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The Dictator Decides

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2016
Original album - Super
Producer - Stuart Price
Subsequent albums - Inner Sanctum
Other releases - (none)

Following an appropriately ominous, militaristic, jackbooted march-beat introduction somewhat reminiscent of "I'm Not Scared," the main body of this song is based in part on a brief segment of a composition by the baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi. (See my first annotation below for details.) It has the interesting premise that many if not most dictators find themselves essentially trapped in their dictatorial stations and may sometimes long to "get away from it all," escaping to a more private, less burdensome life—and, it goes without saying, still survive. After all, history doesn't have a good record of dictators retiring to write their memoirs.

The lyrics have their origin in a poem that Neil had previously written about "a sad dictator" who had inherited his position from his father but didn't really like being a dictator himself. While working with Chris on this new "Vivaldi-based" music, Neil originally began singing lyrics for a song that would've been titled "Why Do I Love You?" But Chris didn't like how that song was turning out. Neil then looked through his files of unused verse and realized that his "sad dictator" lyrics would fit quite nicely with the somewhat martial feel of the music they were working on. So Neil set about adapting those lyrics for this song. The original title was indeed "The Sad Dictator," but then (on account of the already-composed "Sad Robot World") they changed it to "The Dictator's Lament," a title that it retained until quite late in the process.

Sung from a first-person perspective with the unnamed dictator himself as the narrator, the lyrics suggest—with more than a touch of irony—that he's actually a pretty nice, ordinary guy. (Then again, I would imagine most if not all dictators actually do think highly of themselves, perhaps indeed as "nice guys," if not ordinary.) The lyrics take the form of a litany of the downsides of unquestioned leadership. In succession, he longs for relief from:

being surrounded by yes-men who never contradict him
the pressure of always having "to appear to be strong" (despite personally feeling "weak")
constantly dealing with conspiracies and political prisoners
coping with the military and the generals who keep him in power
having to give speeches (when he acknowledges he's actually not very good at it)
oppressing his people ("I've lost any will to threaten or kill")
personal fear ("I'd rather that you didn't shoot me / But I'd quite understand if you did")

The ultimate irony is brilliantly summarized in the song's concluding couplet:

If you get rid of me
We can all be free

In other words, the dictator considers himself as much a prisoner of his regime as any of those who live under his sway. Perhaps not so incidentally, the song's title, "The Dictator Decides," doesn't appear anywhere in the lyrics, which begs the question—just what is it that the dictator has decided? That, however, seems pretty obvious: he's decided he doesn't want to be dictator anymore.

Annotations

As stated above, Neil and Chris have noted that this song is built in part upon arpeggios and a chord sequence borrowed from eight bars of a piece by the Italian baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). The chords of the verses are based upon Vivaldi's Introduzioni al Miserere - Filiae Maestae Jerusalem, the year of composition of which is uncertain. (The chord structure for the rest of the song was composed by Chris.) Vivaldi is best known for his suite of violin concertos* The Four Seasons, a perennial favorite that has come to be regarded among the "greatest hits" of classical music.

*Yes, I know full well that the traditional plural of "concerto" is "concerti." But that's Italian, and I'm writing in English. It's a rule that I savor breaking.
I've already noted that history doesn't have a good record of dictators retiring to write their memoirs. This observation is of course hardly new with me. It actually dates back more than 2,500 years. The ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus—none of whose works survive today but who was sometimes quoted by other ancient writers—is said to have observed that "The strangest thing to see is an aged tyrant." In other words, tyrants tend not to have long lives. History has offered some notable exceptions (Stalin, for instance, lived to be 74 after three decades in power), but they're the proverbial exceptions that prove the rule. And even with those long-lived exceptions, they never "retire" from their dictatorships; they generally either die while still in power or are overthrown and killed or, at best, exiled.
Although Neil has said that this song is about no one dictator is particular, he has also specifically mentioned both North Korea and Syria as inspirations. The line "They officially adore me and my father before me" brings to mind both Kim Jong-un, the current "supreme leader" of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, aka North Korea, and Bashar al-Assad, the titular president of Syria.

North Korea is a rare case of a modern dictatorship in which leadership has, for three generations now, been passed down from father to son, as in a monarchy: from Kim Il-sung (dictator 1948-1994) to Kim Jong-il (1994-2011) and now to Kim Jong-un (2011-present). (This has come to be known as "the Kim dynasty.") Certain other aspects of the song lend credence to this "Kim connection," while others would seem to refute it. For example, Kim Jong-un is reportedly rather socially awkward, which would seem to be reflected in some of the statements made by the song's narrator. On the other hand, he has apparently shown no reluctance to order the deaths of officials who have disagreed with him, which contradicts the narrator's apparent weariness at being surrounded by yes-men.

Similarly, Syria's Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father Hafez al-Assad in 2000 as the country's president and leader of the Ba'ath Party. He, too, has sometimes been described as being somewhat socially awkward. He originally had no plans whatsoever to enter the governmental arena, but instead studied to become an ophthalmologist. Circumstances, however—the unexpected death of his older brother in an automobile accident—dictated otherwise. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
A few commentators have suggested U.S. business mogul and, at the time this song was released, presidential candidate Donald Trump as a possible inspiration for this song. At first that seemed extremely unlikely given the fact that Neil and Chris almost certainly wrote it well before Trump's candidacy had become seriously viable or even well known. Besides, President Trump hasn't proven himself a "dictator" (yet, and hopefully never), despite his penchant for striking poses that some people find disturbingly reminiscent of Benito Mussolini, some of the seemingly positive things he has said about Vladimir Putin and other autocrats, and his own apparently autocratic inclinations. Whatever the case, since this song is avowedly about no one dictator in particular, any and all dictators—or would-be dictators—can conceivably fill the narrator's shoes. Neil did observe, however, in One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem, that the lines "My facts are invented / I sound quite demented / So deluded it beggars belief" seemed increasingly apropos with regard to Trump as they toured the States during the Autumn 2016 presidential campaign.
The sampled cheer repeated three times near the start of the track is the "manse" cry that in Korea equates (but doesn't literally translate) to "Long life!" or even "Hooray!" in English. It has been used on many occasions to acclaim Kim Jong-un as well as both his father and grandfather.
"So deluded it beggars belief" – Non-native speakers of English (and no doubt many native speakers as well) may be perplexed by this use of the word "beggar" as a verb. But it's quite an old usage, dating at least as far back as Shakespeare and the late 1500s. To beggar something is to make it into a figurative beggar—that is, to impoverish it. So to "beggar belief" is to impoverish belief—to strain it beyond its ordinary means. If something beggars belief, it can hardly be believed at all.
"The generals'll go barmy" – The word "barmy" is British slang meaning "mad" or "crazy."

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

Mixer: Stuart Price
- Album version (4:50)
- Inner Sanctum CD live version in medley with "Inside a Dream" (9:20)

List cross-references

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