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King of Rome

Writers - Tennant/Lowe
First released - 2009
Original album - Yes
Producer - Brian Higgins, Xenomania
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - promo single (in Brazil only)

It takes a few listens, but it grows on you. One of the album's more somber tracks—and arguably its most gorgeous—it's been described by one reviewer as "world-weary." The German word Weltschmerz is perhaps appropriate: a pervasive awareness of the limitations of the world in satisfying one's deepest needs and the nagging sadness that arises from it.

And if I were the King of Rome
I couldn't be more tragic
My fate to roam so far from home
In search of my lost magic

The central source of the narrator's sadness, however, stems from one person in particular, an erstwhile lover who has left him behind. "Oh, baby, come back to me," he cries, desperate in his loneliness. Even just hearing his voice would help: "Oh, baby, call me." Neil makes his character's despair physically palpable when he sings lines that begin "I long…" and "I hunger…." All the wonders of the world, all the experiences and pleasures it has to offer the senses, are as nothing when the one you love isn't there to share them with you.

The "King of Rome" reference is to the son of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who was crowned with that title as an infant. After his father's exile, the boy—Napoleon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, only three years old at the time—was taken by his mother, Marie Louise, to Austria. There they lived in comfort but comparative isolation. François (or Franz, as he came to be known among his German-speaking hosts) died in Vienna of tuberculosis at the age of 21. Neil describes him as "an emblem of loneliness in the midst of wealth."

Neil's vocal here deserves special mention. In essence, it's one long, drawn out, exhausted sigh, thoroughly ethereal in sound. Those "ohs" are particularly evocative: as androgynous as air. I can't think of any other performance of his quite like it. While it may not be to everyone's liking, I personally think it's quite exceptional.

Interestingly, like "It Always Comes as a Surprise" more than a decade earlier, "King of Rome" was released as a promo single in Brazil, where it had proven especially popular.

Annotations

As already noted, the title alludes to the somewhat tragic figure of Napoleon II (Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, 1811-1832), crowned "King of Rome" as an infant, who was forced to live in "splendid isolation" after the defeat and abdication of his father.
The Boys have noted that at one time they had strongly considered calling this song "King of Pop"—Neil even recorded vocals using those words—in reference to Michael Jackson, who at that time had become disgraced as a result of allegations of child sexual abuse. Neil has specifically cited the words "In search of my lost magic" as being derived from this phase of the song's composition, inspired by Jackson's fall from grace, so to speak.
"Lost beyond the pale" – The English idiomatic expression "beyond the pale" dates back at least to the 1600s and originally referred to being beyond one's home or "comfort zone." With the old meaning of the word "pale" referring to a fence or boundary, the expression was also used to refer to certain sociopolitical situations in which certain groups of people were either forced or permitted to live "beyond the pale"—that is, beyond a set boundary. In more modern times, "beyond the pale" most often refers to unacceptable behavior, something beyond the usual standards of decorum or decency. Interestingly, in "King of Rome" the expression seems to harken back to those earlier meanings of being outside one's comfort zone or usual boundaries, as one who travels the world in virtual exile. It also conveys the narrator's sense of near-hopelessness; that is, he feels beyond the boundaries of hope. Further, I believe Neil's use of the word "pale" here echoes another, much more familiar meaning of the word. Paintings of Napoleon II, the "King of Rome," reveal a thin, pale boy who, as it would turn out, eventually died of tuberculosis, more commonly known in his own day as "consumption." By the same token, Neil's often thin, high-pitched vocal in this song strongly suggests a similar palor—spiritual and emotional, if not physical—on the part of the narrator, who is gradually being consumed by loss.
"Across the sky / A change of time / Last night I lost a day" – These seemingly cryptic lines (the official wording, although it sounds as though Neil sings "Last night I lost all day") refer to traveling westward across the International Date Line, by which one indeed loses a day. The narrator, who spends much of the song describing his travels in search of his "lost magic," was probably asleep on an airliner crossing the Pacific Ocean. He might have gone to sleep on, say, a Monday and awakened only a few hours later, but on a Wednesday. (Neil and Chris themselves must have experienced this phenomenon in late March 2007 during their Fundamental tour, as they flew overnight from South America to New Zealand.) Although in one sense this is simply a statement of geographic fact, Neil astutely uses it to help establish the overwhelming sense of loss that pervades this song.
The lyric's reference to Manderley stems from Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel Rebecca, where it serves as the name of the house at the heart of the story. Apparently the song originally included additional allusions to the novel, but Neil decided to cut back on them in its final version. As he notes in One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem, the allusion stems from the character Maxim de Winter, who is "exiled from his home, Manderley, trying to escape the memory of his dead wife." We also shouldn't overlook a possible "allusion by extension" to the famed 1892 poem "Mandalay" (of which "Manderley" is an alternate spelling) by the British author Rudyard Kipling—a work that, despite its somewhat distracting use of what is meant to pass for dialect, conveys a profound sense of exoticism and romantic longing, as the PSB song does. Mandalay, incidentally, is the name of a large city and former capital of Burma (aka Myanmar), considered by many of its citizens to be the "spiritual heart" of the country. One might even say that the narrator of "King of Rome"—who, accordingly to his own words, is "away from Manderley"—has lost his own spiritual heart.
"The desert moon, a new lagoon…" – Probably a reference to the small but fabulously wealthy Arabian kingdom of Dubai or one of the other United Arab Emirates that cater to a clientele of wealthy tourists via luxurious resorts, some of which have recently constructed artificial lagoons to offset the desert landscape and thereby add to their appeal.
"No shadows cast, arriving without purpose" – These lines suggest an intense existential crisis brewing in the mind of the narrator. The nighttime setting ("Night falls fast") may make the reference to the lack of shadows unremarkable—but, then again, why remark upon such an unremarkable thing unless doing so suggests something much more profound? To my ears, it sounds as though the narrator is feeling increasingly insignificant and ephemeral, almost so without substance that he doesn't even cast a shadow. Notice how the line only shortly before, "We glide upon the surface," similarly suggests weightlessness. By the same token, the reference "arriving without purpose" indicates how utterly aimless and meaningless his life has become without the one he loves. In short, he appears to be experiencing grave doubts about the continued viability of his very existence. And from an at least metaphorical perspective, he seems to be fading into nothingness.
"… someday you'll deign to phone me" – An intensely, bitterly ironic line, rendered ironic through the use of a single word, "deign." Usually we think of the rich and/or politically empowered being those who have the wherewithall to deign—that is, to condescend to—anything. But in this case, the apparently very wealthy and possibly quite powerful narrator is powerless to command the heart of the one he loves. By the way, notice the narrator's decreased expectations; earlier he begged for his beloved to come back to him, but now it sounds as though he would content himself with nothing more than a phone call. Everything about him indicates a steady state of decline.
Neil has noted that the concluding chord changes of this song are taken from a portion of Metamorphosen by the German composer Richard Strauss, composed during the period from late 1944 to early 1945. Metamorphosen, the title of which means "changes" or "transformations," is itself a work permeated with a sense of sadness and loss; Strauss even scribbled "In Memoriam!" near the end of his handwritten score for the piece.

Mixes/Versions

Officially released

Mixer: Jeremy Wheatley
- Album version (5:31)
- Instrumental (5:31)
  - On the special limited-edition Yes box vinyl set

List cross-references

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