The evergreen charm of the Wombat's hit song, "Greek Tragedy," continues to captivate audiences around the globe at their concerts. Despite its immense popularity, there's a noticeable lack of in-depth analyses of the song's meaning. Today, I’ll aim to fill that void, leveraging a 2018 interview conducted by Linda Marigliano for Triple J, where she delves into the song's undercurrents with the band.
To ensure this valuable information is preserved and accessible, I have transcribed the interview below and saved it. Hopefully, this post will help others better understand the poignant narrative encapsulated in the lyrics of "Greek Tragedy."
Podcast Episode: "Inspired" by Linda Marigliano featuring the Wombats
ied-2018-07-31-the-wombats.mp3
(The following is a condensed version of the transcript highlighting key points. For brevity, some parts of the conversation have been left out.)
Linda Marigliano: What sparked the idea for Greek Tragedy?
Murph: The title came from a scene in 'Wolf of Wallstreet.' The lyrics were inspired by my personal life at the time. I was in a failing relationship back home, while I had met my now-wife during a writing excursion to LA. The lyrics, in essence, speak about these two worlds clashing.
Dan Haggis: When we heard Murph's lyrics for the first time, we were taken aback. We knew the emotional journey he was going through, which made the song even more powerful.
Murph: The line "falling up the Penrose steps" was a metaphor for my old relationship, which felt stagnant, unlike what I envisioned with my now wife.
Dan Haggis: Murph recorded the song before he broke up with his then-girlfriend. So he knew what he was going to do in the next few days.
Murph: I never really talked about this before, but it's pretty. It's a pretty tasty story if we were to get really into it. So we were in LA. Well, I went to LA about three months before we were there, as a little writing excursion and met my now wife. I was in a relationship at the time, came back and we kind of clearly realised that we wanted to be together. But I was in a relationship back home in the UK, and actually went back home and split up with my girlfriend on Valentine's Day. Yeah, and then so kind of all the lyrics are kind of like you know, we'll build a waterslide - In reference, so when I get home, we're probably going to be crying in bed for about a week. That's kind of what the story's about those two people in two worlds clashing.
Murph: We hashed out a melody line. We were listening to quite a bit of Phoenix and were inspired to hammer that one chord in the chorus, like in 'Entertainment.' A lot of happy accidents led to the final version of the song.
Dan Haggis: The original demo was quite different. We owe a lot to Mark Crew for taking the song to the next level.