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.
With the guitars of John Ashton and Roger Morris swirling like fireflies in the background, and Vince Ely alternating his snare and floor tom on the backbeats, “She is Mine,” was almost aggressively unaggressive. But holy fuck, is it gorgeous.
I met this girl and called her ma
I called her everything
I called her “Fab” and “Mrs. Fish”
I didn’t get her name
She’s making me a pair of shoes
So I can run away
She’s making me a plastic wig
She’s making me again
And not ever relatively gorgeous: Butler reins in his rasp for sort of a modified croon — signifying his sincerity? — and then lets another stellar set of lyrics do all of the heavy lifting, especially on the chorus.
They’re making up things
That we’ve all heard before
Like romance and engage and divorce
(Falllllllll innnnnnnnnn loooooooooove)
You have to be crazy to stay in this place
You just have to laugh at it all
(Ha ha ha)
With the guitars in recess and Ely sticking resolutely to his beat, it’s all of the little touches that make “She is Mine,” like Duncan Kilburn’s sax interjections, sometimes heartbreakingly beautiful, sometimes dissonantly weird. About halfway though, Kilburn takes a short wistful solo that perfectly breaks the song up.
Also wonderful: the overdubs of Richard Butler singing “fallll innnn looooooove,” and “sheeeeee is miiinnnnne” throughout the song, always in his more abrasive voice, like he’s letting us know that he knows that we know his croon is a bit of an acting job, no matter how sincere he sounds.
“She is Mine”
The Certain Songs Database
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.
Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)
Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page