In this song, Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry sings to his plastic fantastic lover, an inflatable doll that will float nicely in his new pool, part of a stately home he just acquired. Typical of Ferry's songwriting, it has a cinematic feel, with a lyric that lays out a series of images to form a strange story. There is no chorus. First, we hear about the home, with Ferry using real estate argot like "bungalow ranch style." Then, we hear about the doll, his "disposable darling" that will be his companion. But in this dream home, there is also heartache. We're not sure why, and we know better than to ask this guy questions.
According to Ferry, this song was inspired by British artist Richard Hamilton's collage called "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?" Created in 1956, the magazine montage is considered by art historians to be one of the earliest works of pop art. Hamilton later taught Ferry fine art at Newcastle University in the '60s, with Hamilton going as far as to call Ferry his "greatest creation."
The first three minutes of this song find Ferry telling his story over a musical texture created with a VCS3 synthesizer, Farisa organ, and a touch of saxophone. After the line "But you blew my mind," the song becomes a rave-up, with drums, bass, and guitar entering the picture in a swirl of phase-shifted glory. The music slowly fades out at the four-minute mark, then returns after a long bout of silence – it's one of the lengthiest false endings in rock.
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