*********************************** BLIND YOUTH =========== The early work of The Human League http://blindyouth.co.uk *********************************** This document last updated 3rd October 2003. All original text copyright 2000 - 2003 Sean Turner. CONTENTS (1) The Way It Was (biography) (1.1) Dead Daughters (1.2) The Future (1.3) Introducing Philip (1.4) Fast Product (1.5) Interface (1.6) Mysterons (1.7) Least Resistance (1.8) Automatic Stations (1.9) Spirits Wilting (1.10) No Future, They Say (1.11) A Brand New Sound (2) Rock 'N' Roll (discography) (2.1) Being Boiled (2.2) The 'Human League cassette' (2.3) The Dignity Of Labour (2.4) The 'Taverner tape' (2.5) I Don't Depend On You (2.6) Reproduction (2.7) Empire State Human (2.8) Holiday '80 (double) (2.9) Holiday '80 (single) (2.10) Travelogue (2.11) Only After Dark (2.12) In Darkness (bootleg) (2.13) The Future Tapes (unreleased) (2.14) Dance Like A Star (2.15) The Golden Hour Of The Future (2.16) selected UK compilations (2.17) miscellaneous releases (3) Songs They Didn't Know (A to Z of music) (3.1) A (3.2) B (3.3) C (3.4) D (3.5) E - G (3.6) I - K (3.7) L - M (3.8) N - O (3.9) P (3.10) R - S (3.11) T (3.12) V - W (3.13) Y - Z (4) Avoid Those Mistakes (lyrics/dialogue) (4.1.1) Almost Medieval (4.1.2) Circus Of Death (4.1.3) The Path Of Least Resistance (4.1.4) Blind Youth (4.1.5) The Word Before Last (4.1.6) Empire State Human (4.1.7) Morale... (4.1.8) You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (4.1.9) Austerity / Girl One (medley) (4.1.10) Zero As A Limit (4.1.11) Introducing (4.1.12) Flexi Disc (4.2.1) The Black Hit Of Space (4.2.2) Only After Dark (4.2.3) Life Kills (4.2.4) Dreams Of Leaving (4.2.5) Crow And A Baby (4.2.6) The Touchables (4.2.7) Being Boiled (4.2.8) WXJL Tonight (4.2.9) Marianne (4.2.10) Rock 'N' Roll (4.2.11) Night Clubbing (4.2.12) I Don't Depend On You (4.3.1) Blank Clocks (4.3.2) Cairo (4.3.3) Dance Like A Star (4.3.4) The Dignity Of Labour (demo narrative) (4.3.5) Disco Disaster (4.3.6) Dominion advertisement (narrative) (4.3.7) The Future Tapes (introduction) (4.3.8) 'Jason Taverner' dialogue (1), (2) and (3) (4.3.9) Perfect Day (5) original sleeve notes for The Golden Hour Of The Future *********************************** (1) The Way It Was (biography) *********************************** (1.1) Dead Daughters -------------------- The story of England's first true electronic pop group begins in the industrial South Yorkshire city of Sheffield, in the early 1970s. Ian Craig Marsh (born 11th November 1956) joined the local civic youth theatre group, Meatwhistle. Here, he met Mark Civico, with whom he would form a satirical 'theatre-rock' group named Musical Vomit. They played just two shows together, Ian accompanying Mark's vocals by coaxing noise from his cheap Woolworths guitar, before Ian was expelled from his school halfway through his A-level studies, having been branded 'an undesirable subversive element'. At this point, Ian left Musical Vomit and Meatwhistle in search of work, though Mark kept the band going in various forms, recruiting other Meatwhistle friends such as Paul Bowers, Haydn Bowes-Weston, Adolph 'Adi' Newton, Glenn Gregory and newcomer Martyn Ware. Martyn (born 19th May 1956): "I'd been working as trainee manager at Sheffield and Ecclesall Co-op, when a friend took me down to Meatwhistle. I walked in wearing white flares, white t-shirt, silver platform boots with five inch heels and a diamante cat collar. We're talking heavy Kiss now, that was the image. Gary Glitter, T-Rex." Glenn: "I remember it vividly. I knew immediately we'd get along well. I was wearing jeans with 24 inch bottoms and gold baseball shoes." Around this time, Martyn bought his first musical instrument - a Stylophone. Not just any Stylophone, but the deluxe dual-stylus Stylophone. This purchase was a direct result of Martyn trying to play guitar and finding it made his fingers sore; the Stylophone (as used and advertised by David Bowie around the time of Space Oddity) seemed a much more civilised route towards music-making. Before long, he was onstage at the Bath Arts Festival with a new line-up of Musical Vomit, performing numbers such as Denim Mind and Whip King Of Mars to an audience of bemused hippies. Glenn: "We lasted all of two minutes before the hippies started showering us with bottles and cans." Meanwhile, Ian had found work and was able to afford the do-it-yourself synthesizer kit he'd seen in the local library's copy of Practical Electronics magazine. Having bought and constructed the primitive synthesizer, he struggled to get it to work particularly well, though "it made very good motorbike noises". Soon afterwards, he returned to Meatwhistle, taking his synthesizer with him, and was persuaded to play the instrument with the ever-changing line-up of Musical Vomit. Various other bands would emerge from the Meatwhistle group, all with 'colourful' names, such as The Dead Daughters, The Underpants, Dick Velcro & The Space Kidettes, Androids Don't Bleed, Totem Pole, The Hari Willey Krishna Band and Arthur Craven's Tent Band. Each of these bands played together at least once, usually on Sundays in a small room known as Simon Scott's Kit Kat Club. However, Musical Vomit seems to have been the primary musical collective from this scene, as in 1976, they were booked to appear at the famous Reading rock festival. Here they were spotted by future X-Ray Spex leader Poly Styrene, who would later claim Musical Vomit were the very first punk band. Martyn: "Sheffield engendered a certain desperation to get on with something different and creative, 'cause really there wasn't a lot happening. It was a place of great depression at the time, 'cause of all the factory closures. "I was desperate not to replicate my father's life, 'cause he worked in a steel works for fifty years... my father had to retire early through ill health, probably through inhaling metal filings through most of his life, and got a gold watch and no pension.... so I was going, 'This is outrageous, I am never going to be in this position again'. This was my motivation." By 1977, both Ian and Martyn were working as computer operators (for tool manufacturers Spear & Jackson plc and auto parts distributor Lucas Service respectively). Martyn: "I'd just started working in a well-paid job and I've got some spare cash for the first time in my life... what shall I spend it on? The first commercial synthesizers - cheap ones - were just coming onto the market, and so I went and bought one." Martyn's first synthesizer was a Korg 770S and it was quickly put to use when he, Ian, Adi and other Meatwhistle members formed a one-off band to play at a friend's 21st birthday party. Ian: "We played under the name of The Dead Daughters or something. Very strange. There was a guitar, a drummer, my synthesizer and loads of tape loops, all being put through various effects units. We did things like the Doctor Who theme tune and Louie Louie." Adi, Martyn and Ian enjoyed the experience and decided to form a new band together - The Future. (1.2) The Future ---------------- Ian, Martyn and Adi now set about the business of creating pop music using only electronic instruments - a very common practice nowadays, but