“One of Our Submarines” by Thomas Dolby

"One of Our Submarines" is Thomas Dolby's haunted counterweight to the mad-scientist fizz of "She Blinded Me with Science", the single it backed as a B-side, and it later turned up on the Blinded by Science EP and on a reissue of The Golden Age of Wireless. Dolby wrote it in 1981, first with the Thompson Twins in mind, and cut it in August 1982, producing with Tim Friese-Greene while Matthew Seligman laid down the bass synthesizer.

The story at its heart is family. Dolby's uncle, Stephen Spring-Rice, was second in command of a British submarine that went down during the Second World War with every man aboard, and the song pictures the loss as a peacetime accident off the English coast. Dolby's fans have never let go of it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.