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  1. 09 VIRTUAL

From the recording TIMESCAPE

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09 VIRTUAL (4:57)
A friend of the band says that this is his favourite song on the album purely because of the line "How did I end up here?" which he feels is a motto for his own life, and how many people feel about theirs. In fact, Virtual is the oldest song on The Portraits' new album, having been written and rewritten several times since 1993. Its latest outing is partly inspired by a brilliant UK TV series called Life on Mars in which a cop is involved in a road accident in 2006 and wakes up in 1973, having to deal with a new life without any of the cultural and technological developments of the last thirty-five years. And we the audience wonder whether he really is in 1973, or in a dream or a coma. Virtual is a trip down memory lane through the 80s of the writers' childhood.

Lyrics

It was 1983
Baby Jane and Fun Boy Three
Both so young, so anti-war
And I don’t want to fight any more
Yes the past can confuse
But we’ve really far too much to lose

It was 1984
With a pop filled with Cold War
You intrigued me more and more
And I don’t want to fight any more
From the spend, spend, spend
How did we ever reach this dead end?

La, la, life
It’s virtual
Time gone wrong
How did I end up here?

It was 1985
Millions died, we were alive
What else is Geldof shouting for?
But I don’t want to fight any more
If we keep going on
We could kill one another before long

La, la, life
It’s virtual
Time gone wrong
How did I end up here?

Were we ever there at all?
We blacked out on distant shores
Were we ever there at all?