After Wiki-ing "Lancastria" I have to agree with wonderdog's assessment that the titular disaster does indeed refer to the sinking of that doomed troop-ship during WWII. The facts as well as some of the imagery do indeed correspond very nicely with Downie's lyrics.
However, as most people realize, the actual event is a metaphor for a doomed relationship, hitting a reef or being sunk by enemy fire--or whatever relationships do when they're not working out. Personally, I don't think it really matters which tragedy is being alluded to; it's about emotional distress--possibly incurred by the woman in the song--and how it manifests itself into the narrator's sub-conscious. Maybe he had a grandfather who died on the Lancastria and somehow that seeped into his dreamscape. Who knows, dreams rarely make sense. But the song is very powerful, dark and moody. Like a bad relationship in its final throes.
On a final note: the song is definitely NOT about Dieppe.
After Wiki-ing "Lancastria" I have to agree with wonderdog's assessment that the titular disaster does indeed refer to the sinking of that doomed troop-ship during WWII. The facts as well as some of the imagery do indeed correspond very nicely with Downie's lyrics.
However, as most people realize, the actual event is a metaphor for a doomed relationship, hitting a reef or being sunk by enemy fire--or whatever relationships do when they're not working out. Personally, I don't think it really matters which tragedy is being alluded to; it's about emotional distress--possibly incurred by the woman in the song--and how it manifests itself into the narrator's sub-conscious. Maybe he had a grandfather who died on the Lancastria and somehow that seeped into his dreamscape. Who knows, dreams rarely make sense. But the song is very powerful, dark and moody. Like a bad relationship in its final throes.
On a final note: the song is definitely NOT about Dieppe.