virtually unheard of in 1977. At that time, only a few artists, such as German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk, were daring to make pop music this way; most purely electronic music was being made by avant-garde artists with little interest in taking the form into the mainstream. Even the artists with pop backgrounds then experimenting with electronic sounds (e.g. David Bowie, Brian Eno, et cetera) tended to either shy away from using synthesizers for pop music or would combine these sounds with traditional rock guitars and percussion. Most of 1977's electronic pop would emerge from the disco scene; for instance, Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's ground-breaking classic I Feel Love. Such sounds were a world away from the new wave of punk bands then sweeping Britain, armed with a handful of barely-learned guitar chords and a do-it-yourself attitude born out of exasperation with stagnant rock dinosaurs such as Pink Floyd and Yes. Martyn: "When punk came along, The Sex Pistols played in Sheffield with The Clash, but I didn't go. To be honest, we thought rock was a bit 'old hat'. We had our own thing going in Sheffield and considered ourselves completely separate from London. We were operating at the quirky end of disco, something more futuristic. "But punk was the liberating influence that allowed us to do what we wanted to do." Although they were later keen to distance themselves from Kraftwerk, the group were certainly impressed by their classic track Trans-Europe Express, which Martyn now admits, "transformed my life. I went up to Richard Kirk's house and he was having this big dub-plate party in the back garden on a steamy night in Sheffield in the middle of summer. He put on Trans-Europe Express and I'd never heard anything like it in my life. I was transfixed." Having no formal musical training, the group opted to use affordable and easily-mastered synthesizers rather than guitars. As Martyn commented at the time, the guitar "required you to soak your fingers in alcohol to stop them bleeding. We're not into things like that." Besides, given their interests and location, the group's sound made perfect sense in many ways. Martyn: "I was always into science fiction, and... I think, to a certain extent, in Sheffield, you're surrounded by strange sounds, with the steel works all the time, you know? You're surrounded by music concrete, the drop forges hammering away at night. I mean, literally, it was a natural environment for us - they sounded like very natural sounds... not alien at all. The sound of machinery is what we grew up with." Around this time, The Future teamed up with Cabaret Voltaire, 2.3's drummer Haydn Boyes-Weston and Glenn Gregory to support Mancunian punk band The Drones at one of Sheffield University's venues. Calling themselves VD K & The Studs, they played mainly cover versions, such as Lou Reed's Vicious and Iggy & The Stooges' Cock In My Pocket, plus a number entitled The Drones Want To Come On Now. The performance was recorded, though it has yet to be released in any form. Martyn: "We were terrible, but The Drones were one of the worst bands we'd ever heard. We knew we had more musical talent than them, and suddenly everything seemed possible." The Future began recording demos in a semi-professional studio in the house of a local recording engineer, as there were no other affordable studios in the area. Martyn and Ian played their synthesizers, while Adi made use of the tape collection he was steadily amassing. Before long, they had recorded eight compositions and decided to contact the major record companies in London. Keen to make an impression, they sent the companies notification of their forthcoming day trip to London, suggesting that interested parties should make appointments to meet with the group on that day. Many companies were presumably intrigued by the fact that this communication was issued as a computer print-out and arranged meetings with The Future, despite not yet having heard any of their music. However, the group's day in London did not go well; for a start, Adi had compiled a selection of their recordings onto two tracks of a four-track tape reel, and when this tape was played on the record companies' four- track tape machines, they heard not only The Future's demos, but also the music of other artists which Adi had recorded on the remaining two tracks of the tape. This resulted in The Future's music having to compete with the likes of Elvis Presley being simultaneously played backwards. Although this mistake could eventually be rectified in most cases, many of the record company staff suspected the group were simply playing a joke on them, and The Future were physically ejected by security guards from several of the offices they visited. Only Chris Blackwell, head of Island Records, had any encouraging words for the trio; all the other A&R men who would actually listen to the group's music were generally forty- somethings trying to appear 'hip' in the latest punk clothing, with no understanding of what the group were trying to do. Ian: "They all thought we were total crap. All they said was 'Keep in touch, boys'." Adi, wanting to explore acoustic as well as electronic sounds, departed shortly afterwards to form Clock DVA, while Martyn and Ian continued record demos together. Ian: "And then we thought 'No, we really do need a vocalist'"... (1.3) Introducing Philip ------------------------ Ian and Martyn initially considered asking their friend Glenn Gregory to join them as a vocalist, but at that time, Glenn was busy with his own band in London, 57 Men. So instead they invited Martyn's friend Philip Oakey (born 2nd October 1955) to join the group, apparently by leaving a note stuck to his door. Philip was then a hospital porter in a plastic surgery theatre and had never previously considered any form of performance, due to his shy nature. He later admitted that "if it wasn't for Ian and Martyn, I'd still be wheeling bodies around a hospital ward... I was completely without ambition..." Martyn: "I used to go to school with Phil, from the age of 16 probably, and he looked like a pop star." Philip: "I'd been watching with increased admiration as all these things happened to The Future, with them trotting off to London to see record companies, which seemed a fairly insane thing to do. Everybody used to laugh at them except me. "I was very surprised when they asked me because, you know, everyone was trying to be in bands at that stage, and I wasn't." Philip's first meeting with Ian was interesting - the two were introduced to each other in a nightclub, when Ian was wearing women's tights, a 13 amp plug around his neck and a baked bean tin on his head. (Sadly, photographs are not available!) Philip asked him, "What happens if I plug you into the mains? Does your head light up?" Ian was less than amused, but Philip still became part of the group. Ian: "We wondered what role he was going to have because he hadn't got any money to buy a synthesizer or anything. He had a saxophone which he couldn't play." But when Philip came up with lyrics for Being Boiled, his future as lead vocalist was secured. And he certainly looked the part... Philip: "When we started in this pop