| Games Without Frontiers Song |
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Information AboutGames Without Frontiers Song |
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| 1980 singles | |
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TITLE AND LYRICS The song's title comes from a European game show, '' Jeux Sans Frontieres '', that featured teams competing for prizes while dressed in bizarre costumes. The British version of the show was called '' It's A Knockout '', a phrase that also appears in the song. The teams represented towns and cities from each country, so the games had an inevitable element of Nationalism . While some games were simple races, others allowed one team to interfere with another. The lyrics are seen as a critique of nationalism and war. The name Lin Tai Yu , which appears in the song, belongs to a character from the classic Chinese novel '' Dream Of The Red Chamber ''. Chiang Ching, another name mentioned, is an alternative transliteration of Jiang Qing , the wife of Chairman Mao and a leader of the Cultural Revolution , though Gabriel may have been referring to Chiang Ching-kuo , the son of Chiang Kai-shek , who was president of Taiwan at the time the song was written. The tag line of the song, "Games without frontiers, war without tears" is a comment on the sublimation of the rivalries within Europe, caused by centuries of war, in a meaningless game. |
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