It took me twenty years to realize one small fact.

Ever wonder why Robin Zander speaks so slowly during the intro to Surrender on Live At Budokan? Me neither, although I’ve always noticed (and parodied) the pace with which he speaks on that track-

“This… next… song… is… …. … the first… song… on our… new… al-bum… it just came out this week… and the song is called… surr-ender…” *

Yesterday, for no good reason, I finally concentrated on that intro and was immediately hit by a bolt of realization. He’s in Japan and he’s speaking slowly because he wants to make sure that all of their Japanese fans can follow what he’s saying.

It’s a meaningless realization and one that probably thousands of people have made. Still those odd eureka moments are always fun, so I thought I’d share (that and Surrender just came on my “personal radio” stream from last.fm.)

*working from memory. I’ll play it tonight when I get home to transcribe it properly…