group business, I thought 'What have all big pop stars got that sets them apart?' And the only thing that I could think of that made them all different was a hairstyle. David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Marc Bolan, The Beatles - they all had odd hairstyles, so I thought I had better find myself one. Then one day, I saw a hair model on a bus, a girl called Penny, and I went over and said 'Where did you get your haircut? I want one of those.' It was as simple as that." Determined to produce pop music in a modern and original way, the group then spent two thousand pounds on new hi-tech gear. Although their financial situation forced them to buy most of it under 'hire-purchase' agreements, they were soon the proud owners of a two-track tape recorder and a 100 System Synthesizer (with sequencer module). Martyn: "We love technology, and we love the idea that things are gonna become more involved with machines in the future. I think rock 'n' roll's had a fair crack of the whip and now it's time for something different." Ian: "It's not as if something new comes along and everything else disappears... you've still got jazz and folk and everything left, even though they're not carrying the forefront anymore." Martyn: "We go out of our way to avoid sounding like Kraftwerk if possible, 'cause I think it's very easy to do, and I think that with the amount of money and equipment Kraftwerk've got, they could do a lot better. You know, to laymen, Kraftwerk are the epitome of electronic music... but in fact, the tunes and structures and noises they make are not particularly complex in any way." Asked years later about the group's original choice of instrumentation, Philip remarked, "We really liked what pop music had turned into with David Bowie - suddenly there were new sounds. I lived my life for Bowie and Roxy Music for four or five years - I don't think I could have got through my adolescence without them, but they were using traditional instruments because that's all there was. We were interested in innovation. Suddenly, there were synthesizers and we were knocked out. Hearing Walter Carlos' soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange totally launched us into it." (1.4) Fast Product ------------------ With this new line-up, the group decided to change their name. After briefly considering ABCD, they chose The Human League, taken from a science-fiction board game called Star Force. Martyn: "There were all these scenarios in the back for various wars in the future, and one of these, for a stage 'round about 2180, where there were two main empires - The Pansantient Hegemony and The Human League. The Human League centred around Earth and the scenario was called The Rise Of The Human League. So we stole it." They then spent time writing and recording material for a demo tape in a disused factory on Devonshire Lane in the centre of Sheffield. The demo tape featured Being Boiled, Circus Of Death and Toyota City, all recorded in mono on their new two-track tape recorder and all later commercially released (on the Being Boiled and Only After Dark singles). The group's demos came to the attention of Bob Last through Paul Bowers of Sheffield band 2:3. Bob ran a small independent record label, Fast Product (then home of the influential Gang Of Four and Mekons, as well as 2:3), in Edinburgh, Scotland and was impressed by the tape. He immediately offered them a recording contract. The deal was completed over the telephone, and the group did not actually meet Bob until five months after the group's debut single, Being Boiled, was released by Fast Product. Reproduced below is part of a press release - the group's "world-view" - issued as a computer print-out by Fast Product at the time: "SCENARIO: In the summer of 1977 The Human League was formed due to the members finding no conventional channels for their immense talents. "BACKGROUND: None of The Human League have any orthodox musical training, but prefer to regard compositions as an extension of logic, inspiration and luck. Therefore, unlike conventional musicians, their influences are not so obvious. "CONCLUSION/MANIFESTO: Interested in combining the best of all worlds, The League would like to positively affect the future by close attention to the present, allying technology with humanity and humour. They have been described as 'Later Twentieth Century Boys' and 'Intelligent, Innovatory and Immodest'. The same computer print-out included a brief history of the group, which mentioned The Future and Adi Newton's departure from that project; apparently, he was "deleted due to malfunction". The press release was part of a publicity pack, which also included a cassette of demo recordings, an Electronically Yours sticker and catchphrases such as "beware of sugar-coated bullets"... (1.5) Interface --------------- Around this time, the group developed a computer system for the production of lyrics - CARLOS (Cyclic And Random Lyric Organisation System). Words and phrases would be fed into the system and assembled at random into sentences by the computer, in the manner of a fruit machine. Similar 'cut-up' experiments had been executed by artists such as Brian Eno and David Bowie (who in turn had been influenced by the experiments of William Burroughs), using words written on small cards, but the League took it a step further by using the computer to generate lyrics. Although the experiment was short-lived (the group eventually lost faith in the system as it "had a tendency to make things over- staccato"), they did have some success when using CARLOS to write a song about former Stooges guitarist James Williamson. Ian: "The first twelve phrases that came up were quite good." Martyn: "You come up with some amazing lyrics. It's a very interesting process, a very logical extension of mathematics." Between the recording and the release of Being Boiled, the group began to reconsider their stance on live performance. They had previously decided against playing live, primarily because they felt uncomfortable on stage (Philip: "I'm just too embarrassed about dancing. The others describe me looking like a clumsy giraffe if I even make the slightest attempt."), but also because live performance seemed irrelevant to their work. Philip: "Other groups get together with two guitars and a drummer and a singer, and they'll thrash out a song and learn to play it, and then they'll go out and play it live, and then maybe get to make a record of it. The first thing we do when we get anything we like is put it down on a tape, and then see about adding to it, which is a very different set-up." However, frustrated at their lack of progress at the time, the group were eventually persuaded by friends to play live, assisted by backing tapes. Their first show took place at Bar 2 in Sheffield's Psalter Lane art college on June 12th 1978. Ian, describing the group's early shows: "The tape recorder would be placed centre stage, where a drummer would be, deliberately, and all the rhythms and bass would be on there. The show started with us deliberately walking on and turning the tape recorder on, and the stuff would start without us playing anything... which was pretty provocative at the time." Philip: "It was