Archives for October 2019

Certain Songs #1671: The Psychedelic Furs – “Heaven”

October 31, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Mirror Moves
Year: 1984

. . .

It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but in general, beware the album by a band that with a cover that features only the lead singer. Especially when their previous records always featured the full band. For example, the first Rolling Stones album to to have just Mick Jagger on the cover was Goats Head Soup, nobody’s pick for the best Rolling Stones album. Obviously, there are exceptions — there are always exceptions — but outside of (ironically) Tattoo You, I can’t think of any.

So in retrospect, the fact that Mirror Moves features only a frowning, posing Richard Butler on the cover and the other two Furs, Tim Butler and John Ashton — Vince Ely having left in the wake of Forever Now — was probably the first clue as to the album’s un-goodness. The second clue was, of course, on the inner sleeve, as well as the record label: “Produced by Keith Forsey,” who at that point was primarily known for smoothing out Billy Idol’s punk sneer with a pop sheen, and, oh yeah, Flashdance.

Certain Songs #1670: The Psychedelic Furs – “Yes I Do”

October 30, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Forever Now (Original U.S. Vinyl)
Year: 1982

. . .

So here’s some more weird record company stuff. Just as it was with The Psychedelic Furs and Talk Talk Talk, the tracklistings on the U.K. and U.S. versions of Forever Now were completely different. The U.K. version started with “President Gas” and ended with “Sleep Comes Down” while the U.S. started with “Forever Now” and closed with “Yes I Do.”

Which is fine, except that “Yes I Do” was called “Merry-Go-Round” in the U.K. and had completely different verses — but the exact same choruses — than its U.S. counterpart. It was probably called “Merry-Go-Round” for the carnivalesque keyboards added by Todd Rundgren, as well as the circular beat that the great Vince Ely provided, but of course, I only knew the U.S. version. That was the one that I fell in love with and to.

Certain Songs #1669: The Psychedelic Furs – “Run and Run”

October 29, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Forever Now
Year: 1982

Sorry kids, no “Love My Way.” While I never hated it, I really didn’t like it, either, and while I was glad that the P-Furs were making some kind of inroads on U.S. radio, remove the vocals and “Love My Way” could have been just about anyone.

Much much better was “Run and Run,” the final single from Forever Now, and the song that sounded most like it sprang from the same well as the first two albums, while also showing a way forward.

Certain Songs #1668: The Psychedelic Furs – “Forever Now”

October 28, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Forever Now
Year: 1982

. . .

In the aftermath of Talk Talk Talk, The Psychedelic Furs nearly imploded.

First off, two founding members left (or were tossed out of) the band: guitarist Roger Morris, whose speaker-to-speaker duels with John Ashton drove the debut and enhanced the follow-up, and — more crucially — saxophonist Duncan Kilburn, who not only anchored songs like “We Love You” and “Dumb Waiters,” but also was a huge reason they were so unique in the first place. Which is why, 30 years later, John Ashton called it a “big mistake.”

Secondly, they were unable to get their regular producer, the awesome Steve Lillywhite — and after flirting with the record company choice David Bowie (!) — they decided to lean in to their changes and go with Todd Rundgren, who was actually surprised that he wasn’t going to be working with a six-piece, but who also had enough multi-instrumental chops and connections to help the Furs make some sense out of the chaos surrounding them.

Certain Songs #1667: The Psychedelic Furs – “So Run Down”

October 27, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Talk Talk Talk
Year: 1981

. . .

It’s always been hard for me to pick my favorite song from Talk Talk Talk. Sometimes it’s the crazy horn-driven “Dumb Waiters,” other times the gorgeous sincerity of “She Is Mine,” or maybe the glorious fucksong roar of “Into You Like A Train.”

But really, it’s the drum-driven fuckery of “So Run Down,” a song that is at once completely intricate that every part fits perfectly and at the same time that it sounds like it’s continually falling apart. It’s like a self-contained nuclear explosion caught in an unbreakable beaker.

Certain Songs #1666: The Psychedelic Furs – “Into You Like a Train”

October 26, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Talk Talk Talk
Year: 1981

As different as the U.S. and U.K. versions of Talk Talk Talk were, they fully agreed on one point: side two needed to start off with “Into You Like a Train,” the incredibly unsubtle fuck song that featured a typical pummeling Vince Ely drumbeat and a near-perfect mix of roaring guitars, soaring sax and pouring keyboards.

Back in the fall of 1981, I was a learning how to be a DJ at the pre-on-air KFSR — broadcasting down the hall to the KFSR office!! (and maybe the dorms, though I never believed that) — one of my most vivid memories of that time is putting on “Into You Like a Train,” and just fucking turning the studio monitor up as high as it would go, trying to get taken away by the overwhelming momentum of it all.

Certain Songs #1665: The Psychedelic Furs – “She Is Mine”

October 25, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Talk Talk Talk
Year: 1981

. . .

One of the reasons that I loved — fuck, love — Talk Talk Talk so much is all of the various moods on the record. For all of his ability to sneer at all of the stupid people he writes about, Richard Butler was also capable of writing unabashed love songs, the most unabashed being the lovely “She is Mine,” which closed out side one of the U.S. version (and the whole album in the U.K.) of Talk Talk Talk in fine style.

Certain Songs #1664: The Psychedelic Furs – “Dumb Waiters”

October 24, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Talk Talk Talk
Year: 1981

. . .

I’d love to know what the reaction in the room when Duncan Kilburn first showed the rest of the P-Furs the crazy, dissonant, spiraling saxophone riff that anchors “Dumb Waiters.”

I’d like to think that the rest of the band broke out in laughter. Not because it was funny, because it was so weird and amazing and perfect, that joyous laughter truly was the only possible response to it. Like, how in the fuck are we going to base a song around this?

As it turned out, the answer was “very carefully.”

Certain Songs #1663: The Psychedelic Furs – “Mr. Jones”

October 23, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Talk Talk Talk
Year: 1981

. . .

While you really can’t count Bob Dylan as a musical influence on The Psychedelic Furs, there is no doubt that he was a lyrical influence on Richard Butler, and Mr. Butler acknowledges that on the rip-roaring “Mr. Jones,” a post-punk sequel to Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man,” which traded in the slow-burning thin wild mercury sound of Dylan’s track for speedy post-punk.

Certain Songs #1662: The Psychedelic Furs – “Pretty In Pink”

October 22, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Talk Talk Talk
Year: 1981

. . .

Welcome to one of my all-time favorite albums, a record that has continually been in my life since 1981, and has never not given me a shit-ton of pleasure every single time I’ve heard it.

And I’ve heard it a lot.

With Steve Lillywhite at the helm, Talk Talk Talk perfectly blended all of the disparate elements of the P-Furs into a grand, glorious whole, song after song tumbling across my turntable, each and every one giving up some new and unexpected musical and melodic pleasure, on top of which Richard Butler spewed a whole novel’s worth of great words, sketching out characters and situations and stories — some of which might even involve himself — in the space of a few verses.