A song I featured a long time ago, this one was rather interesting in that it's a pop song, was a number one hit and yet it's quite a hard-hitting indictment of drug addiction, seen from perhaps two perspectives. It's also been said to merely reflect a particularly difficult break up, but I think the drug motif is there for everyone to see. It's also got a great melody, more a rock tune than a pop one really, with snarling guitars pulling in the chorus which is sung more or less like children reciting a nursery rhyme to music, almost like a game.
The song is by Martika, flash-in-the-pan artiste who had one or two big hits, including this, and then more or less vanished from public view, though she then teamed up with her musician husband for some latin pop albums before taking on a career in acting, and promises a new album under her own name this year. Can't wait. Seriously. No, not really. Martika's debut, which in fairness is all I know of her music, did not live up to the promise of “Toy soldiers”, making in fact the single seem very out of place on it, an anachronism, if you will.
Nevertheless, it remains a great song, a tough look at the world of drugs and addiction, though to be honest no specific narcotic is mentioned, though the word “addiction” is, but then again that could be taken several ways. It's interesting though that the first verse seems to be either the drug/addiction personified, speaking to the singer, or possibly someone who has introduced her to the drug, if you go with the drug motif, which I am. If you don't, of course, it could just be an apology for leading someone on and hurting their feelings. The lines run thus:
”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.” See what I mean?
Toy Soldiers (Martika) from “Martika”, 1988
Music and lyrics by Martika and Michael Jay
I know when I heard the song at first I was very impressed, and thought this lady had a big future ahead of her if she could write songs like that. Sadly, having listened to her debut album through I no longer had that opinion, and believed instead that she had just struck lucky, rather like Nena with “99 red balloons”, and would have no more hits. As it happened she had two, but they don't concern us for this piece. Here's the song, with the lyric below.
Note: The lyric is longer than this, as you'll see from the YT, but as it's basically a repeat of the bridge and chorus I didn't bother reproducing the whole lot, lazy git that I am...
”Step by step,/ Heart to heart,
Left, right, left,/ We all fall down
Like toy soldiers.
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.
When you hear temptation call
It's your heart that takes, takes the fall.
Won't you come out and play with me?
Step by step,/ Heart to heart,
Left, right, left,/ We all fall down
Like toy soldiers.
Bit by bit,/ Torn apart:
We never win/ But the battle wages on
For toy soldiers.
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's gonna be me.
Only emptiness remains:
It replaces all of the pain.
Won't you come out and play with me?”