Crocodiles (album) - Music and Lyrics

Music and Lyrics

The music on Crocodiles is generally dark and moody: In 1980, the British music magazine NME described McCulloch's lyrics as a being "scattered with themes of sorrow, horror, and despair, themes that are reinforced by stormy animal/sexual imagery" and American music magazine Creem described Crocodiles as "a moody, mysterious, fascinating record". In 1981 music journalist David Fricke, writing for Rolling Stone magazine, said, "Instead of dope, McCulloch trips out on his worst fears: isolation, death and emotional bankruptcy."

In his 2005 book Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978–1984, British music journalist Simon Reynolds describes the sound of the album as "pared and sparse". He goes on to describe Pattinson's "granite basslines" carrying the melody; Sergeant's guitar playing as "jagged-quartz" and avoiding "anything resembling a solo, apart from the odd flinty peal of lead playing"; de Freitas' drumming as minimal and "surging urgency"; and McCulloch's vocals as having "precocious authority". Reynolds then describes the songs as being rooted in "doubt, anguish, despair" while the "tightness and brightness of their sound transmits contradictory sensations of confidence, vigour and euphoria." He also describes how the line "Stars are stars and they shine so hard" – from the track "Stars Are Stars" – showed how the band felt no embarrassment in their wish to be famous. In 1989 McCulloch told Reynolds how, as a teenager, he felt there was "a big movie camera in the sky". McCulloch described the opening line of the track "Going Up" – "Ain't thou watching my film" – as a terrible line and he went on to say, "It was meant to be tongue in cheek, but that was what spurred me on."