just so not like a band 'should' be, and everyone did laugh at us." Martyn: "Oh, they did. We were a joke in Sheffield. We were an affront to their sensibilities. People wanted to hit us and stuff." Ian: "I remember someone actually threw a pint of beer over Martyn and his keyboard, which was a bit shocking 'cause we couldn't afford insurance or anything. So I built a cage to surround the synth to protect it, which all the writers thought was a powerful statement of alienation." Philip: "In fact, it was a beer guard." For many years, stories of the League making their first television appearance around this time have circulated, claiming that the group appeared on the Granada network's What's On TV show to promote Being Boiled. The stories claim that Philip was interviewed wearing a wedding dress and that the network's switchboard was quickly jammed with complaints from viewers, outraged at Philip's attire. However, this myth was recently dispelled by Ian, though he was sorry to do so, admitting it would have been a "nice idea"! (1.6) Mysterons --------------- In the audience at the first show was art student and Ramones devotee Philip Adrian Wright (born 30th June 1956), who lived in the building in which the group rehearsed and worked in an ice cream van around nearby Wakefield. Philip: "We accidentally picked up Adrian" (as he became known) "after about the third show, 'cause we were totally boring on stage. We didn't do anything." Although at the first show, the League were able to use video equipment which an acquaintance had happened to bring along, they were without visual accompaniment at their second and third shows. Adrian: "They said 'We hear you've got this slide collection... we're pretty boring on stage - why don't you come and project your slides behind us and liven us up?'" Adrian agreed to this and was appointed Director Of Visuals in the group. His slideshows made a huge difference to the group's live shows. Using up to four screens at a time, Adrian initially mixed up images at random, but later began using them more strategically to complement the songs. His slide collection included hundreds of photographs taken from television, such as Star Trek, Batman, Captain Scarlet and Doctor Who, and it would later expand to include many other images from popular culture, including films and other musicians, such as Gary Glitter, Iggy Pop and the Bay City Rollers. The group's first London show took place at the Music Machine on August 17th 1978, two months after the release of Being Boiled. There they supported The Rezillos, who were managed by Bob Last and whose guitarist, Jo Callis, would join a future incarnation of The Human League in 1981. Concerned by stories of the violent receptions afforded other bands that dared to use instruments other than guitars and drums before a London punk audience, the League originally planned to perform in motorcycle helmets, but decided against this at the last minute. The following month, at a free show at Sheffield's Limit Club, they shared the bill with Graph, featuring Ian Burden, who would also later join the group in late 1980. (Also on what was clearly an eclectic bill that night were future stadium rockers Def Leppard...! Martyn: "They were bloody awful.") For this show, the League dressed in white boiler suits emblazoned with the group's initials, HL. Martyn: "I wanted to start the gig off with a lecture and slideshow.... saying 'This is the kind of music we are going to play. Now, we'd like you to move in these certain sections here', you know, with, like, a pointer and everything, before we started playing." The group were then asked by Siouxsie & The Banshees to support them on a December tour of Britain, along with new wave band Spizz Oil. The League, although slightly apprehensive, accepted the offer, fearing that the punk element of the Banshees' audience would shower them with spit and beer bottles. Prepared for the worst, they constructed special fibreglass 'riot- shields' to protect themselves on stage, and after the first few shows dropped many of the unpopular instrumental tracks in favour of crowd-pleasing material, such as a cover of Gary Glitter's Rock 'N' Roll. As it happened, the riot-shields proved unnecessary; the tour was a great success for the League and brought them many new admirers from the Banshees' audience. However, many of the League's new fans were to be disappointed by their next Fast Product release, The Dignity Of Labour, which was purely instrumental and not at all in the pop vein their new fans had come to expect. This EP's release was preceded by a short headlining tour in February 1979, supported by Fast Product band The Scars on certain dates. However, their planned concert together with The Transmitters at London's Notre Dame Hall was cancelled just two hours before the show was scheduled to begin, "on moral grounds". The hall's vicar had apparently demanded the show's cancellation, refusing to "allow any of these punk rockers in my hall". Another London appearance was also cancelled two months later; the League were scheduled to support one of their old heroes, Lou Reed, but the former Velvet Underground leader decided shortly before the show that he didn't want a support band after all... (1.7) Least Resistance ---------------------- Following the release of The Dignity Of Labour, the group decided they needed stronger backing than the tiny Fast Product label could offer. So, keeping Bob Last on board as their manager, they decided to put together a new demo tape with which to impress the major record companies. They hit upon the ingenious idea of having a presenter to introduce the tracks on the tape. This was achieved by Philip pretending to be one 'Jason Taverner', and the hilarious results could not fail to make the record companies' A & R personnel to sit up and take note (see Rock 'N' Roll: The 'Taverner tape'). A number of record companies were soon offering The Human League recording contracts, and after much talk of a deal with new Polydor imprint Fiction (who had just signed The Cure), the group chose to sign with Virgin Records, who had had a hand in the release of The Dignity Of Labour and whose publishing arm had recently signed the group. Rather than allow themselves to be lured elsewhere by the promise of large sums of money, they selected this label primarily because Virgin's Simon Draper offered them the level of creative control they desired. Simon: "I was really taken with their version of You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling... they were a very original group. I attempted immediately to sign them and was successful." After the signing, the group embarked on an eventful European tour with one of their heroes, 'godfather of punk' Iggy Pop. Philip: "We went and turned up for a festival in Vienna, I think, or in France, but in one of them, I remember the booklet actually said 'England's leading gay group'. I was a bit worried 'cause I don't think any of us ever were gay... which is a bit unlikely, when you think about it, but it wasn't really a gay thing. It wasn't effeminate - it was somewhere in between. I did have about ten or fifteen years where I didn't wear any men's clothing, but it wasn't really