Franz Ferdinand's Take on Greek Mythology: Ulysses

So for the first time I've decided to explicate a song for this whole mythology blog project. I was listening to the Franz Ferdinand (the band, not the archduke) the other day and the song "Ulysses" comes up. I knew I had heard the name Ulysses before as a god, but didn't know where it came from exactly. Then boom, after some research I realized he is the Roman counter-part to Odysseus, a key figure in Homer's Illiad.

This is where you can go to read the lyrics of the song. At first, it seems like a simple, sweet song. And it is, yet it's got more meaning to it. Take the first line, "While I sit in here, a sentimental footsteps". A lot of the Greek myths were about telling how things are how they are today. Looking back at our ancestors, and such so. Obviously this is a person's "sentimental footsteps". "So what you gotta what you gotta this time" describes the hero in this case, coming back from the bottom of the pit and enduring the road of trials. In Homer's Illiad, when Helen goes to Troy, Odysseus comes out of nowhere to advise the soldiers how to defeat the Trojans. Two instances where the hero isn't supposed to be the hero.

"I’ve found a new way" also realizes this. The hero has found a new way to help the cause, "a new way, baby". Odysseus at first wanted Patroclus to defend Achilles, but after that didn't work Patroclus dressed in Achilles' armour to divert the Trojans' attention. This was in fact "So sinister, so sinister". And after initially believing they would lose, Spartans thought "they were never going home". But in fact, even more sinister acts worked, and they won. And as the song ends, "You're not Ulysses baby", likely the Trojans lost because they didn't have the advice and mentor (the siege, the Yoda, the Obi-Wan Kenobi) that the Spartans had, in Odysseus.

Songs that we listen on the radio or on our iPods today can still be linked to ancient Myth. It's a trend that hasn't stopped with tastes in music or the popular "thing" changing every day.