It’s that amazing bass to start. Derek Forbes always does great reverb chords. Mick’s synths give a great Eastern mystique to the music. 
 Jim’s words, again. I don’t know HOW he manages to conjure up SSOO much imagery in so few words. He is a master of the short and succinct (I wish I had it because I waffle, expand, elaborate…the poor man has been on the receiving end of my “novellas” many a time!). 
I really never thought I would ever say this. I never did think it would ever be possible for ANYONE to knock David Bowie off the top rung as a songwriter for me…but James Kerr, Esquire, is giving it a SERIOUS bash! 
I did a new digital art piece for KIWAITC yesterday. My first attempt was basic and I wanted to try again.
The images I see I’ve made a collage of. I can never realistically show what I see, but this is akin to the imagery…

  
Jim puts that all there with the sparse lines. And there are lines that are just SSOO perfect…

“Love lies under Western eyes / powerful yet transient” – God, he is good! I seriously want to DO THINGS with this man’s brain! (…Who said that? Lol…)
There’s such a heavy political undercurrent to this song. Based on footage Jim saw on the news at the time of the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat…it’s that “internal movie director” stuff, again. 
Just about every single version I have heard (apart from possibly the album version itself), Jim puts SUCH emphasis on the “wire them up / fire them up” lines, it makes my hair stand on end! He always delivers them with such…fury…and venom…it is always one HECK of a performance. (I’ve added my own personal fave – so far – to view)
It’s a like a poisoned Fry’s turkish delight, this song. Lol. I know! I don’t know what I’m on about either! But…if I can try to explain it…if possibly.
It has that Eastern promise. It has that musical mystique. It sounds sweet…like turkish delight tastes sweet. But there is a much deeper subtext…the words that lay within…a bit of arsenic in the old turkish delight. Not enough to kill…but enough to make you rethink your next bar.
Did that work? Is that what I’m trying to say?
At the end of the day…all I know is is that I love it. It is an absolute curveball of a track on New Gold Dream. Just when you hear all that love, romance, glitter, golden days (well, with the exceptions of maybe Promised You A Miracle: but that’s pure pop sensibility at play, there – I’m not dismissing it by any means – I just mean it is a different animal again, and Big Sleep: cinemascope view on death and/or mental illness that has a very tangible dreamlike quality to it)…and you’re riding the “new wave”, they take you back to those dark roots on the final track. 
Strange, that as one of the first tracks on NGD to be written, it becomes the closing song on the album. It’s like “We’ve had a fun time. We’ve had our gold and glitter. We’ve had dreams and fairytales and cinemascopic tales, but now let’s REALLY get back to reality with a thud…wrapped up in a sweet.”
And that is why I love King Is White And In The Crowd.