women's clothing either. It was just... somewhere else." Philip also formed a kind of mutual appreciation society with Iggy when he asked the former Stooge if he weight-trained. "He said 'yes', and I said that it showed, because he had a fantastic body, and he said 'you have too'. I was really knocked out by that - Iggy Pop actually said I have a nice body." Ian also caught Iggy's eye. Philip: "Iggy used to go around kissing him all the time and say, 'I am gay, you know'." At Hanover, the League faced a rather hostile anti-English audience, and were doubtless glad of their 'riot shields' as Union Jack flags were burned and various items were thrown at the stage. Around this time, the group also found themselves being pursued by a groupie, described by Martyn as "like a potato with blonde hair". Martyn: "The second thing she said to us was 'I'm a schizophrenic', and the third was 'Can you put me up for the night?' or something like that. We went to this restaurant and she just sat there, staring, not eating anything. In the end, we let her sleep in the car, just to get rid of her..." Still, the League enjoyed the tour. On their return to England, Martyn declared, "It's great touring there. Pretty magnificent. It never stopped happening - complete excess from beginning to end." (1.8) Automatic Stations ------------------------ Back in Sheffield, the group began recording for their new record label. Curiously, the group's first Virgin release was issued under the pseudonym of The Men. The single, I Don't Depend On You, was recorded to appease those at Virgin who feared that the public would not accept a synthesizer-only group. The track featured a live rhythm section and female backing vocalists, and was decidedly more commercial than the group's previous releases. By now, Martyn and Ian were also contributing lyrics to the songs. Philip: "Martyn Ware is a very good lyricist. Ian wrote the Men lyrics... people would take the lyrics as a block thing, they'd either take it or leave it. However, sometimes I might find that I'd said everything I want to say in the first verse, and ask someone to finish it. It was really, really shared. We wanted to be a cottage industry with a few machines. It was socialist. It was us against the world." The release of the group's ground-breaking debut album, Reproduction, in October 1979 was met with a number of unenthusiastic reviews. Although promoted with the subsequent release of the Empire State Human single, taken from the album, sales of Reproduction were substantially lower than Virgin had anticipated. As a result, Virgin decided to cancel all but two dates of the group's proposed UK tour. At the remaining shows, Adrian's short film Zero As A Limit was shown on a 21' by 14' screen and Teardrop Explodes provided support. Virgin instead arranged for the group to support Talking Heads on their November tour of the UK. However, things changed again soon after Bob Last issued this press release to announce the group's plans for the tour: "The Human League, intrigued to experience their own performance themselves, have designed a remotely controlled touring entertainment. Therefore, 30 Human League minutes will be available on the upcoming Talking Heads tour. The League themselves may well join the audience on some evenings to savour the occasion. The arrangement will allow them on other evenings to continue working on their second album in their Sheffield workshop." Unfortunately, someone somewhere was clearly not amused by this concept of live performance and the League were dismissed from the tour shortly before the first show. The news came in the form of a telex: "Regret must cancel Human League appearance on Talking Heads tour in deference to ticket buyers due to format of League's show." Bob was understandably annoyed: "What right has the agent and promoter to speak for ticket buyers? Why do we have to get up on stage and pose with a guitar?" But despite having invested much time and money in these plans, the group were not too distraught. In fact, they seemed to thrive off such setbacks. Adrian: "Spirits were quite high, because everybody was against us and we were all really tough about it." For the record, the League planned to include the following songs in these shows: King Of Kings, Almost Medieval, Girl One, Circus Of Death, Stylopops, Blind Youth, The Touchables, Being Boiled, Zero As A Limit and Empire State Human. Their next challenge was to persuade Virgin to finance the establishment of their own personal recording studio in Sheffield. Virgin were eventually convinced, realising that it would cost less to set up the group with their own studio than it would to hire other studios for future recordings. The League chose a disused vetinary surgery, close to their old rehearsal room in the centre of Sheffield, and with their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks, named the new studio Monumental Pictures... (1.9) Spirits Wilting --------------------- The League spent the early part of 1980 recording their second album and tracks for the Holiday 80 double single, which was released in April that year. The double single failed to trouble the UK Top 75 and Virgin swiftly replaced it with a three track single-disc version, which fared better. The group's electronic sound was now beginning to grow again in popularity, as interest in the burgeoning New Romantic/Futurist scene developed. This movement had grown out of London's glamorous Blitz club, which spawned a number of the characters who would rise to fame in the early part of the new decade, such as Steve Strange of Visage and Boy George of Culture Club. But The League had little time for these so-called Futurists... Martyn: "It's a very old-fashioned view of futurism, which is like people walking about like Michael Rennie out of The Day The Earth Stood Still or something. That's not futurism - that's more nostalgia than anything else." Philip later remarked, "I was doing all these Steve Strange things a long time ago, years ago when David Bowie first came 'round. I remember me and Martyn went to a party dressed up the first time we saw Roxy Music. Everyone thought we were Andy Mackay and Eno. But I've stopped doing all that now. It became a bit common, so I don't do it at all anymore." Adrian: "We're surviving all these different fashions. When the Futurist thing stops, we'll carry on." Still, when the group's second album, Travelogue, was released in May that year, it was more warmly received than Reproduction, reaching Number 16 in the UK charts and eventually spending an impressive 42 weeks in the Top 75. The album was generally brighter in tone than its predecessor, and most agreed that Travelogue demonstrated that the group were finally fulfilling their potential. In support of the album, the group undertook what would be their final UK tour - twelve dates beginning on May 15th at the Mayfair in Newcastle, and ending on May 29th at Wakefield's Unity Hall. On this tour, Adrian directed the slides and lights from the stage, having previously worked off-stage. This was followed by dates in mainland Europe, including an Amsterdam show on June 10th, which was broadcast on Dutch radio. By this time, The Human League were sufficiently