Fun escapist bubblegum pop is what it was; not that a great deal of Kylie's market would have been thinking about such lofty subjects as those mentioned by Lee. But hey - it does actually have roots in high culture - Pete Waterman has said the tune was inspired by Pachelbel's Canon. Not sure that many UK number ones in early 1988 reflected the political situation although that seems to have changed as the year went on... ;)
A valiant attempt to instill some meaning into what is in reality a classic example of how the neo-capitalist music industry operates. Perhaps a Dickensian analysis is also needed to balance the overly obvious Shakespearean influences. A Dickensian meta-analysis would reveal the music industry to be Scrooge and if you look even closer the dry liberal economist Milton Friedman reveals himself to be the puppet master of not only the lovelorn Kylophelia but also Stock, Aitken and Waterman as well.
Magic, you need to be more comprehensive in your analysis of the song in order to explain how this song relates to Thatcherite Britain, Reaganomics, the Poll Tax, Arthur Scargill and most importantly Genesis's "Selling England By The Pound". Finally, to quote you out of context this song is indeed "dark sticky goo" but not of the the soul as you have described. It is more correctly referred to as "dark sticky goo" from the bowels of economic rationalism.
More investigation is needed on this one I think.
@Magic Marmalade. Thanks. So True. When will We hear "Hark From Yonder Window Breaks" Wait a minute. (Taylor Swift's Love Song), Me think's I should brush up Me Shakespeare. And read again the Stuff What He Wrote. H.
Ms Kylie Mini-gogue here regales us with the inner turmoil and frustration of the Erstwhile Hamlet's unrequited love Ophelia.
Indeed, contrary to the prevarications and legendary ambivalence which thwarts the object of her affection (Titular Mr Sir Denmark Esquire)... in her imagination, there is no complication...
... they walk together hand in hand.
A palpable sense of outwardly unspoken beseeching and urgency propels the music of the opening verses as Kylie/Ophelia makes her case to the dithering Dane...
"I'm Dreaming"
Says she.
"You fell in love with me.... like I'm in Love with you"
To Quoth.
...Until, at last, her consternation doth conclude thus:
"But dreaming's all I do..."
Prefiguring the approaching choral alleviation of her now growing unheeded obsession...
- yet -
"... If only they'd come true!"
Before interjecting an unexpected dose of perspective:
"I should be so lucky!"
Stoic.
"Lucky..."
Less so.
"Lucky....."
We begin to doubt her "Stoicism"
"Lucky........"
This is beginning to get awkward now.
"...I should be so lucky in love!"
Yikes. Verily.
We then return to the mire of obsessiveness and dark sticky goo building in Kylie's soul
(Sat switching light on and off.... thy bunny in the pot, etc.)
An unsettling impression which the several repetitions of this formula of alternating Obsession and apparent, if temporary, stoicism does nothing to dispel.
Hamlet too is back and forth, back and forth (moody sod), as OpheKyllie watches on... maybe they are not so different after all. eh?!!
Cast yerself in the river if I'm wrong!
A masterpiece.
That we should see the like of this pop-tastic interpretation of a timeless literary classic again, is less certain.... Indeed:
We should all be so lucky.... lucky.... lucky... lucky.