Coconut Dracula: Music Analysis

Nu metal band Islander’s 2014 studio debut album Violence and Destruction tells the tale of our modern society and its problems, but one song in particular stands out; “Coconut Dracula”. It tells the tale of Mummy and Dracula, particularly Mummy’s envy of Dracula’s newfound peace and hope for the world. The story goes that after Dracula bit into a coconut his vision for life changed and he swore off blood and harm forever, even going as far as to change his name to Coconut Dracula, and now Mummy wants to be like this too. The song seems to be written to its listeners as an advocate for the spread of knowledge, peace and individuality in the world, and even the music video indicates this. In the beginning of the song, we hear the lyrics “You don’t see the world the way that I

Not only are the words eyes and see repeated throughout the song, but also the topic of knowledge, leading us to infer that the vision can be taken literally of figuratively. Nothing says this more beautifully than the line “I want my eyes to be like yours. I want to know what defines my worth. Oh please, can you tell me” (Islander)? Clearly the Mummy admires the changes that he is noticing in Dracula and is starting to want to change his ways as well. Throughout the music video also, eyes seem to be a main focal point, as during many points in the video we see the camera zoom in on Dracula’s face, for instance, 0:54, 1:04, 1:40, 3:19, 3:46, 3:52, and 3:58 (Islander) while he is observing. There is something that suggests that vision in this song symbolizes knowledge; the passing of this vision to the Witch. At 1:55 (Islander) we see her turn to face the camera when Dracula holds up the smoke signal, which could symbolize the passing of knowledge. Afterward in the video we see her break away from the other monster to join Dracula, but still keeps her distance from him, which can show us a new theme supported wholly by both the video and the song;