prominent to receive a mention in a Top 10 hit by new wave band The Undertones. Their My Perfect Cousin single included these cheeky lines: "His ma's bought him a synthesizer / Got The Human League in to advise her / Now he's making lots of noise / Playing around with the art school boys / Philip's trying to attract his attention / But what a shame - it's in vain - total rejection..." Ian: "We haven't worked that out. We think it's all related to an interview that Martyn and Philip did on the radio, where Philip said something like 'rock and roll is dead, guitars are old-fashioned' - they perhaps took exception to that." Travelogue was followed in June by the re-issue of Empire State Human, the first 15,000 copies of which were accompanied by a free single, Only After Dark. It sold more copies than the original release, though still not enough to crack the UK Top 40. The group were becoming increasingly frustrated. Martyn: "We were on thirty quid a week each. Everybody's going, 'Oh, great albums, mate', you know, 'really influential', and people flying out from all over Europe and Japan and going, you know, 'What is it like, doing the industrial / post-industrial funk?' and all this stuff, and we're going, 'It's fine, but... we're actually skint'..." (1.10) No Future, They Say -------------------------- Ian: "Our intention was to become the first popular synthesizer band that was doing songs with vocals, as opposed to experimental stuff, and we'd been doing a couple of albums and thought that we'd released things that could do that, and nothing ever quite became a hit. "And then, out of nowhere, Gary Numan came along and stole our glory. He used to be a rock act, really, then he seemed to take on our clothing and suddenly became incredibly successful... and we were, I think, quite miffed about that." Martyn: "That was kind of like a cusp for the group, because until that point, it had been a laugh, and art and everything. From that point, that's what really broke the morale, looking back on it now... all right, so we were mentioned as being influential and everything, but in reality, we were poor. We weren't earning any money out of what we were doing. "We must be the only group in the world whose fourth member was a slide projectionist... who then went on to get writing credits! Excuse me? That was the point where I left the group, thank you very much! We were completely 'on a mission'..." The situation was further complicated by the friction between Martyn and Philip (always a problem, but one which had now become unbearable) and with Philip making attempts to kick Martyn out of The Human League, there was no chance of the group continuing in this format. At first, Bob suggested that perhaps the way forward was for the group to split into two new bands, neither of them named The Human League, but both of them releasing material on a new imprint of Virgin which would be called Human League Records, thereby preserving the 'brand name' they had established. It was clear at this point that Philip and Adrian no longer wished to work with Martyn, but Ian was keen to continue to work with both Martyn and with Philip and Adrian. Martyn was happy with this arrangement, but Philip was apparently concerned that Ian might inadvertantly pass on all their best ideas to Martyn, and he tried to persuade Ian to work exclusively with him and Adrian, though without success. In November 1980, Martyn and Ian announced the formation of their British Electric Foundation production company, which would be "a cross between what PiL (Public Image Limited) should have been before they became just another group, and the business suss of Chic." This left Philip and Adrian to deal with the group's forthcoming European tour, which was due to begin about two weeks later. Martyn: "We made our decisions in as civilised a manner as possible, since if me and Ian had gone out as The Human League, the promoters could quite possibly have sued us - rock economics being what they are - because we wouldn't have been the act 'as seen'." Philip, by now warming to the possibility of becoming a star, certainly wasn't about to let go of his chance of fame. "I think they were finding it a bit embarrassing, what we were doing. They thought it was too poppy or something, and they were happy to go and look like backroom boys somewhere else. Whereas, you know, all I ever wanted to do was be Donna Summer." Manager Bob Last's statement to the press gave the impression of an amicable split: "The League didn't split up for the usual corny 'musical and personal differences' reasons. They simply no longer had an adequate working relationship. Neither party was happy and no-one was fulfilled, but this way, both sides will produce far more satisfactory and commercial work." Meanwhile, Philip and Adrian agreed with Martyn and Ian that they would continue to use the Human League name, on the condition that Martyn and Ian would receive 1% of the League's future royalties, though the group's financial debt to Virgin would remain the responsibility of the new League line-up. The two began seeking new members for the impending live shows. Philip famously recruited two teenage girls (Susanne Sulley and Joanne Catherall) his girlfriend spotted dancing at Sheffield's Crazy Daisy disco. Graph bassist Ian Burden was persuaded to take on keyboard duties (despite the fact that he didn't actually care much for the League's music!). The tour was completed, but was not well-received; with so little time to prepare, the group lacked confidence and the critics were unimpressed. To add insult to injury, the group had to face a number of hostile audiences, particularly in Germany, where the crowds seemed to resent the fact that girls had joined The Human League (!). The League decided to avoid live shows for a while and began work on new material, with ex-Rezillo Jo Callis joining soon afterwards. Meanwhile, Martyn and Ian's new production company was taking shape, with Ian even handling the company's financial accounts. They signed a production deal with Virgin, under which they would steadily accumulate a roster of 'commercial' acts, one per year, delivering an album by each act every year, along with up to twelve 'arty' albums of their own each year. Initially, they formed a new group (or 'business subsidiary', as they called it) named Heaven 17 after a fictional band from Stanley Kubrick's cinematic adaption of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. Their old friend Glenn Gregory from the Meatwhistle days joined them to handle lead vocals and Martyn and Ian began seeking a full band to back Glenn in live performance (they had no plans to be full-time members of Heaven 17 at this point). As Martyn explained, "Heaven 17 is a 100% serious attempt to be incredibly popular, whereas B.E.F. is no less serious but tends to be involved with more experimental projects." By March 1981, the first Heaven 17 single [We Don't Need This] Fascist Groove Thang was in the shops (though not on the radio very often - the BBC banned it for its anti-Reagan lyrics), along with an instrumental B.E.F cassette entitled Music For Stowaways... (1.11) A Brand New Sound ------------------------ The two groups now found