The Last Dinner Party
Caesar on a TV Screen
The Last Dinner Party have just five singles to their name, but their highly dramatic songwriting style and epic live performances have catapulted them to pop consciousness. Following on from ‘On Your Side’, and the news that the BBC have given them the Sound of the Year award for 2024, they’ve released their fifth single.
Each of the four previous songs has been a little different. Their debut single, ‘Nothing Matters’ was their most straight-up indie-pop track, with the verse and pre-chorus giving way to that rich and surprising chorus. It certainly had plenty of unusual elements, but the traditional structure made it instantly accessible.
‘Sinner’ brought that staccato introduction and choral style. It encouraged us up the drama scale with a more unhinged edge to the sound. It was then the hand claps and huge transition of ‘My Lady of Mercy’. Yep. After three songs, they had given us a trail of breadcrumbs that led us from the safety of what we knew to this strange and alien land… and we didn’t even notice.
They then soaked us in the emotional sound of ‘On Your Side’, and there was no going back.
That means we’re ready for ‘Caesar on a TV Screen’, which rather than moving between structural elements switches into separate movements. The sparse verse has a pause before the seventies pop sound of the next section. Then it’s head-first into a dramatic chorus.
The nearest comparison for this song would be something by The Beatles where the Lennon and McCartney sections are more pronounced, like ‘A Day in the Life’, but with some Fleetwood Mac meets Queen via Haim twists. Trust me, it works better than this description makes it sound.
We’ll understand their sound a little more on February the 2nd, as their album, Prelude to Ecstacy will be released. The band shared this insight into the record:
Ecstasy is a pendulum which swings between the extremes of human emotion, from the ecstasy of passion to the sublimity of pain, and it is this concept which binds our album together. This is an archaeology of ourselves; you can exhume our collective and individual experiences and influences from within its fabric. We exorcized guitars for their solos, laid bare confessions directly from diary pages, and summoned an orchestra to bring our vision to life. It is our greatest honour and pride to present this offering to the world, it is everything we are.
The Last Dinner Party
Caesar on a TV Screen Video
Watch The Last Dinner Party – ‘Caesar on a TV Screen’.
Caesar on a TV Screen Lyrics
Every night when we say goodbye
I know that I can see myself as a man
When I put on that suit
I don’t have to stay mute
I can talk all the time
‘Cause my shoulders are wideAnd I’m falling like the leaves on Leningrad
I follow your footprints when I can’t hold your hand
My darling believe me I was born to be with you
But it’ll be me that the world will answer toAnd just for a second I could be one of the greats
I’ll be Caesar in a TV screen
Champion of my fate
No one can tell me to stop
I’ll have everything I want
Anyone
And everyone will like me thenEveryone will like me then
When I was a child
I never felt like a child
I felt like an emperor with a city to burn
I got down on my knees
Begged the men in the trees
To give me an answer
Je ne veux pas penser (en: I don’t want to think)And it’s raining like it did in Leningrad
My lover would like to buy a flat in Leningrad
And I’d trade my tongue in just to hear him every night
To talk about Red Scare and how they got it rightAnd just for a second I could be one of the greats
I am Caesar on a tv screen, champion of my fate
No one can tell me to stop
I’ll have everything I want
Anyone
And everyone will like me then
Everyone will love me!
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Written by Beck on
