Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - International Lyrics

Song so near from our hearts , now and forever

Opening radio sample: "The youth anti-imperialist tribune was also addressed by a young girl
from Nicaragua whose hands had been cut off at the wrists by the former
Somoza guards."

The Somoza family ruled Nicaragua from 1936 to 1979, heavily supported by successive US governments.
"Anastasio Somoza García assumed the presidency after luring rebel leader Augusto César Sandino to peace talks and murdering Sandino soon afterwards. Anastacio amended the Nicaraguan Constitution, concentrating power in his hands and installed his relatives and cronies in top government positions.[1] Although the Somoza only held the presidency for 30 of those 43 years, they were the power behind the other presidents of the time through their control of the National Guard. The differences in the Somozas' ruling style only reflected their adaptation to the U.S.-Latin American policy.[2] Their regime was overthrown by the Sandinista National Liberation Front during the Nicaraguan Revolution.

For more than four decades in power, the Somoza family accumulated wealth through corporate bribes, industrial monopolies, land grabbing, and foreign aid siphoning. By the 1970s, the family owned 23 per cent of land in Nicaragua while the family wealth reached $533 million, which already amounted to half of Nicaragua's debt and 33 per cent of the country's 1979 GDP."

"Torture was regularly used in the interrogation of political prisoners. Common practices included blows, hanging from the wrists,
electric shocks, immersion of the head in water, hooding or blindfolding, exhausting physical exercises, keeping naked detainees in airconditioned rooms at very low temperatures, and food and drink deprivation. In some cases, prisoners with bullet wounds received no medical attention. In many cases, prisoners died as a result of torture. The nails and eyes of some victim s were pulled out while others had their tongues cut off. Prisoners were kept in crowded and unsanitary conditions. Minors and adults lived indiscriminately in the same detention centres, although the Constitution provided that minors should be detained in rehabilitation centres."*

Although I've been a fan of OMD's work since 'Electricity' was released in 1980, I long regarded the Dazzle Ships album as underproduced and a gimmicky homage to Kraftwerk's far-superior 1975 album, Radioactivity. After hearing this song again, I still feel that this sample was a rather insensitive, possibly culturally imperialist use of this news report. The girl's name is never given in the lyrics or in the album's liner notes. The words themselves are, so far as I can tell, misheard in the lyrics published on various sites. It would be a responsible act if Andy and Paul were to take the time to trace the girl's name and perhaps add it on their own website.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somoza_family
**https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/1980/01/Nicaragua-human-rights-yesterday-and-today-fact-finding-mission-report-1980-eng.pdf

That's odd. I just randomly revisited this great track and you posted/edited not two hours before. Don't have time to read your whole post now, but will. 📍

There's always one moralist looking to score sanctimony points.

Fucking in love

I have the blue cover album. What does than mean?

That you have a blue one. There's no other difference.

Wunderschön

2:56 posiblemente la mejor ejecución vocal en una canción de Andy McCluskey,...

fantasticos