Toy Soldiers

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Toy SOldiers

lyrics and music by Martika and Michael Jay
performed by Martika
release date: April 26, 1989

[Intro]
Step by step, heart to heart
Left, right, left, we all fall down
Like toy soldiers

[Verse 1]
It wasn’t my intention to mislead you
It never should have been this way
What can I say?
It’s true, I did extend the invitation
I never knew how long you’d stay

[Pre-Chorus]
When you hear temptation call
It’s your heart that takes, takes the fall
(Won’t you come out and play with me?)

[Chorus]
Step by step, heart to heart (Heart to heart)
Left, right, left, we all fall down (All fall down)
Like toy soldiers
Bit by bit (Bit by bit), torn apart (Torn apart)
We never win but the battle wages on
For toy soldiers

[Verse 2]
It’s getting hard to wake up in the morning
My head is spinning constantly
How can it be?
How could I be so blind to this addiction?
If I don’t stop, the next one is gonna be me

[Pre-Chorus]
Only emptiness remains
It replaces all, all the pain
(Won’t you come out and play with me?)

[Chorus]
Step by step, heart to heart (Heart to heart)
Left, right, left, we all fall down (All fall down)
Like toy soldiers
Bit by bit (Bit by bit), torn apart (Torn apart)
We never win but the battle wages on
For toy soldiers

[Guitar Solo]
We never win
Ah-ah-ah

[Pre-Chorus]
Only emptiness remains (Oh-oh)
It replaces all, all the pain
(Won’t you come out and play with me?)

[Chorus]
Step by step, heart to heart (Heart to heart)
Left, right, left, we all fall down (Ooh) (All fall down)
Like toy soldiers
Bit by bit (Bit by bit), torn apart (Torn apart)
We never win but the battle wages on (Wages on)
For toy soldiers (On, on, on, on)
Step by step (Oh), heart to heart (Heart to heart)
Left, right, left, we all fall down (All fall down, all fall down) (All fall down)
Like toy soldiers (Oh)
Bit by bit (Bit by bit), torn apart (Torn apart)
We never win but the battle wages on

____________________________

A lot of the art in the 1980s had a vaguely (post) Apocalyptic vibe. If you go back and watch old TV shows, and movies, a lot of large cities were portrayed as having huge areas that looked war-torn, drug-infested, and just generally very dangerous. A lot of music from this area shared the same vibe. Why was Europe singing about a Final Countdown? Why were Tommy and Gina Livin’ on a Prayer? Nobody knows. To the extent most of us in the present notice this vibe from the 1980s, at all, we tend to give it an interpretation of corniness.

Nevertheless, we listen and we don’t judge. Was all of that reflecting a reality to some degree? Maybe. Probably. I think you could make an argument that many American cities experienced a dramatic decline between the 1960s and the 1980s. We take for granted in the present that this is the reality in our large cities, and to a large degree we just accept that reality and ignore it. “You don’t go to East St. Louis.” “You don’t go to the Chicago’s South Side.” “You don’t go to Baltimore.” Etc. Do people live there? Yeah. But in some ways, they don’t count toward how we interpret society as a whole.

I’m not saying the present attitude is good, or right, but rather I just think that’s how it is. I remember at one point during the height of the Iraq war, there were more people dying by violence in Chicago than in Baghdad. That’s just Chicago. You can get used to just about anything.

Before we all became comfortably numb to the fact every single major U.S. city has regions within them that are permanent war zones, it it had to have been a cultural shock to those who remembered life there before the decline. The era when our art reflected that shock was primarily the 1980s. That’s just my hypothesis, though.

Another hypothesis (not mine) is that the world ended in 1988.

I’ve set the mood to explain the place in my brain where Martika’s song lives. What is this even about? Did humanity lose a universe-destroying war? In our desperation, did we send child soldiers to their doom? It might be difficult to sort it out from the lyrics, but the song is actually about a friend of the songwriter struggling through a cocaine addiction. That makes sense. In reality, gang violence, families separated by prison and death, and other urban chaos trace their real origins back to (among other things) cocaine trafficked into our cities.

(more via wiki)

Background

Martika wrote the song about a friend who was battling a cocaine addiction. “I was a little hesitant because I had only written two songs before and they were light songs. I came up to Michael and said I wanted to write about drugs. It was the first time I got the nerve to write about something that was scary for me to talk about, so I did.” According to an episode of VH-1‘s Pop-Up Video, in which “Toy Soldiers” was featured, the friend in question eventually conquered the addiction.

Composition

The song is performed in the key of C♯ minor with a tempo of 65 beats per minute in ⁴
₄ time. The song follows a chord progression of A–B–A–B–C♯m–B–C♯m–G♯m–C♯m–B.

In addition, the children’s choir singing the song’s opening chorus (which later makes a reprise for the final chorus portions) as well as the pre-chorus line “Won’t you come out and play with me” are notable because five of her former Kids Incorporated castmates—Fergie, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Rahsaan Patterson, Devyn Puett, and Renee Sands—are among the singers.

The Gen X version of The Mickey Mouse Club was Kids Incorporated. I can’t decide which of the two had a more ominous vibe.

The music video for this song is truly excellent. I highly recommend giving it a look and letting this classic worm into your ear.