BURMA

Album: CousteauX (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • The song is from the first Cousteau album released after they changed their name to CousteauX upon pressure from the Jacques Cousteau Society. Subdued piano and trumpet give platform for the sad, yearning vocals of Liam McKahey.
  • Davey Ray Moor of Cousteau spoke to Songfacts about the song's inspiration.

    "I heard on BBC Radio about a craze that swept the British Forces in World War II," Moor said. "Essentially, soldiers and pilots would write various anagrams on the backs of letters home to their sweethearts. Some of these were earnest, some lurid, some daft. The most popular was 'BURMA,' which stood for Be Up There Ready My Angel. This struck me as a song opportunity in which the 'upstairs' was either the marital bedroom or the afterlife."

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