themselves in the slightly strange position of having to share the studio they jointly owned, taking turns to use the equipment to record demos for their next albums. During this time, much bitching took place in the music press, mainly from the B.E.F. corner... Martyn: "We've got the talent. They haven't." "It must be revealed that the backing tapes for their last tour were made up by me and Ian. It won't happen again. We got hold of the master tapes and erased them." (Philip and Adrian had in fact already made their own copies of those tapes, as well as recording four new backing tracks for the tour. Philip: "We read in the paper, 'Oh, ha ha, we've taken the tapes off 'em.' And the really sad thing is that we were using them ourselves to record other things over the tracks, because we needed the tape.") Glenn Gregory on Philip: "He likes Ian, loves him like a son, but thinks he's a bit odd. He thinks that Martyn is a self- opinionated twat." Martyn, in response: "I think he's a berk anyway. Yeah, he does like Ian - he thinks he's been led astray by my evil influence." Philip, one year after the split: "When you've devoted two and a half years, and you've got a dream in your head of selling a lot of records, being Number One with the three people you've worked with, it's like a little love affair, and you really believe in it. No matter what you say, no matter that you succeed with something else, you're still a little bit heartbroken that that didn't work out, when you've cared about it for so long. They've moved to London, they don't live in Sheffield anymore. No, they're a lot more interested in going to nightclubs than making records. "I get annoyed at picking up a paper and I read 'haven't The Human League done well when the inventive side have left?', which is an absolute load of rubbish. They are doing a hell of a lot, they've put out three albums and a Hot Gossip album, and singles, and we've done one album. Because we're absolutely determined that everything we do is gonna be a hundred per cent what we want. If we want to do something inventive, we'll do it, we'll take a year over it and it'll be right. But we can do it. "For one album, we said we're gonna do pop singles, we're gonna get popular, we're gonna communicate with a lot of people, make a lot of people think we're really worth listening to, and we're not gonna mess around. We're not gonna release any rubbish whatsoever, nothing with the Human League name on it is going to be duff. And then we read in the paper 'These [Marsh and Ware] are inventive'. Of course they're inventive - if they do a bit of tape for five minutes, they'll put it on a record and it'll be out next week. "But it's all for the better. They are going to be very, very good and we're going to be very, very good. It'd got very stale, everyone was a bit sick of everyone - I've known Martyn for a long time and periodically we do have very big arguments. Twice in the past, I didn't talk to him for a whole year, which is a bit silly. But they're nice lads - Ian still comes in the studio when we're in, and I see Martyn quite a lot. It's better that way." So the bickering eventually subsided and Bob Last continued to manage the new incarnation of The Human League, even though he was now a director and shareholder in the B.E.F. (many people, including the group themselves, suspected him of having engineered the split anyway!). The new-look Human League went on to huge worldwide success with the single Don't You Want Me and the third Human League album, Dare!, which sold five million copies and is hailed by many as one of the definitive pop albums of the 1980s. The group (now essentially just Philip, Susanne and Joanne, plus collaborators) have also scored hits with most subsequent albums and singles, and members have collaborated with the likes of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, Giorgio Moroder, The All-Seeing I and even comedian Vic Reeves. Adrian eventually left the League after the making of 1986's Crash album, during which he found that producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis had no need for his keyboard contributions, having drafted in session musicians. Adrian returned to film-making and has worked as a director in the fields of both film and music video. Chart success came slightly later for Heaven 17; after disappointing sales of their debut album, Penthouse And Pavement (side two of which Martyn has described as "like a continuation of Travelogue"), they scored three Top 20 singles in 1983 (including the Number Two hit, Temptation) from their best-selling album, The Luxury Gap. The B.E.F. have also had success, both as a recording act (with many famous guest vocalists) and also as producers (after a low-key debut with dance troupe Hot Gossip's Geisha Boys & Temple Girls album, which included new versions of early League songs). Martyn has produced many artists, such as Erasure, Tina Turner, Marc Almond and Terence Trent D'Arby, as well as two singles for his favourite soccer team, Sheffield Wednesday. Ian has also worked on other projects, programming Right Said Fred's I'm Too Sexy and Scritti Politti's version of The Beatles' She's A Woman. Both The Human League and Heaven 17 continue to record occasionally, and attract large audiences whenever they tour. The League's impact continues to be felt today, with such diverse established artists as Smashing Pumpkins, Ladytron, and Five covering their songs, and a new generation of artists such as Les Rythmes Digitales (mainman Jacques Lu Cont: "They're my all time favourite band") and Ex-Rental (who have covered The Black Hit Of Space) citing them among their influences. Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor once commented on "the excitement of hearing a Human League track, and thinking, 'that's all machines, there's no drummer'. That was my calling." Ultimately, the original Human League line-up achieved their ambition after splitting - mainstream success came when the re- issued Being Boiled single entered the UK Top 10 in 1982... a song both The League and Heaven 17 now play at their live shows... *********************************** (2) Rock 'N' Roll (discography) *********************************** (2.1) Being Boiled ------------------ June 1978 BEING BOILED b/w Circus Of Death 7" single, Fast Product FAST 4 reissued in August 1980 and January 1982 by EMI This was The Human League's debut single, recorded in mono on a Sony two-track tape recorder. The single was issued under the title Electronically Yours and the original release sold several thousand copies before being deleted. When re-issued in January 1982 after the huge success of Don't You Want Me, the single soared to Number Six in the UK charts, spending nine weeks in the Top 75. Being Boiled was the first song Philip wrote with Ian and Martyn. Ian: "We'd got the instrumental part and [Philip] came along with these lyrics and just started singing them. So we had vocals then. I thought the lyrics were just completely crazy." Philip: "It was... er... I'd got some religions mixed up and I thought that, like, Buddhism was the same as Hinduism, and it was sort of a plea for vegetarianism really, against killing the silkworms to make socks or