspect; ;
and made; ; from a different material; ;
then those; ; you left behind; ;
You yourself; ;were cut; ;
from a different; ;cloudy; ;cloth; ;
returned; ;
remaindered; ;
ill-met by moonlight; ;
unhappy to be back,
slack in all the wrong spots; ;
seamy suit of clothes; ;
dishrag-ratty; ;worn; ;

You return home; ;
moon-landed,; ;foreign; ;
the Earth’s gravitational pull; ;
an effort now redoubled,; ;
dragging your shoelaces loose,; ;
and your shoulders;; ;
etching deeper
the stanza of worry; ;on your forehead.
You return home deepened; ;
a parched well linked to tomorrow; ;
by a frail strand of; ;
Anyway; ;

You sigh; ;into the onslaught; ;of identical days; ;
One might as well; ;at a time; ;
Well; ;
Anyway; ;
You’re back; ;
The sun goes up and down; ;
like a tired whore; ;
the weather immobile; ;
like a broken limb; ;
while you just; ;keep; ;getting; ;older; ;
Nothing moves but; ;
the shifting tides; ;of salt in your body; ;
Your vision blears; ;
You carry your weather with you; ;
the big blue whale; ;
a skeletal darkness; ;
You come back; ;
with X-ray vision; ;
Your eyes; ;have become; ;a hunger; ;
You come home; ;with your mutant gifts; ;
to a house of bone; ;
Everything you see now; ;
all of it; ;bone.