‘Paradise’: 3.48
When I looked into your lifeless eyes . . .
Our homage to Dolly Parton, Barney still being a bit obsessed with country music lyrically. The sound of Jam Studios’ live room on the drums takes me straight back there. An unusual song, structure-wise. Six-string bass parts too quiet. Too many lead/backing vocals. The fight began here.
‘Weirdo’: 3.51
It’s a life that’s made for me . . .
I felt the backing vocals on t his record were doing nothing for the track, and me and Barney were nose to nose over the mixing desk. Great bass riff with a super break.
‘As It Is When It Was’: 3.43
I bang my head against the wall . . .
A proper New Order song, recorded in Japan. Ruth Polsky’s favourite, she loved that the ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ bass riff was used again. With a magnificent soaring chorus and break, this track really shone live. A vision of Manchester at its bleakest.
‘Broken Promise’: 3.44
Every time I see you, you shout at me . . .
This track feels almost Movement-era to me. A great vocal line delivered very passionately. This song soon lost favour. It had too many guitars and just could not be delivered in the same way live.
A failure of your moral code . . .
We were trying to emulate ‘Age of Consent’ so I just played the riff backwards and voilà. Me and Mike came up with the idea for the reggae drop in the studio, and to get the bass sound for the intro overloaded the input of the studio cassette deck to get just the right distortion. Terry Mason’s favourite song. To me this side of the album was what the band was all about, and the second side complemented it very well.
‘Bizarre Love Triangle’: 4.20
Shot right through with a bolt of blue . . .
We were still writing the lyrics together here, and I’m pretty sure Steve came up with the above. In fact only Steve could have come up with it. This song has no key change but the chorus jumps out on its own. A great pop tune, driven by Barney’s wonderful string riffs. It started life in a different key, which to me sounded much better. I had a great open-string bass riff which we lost on the key transition. I must go through those old cassettes. Time . . . the enemy of the people.
‘All Day Long’: 5.09
This is a song about an innocent . . .
The only song about child abuse you can dance to. Dark, dark lyrics. Barney once drunkenly told me this was the only bass riff of mine he hated. Personally I think he got it mixed up with ‘Angel Dust’, but it hurt nonetheless. Very powerful live, with a sharp contrast between the synths and the orchestral overdubs. Great guitar work by Barney.
‘Angel Dust’: 3.40
I fear you will betray me . . .
Barney had brought in an old album of Eastern prayer calls to sample. It’s embarrassing now to think how negative I was to all his ideas. I regret that. The fear of being sidelined made me hostile. We worked hard in Jam to get the guitar lead lines as ‘Ennio Morricone’ as possible, and even threaded metal washers on the strings to give us a more metallic sound, like we did with ‘Sunrise’. Barney worked on the mix of these four tracks in Amazon Studios harder than I have ever seen him work before. He wanted the production to be just right. He pushed me and Mike very hard, very hard indeed. I resented that too. The underwater Lexicon reverb effect alone took ages. Worth it though, they sound superb. Well done, Barn. Sorry, mate.
‘Every Little Counts’: 4.25
I think you are a pig, you should be in a zoo . . .
A victim of five o’clock in the morning lyrics. When you’re so tired anything seems perfect. In Windmill Lane we were pissing ourselves. It was nice to hear Barney enjoying himself too. You can hear us commenting in the background. Rob and Mike hated it. Looking back now it stops the track being timeless and I’d say they were right. But live, people love it. The keyboard effect at the end was done on the Emulator II, with Barney holding all the keys down at once, using both arms. My second rip-off Hot Chocolate ‘Emma’ bassline.