something. I got really confused about it." Martyn on the b-side, Circus Of Death: "There was this film called Death Circus or something, where you got the clowns going around and a psychopath with an axe... and this is the same thing except the ringmaster is a clown as well, and he distributes this drug - we wrote this in about seven minutes, just reeling off the lines, incidentally - and he distributes this fictitious drug to all his cronies, and basically they go 'round killing people and then take over the world." Ian: "Just a totally ludicrous lyric, but people can interpret it however they want." Despite not selling in vast quantities, the single attracted plenty of attention in the press and certain other musicians were moved to comment on the record. Upon hearing Being Boiled, none other than David Bowie declared it to be the sound of the future of music. He attended the group's show at the Nashville pub in West Kensington, and it was even rumoured that he had expressed an interest in working with the League. On the other hand, Public Image Limited vocalist John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) heard the record whilst reviewing new singles for the New Musical Express and dismissed the group as "trendy hippies"... The single was first reissued by EMI in August 1980, using simulated stereo mixes of the songs, and this was reissued again in January 1982. These reissues are easily distinguished from the original 1978 pressing as they have red labels, with a yellow logo and white text, unlike the original. In 1988, Virgin reissued the record in Germany as a 12" single (catalogue number 611908). This release included the 1980 re- recording of Being Boiled as an extra track, and both the Fast Product recordings were presented in simulated stereo. The 12" single's label neglects to credit John Leckie for his co- production on the 1980 re-recording. Both tracks written by Oakey/Ware/Marsh Produced by The Human League Single available on: Reproduction CD (Virgin CDV 2133) (2.2) The 'Human League cassette' --------------------------------- Summer 1978 THE 'HUMAN LEAGUE CASSETTE' cassette, Fast Product This 'limited edition cassette' was available only via mail order from Fast Product, and could barely be described as an official release - it doesn't even have an official title or tracklisting! The first such cassettes were issued as part of a promotional package, purely for publicity purposes. By early 1979, the cassette had evolved into a semi-official release, available to the general public. To acquire a copy, fans had to reply to a classified advertisement, which declared "Send us a tape and we'll fill it!". The tracklisting varied from cassette to cassette, but generally it seems the tracks would include selections from the following recordings: The Dignity Of Labour (Part One, narrated by Philip) The Dignity Of Labour (Part Two, excerpt) Optimistic Anthem (an early version of Blind Youth) The Year Of The Jet Packs Again The Eye Again (an early version of The Word Before Last) Toyota City You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (recorded for John Peel's show on BBC Radio One)* Some of the cassettes (probably later copies) may also have featured Dance Like A Star, Interface, Dancevision, Disco Disaster and possibly others recorded during this period. Six recordings from the cassette would later appear on the In Darkness bootleg album, along with other tracks from the group's John Peel session. On some (possibly all) of the cassettes, Circus Of Death also appeared, preceded by a short narrated section about solar storms. All tracks written by Marsh/Oakey/Ware, except You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (Spector/Mann/Weill), The Dignity Of Labour and Dancevision (Marsh/Ware) and Toyota City (The Human League) Produced by The Human League, except *unspecified BBC engineer Cassette not generally available (2.3) The Dignity Of Labour --------------------------- April 1979 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR [Parts 1-4] 12" single, Fast Product FAST 10 This EP consisted of four experimental instrumental pieces and gained little radio airplay as a result. It included a free 7" flexidisc single, on which the group and manager Bob Last debated the possible contents of the flexidisc (!). The sleeve featured a photograph of Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin on his way to receive a decoration for becoming the first person to travel in outer space. An extract from The Dignity Of Labour had previously been available in a semi-official form on the mail order-only Human League Cassette. On the extract, Philip provided a commentary, which was not used on the EP. Reviewing the record for Sounds, Chris Westwood declared it 'single of the week', describing it as "a minor masterpiece; moody, evocative, provocative. It fulfils with a (subtle?) vengeance so much of what's been scrawled about the League so far whilst exposing a new facet of both their capabilities and interest." However, the release of the EP did little to capitalise on interest in the group at the time. Philip: "It was a bad mistake doing it at that time, because everyone had decided we were a pop band, and we put that out and it sounded like Amon Duul or something." All tracks written by Marsh/Ware, except flexidisc (credited to Marsh/ Oakey/Ware) Produced by The Human League EP and flexidisc available on: Reproduction CD (Virgin CDV 2133) (2.4) The 'Taverner tape' ------------------------- Spring 1979 THE 'TAVERNER TAPE' demo cassette 'Jason Taverner' dialogue (1) Blind Youth (first demo version) Interface Again The Eye Again 'Jason Taverner' dialogue (2) Toyota City (alternate edit) The Path Of Least Resistance (vocal demo version) Zero As A Limit (first demo version) 'Jason Taverner' dialogue (3) You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (Radio One version)* This cassette compilation is not actually a commercial release - it was used purely as a demo tape, which the League presented to record companies in their search for a label which could offer them the financial support they needed. The Dominion jingle is used extensively throughout the cassette (appearing after every song except You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling), and dialogue is also provided by Philip, who poses as a fictional TV presenter, 'Jason Taverner'. This name was almost certainly borrowed from Philip K Dick's novel, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, which also features a television personality named Jason Taverner. The cassette is not actually titled the 'Taverner tape', but it has become known as this, due to these excerpts of dialogue. (For transcriptions of the dialogue, see the Avoid Those Mistakes section.) Overall, the compilation is a good representation of the group's sound at the time, mixing pop-oriented tracks (Blind Youth, You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling) with instrumentals (Interface, Toyota City) and slightly darker, more leftfield songs (Again The Eye Again, The Path Of Least Resistance, Zero As A Limit). Unsurprisingly, this generated a lot of interest among the record labels in London and the League were quickly signed by Virgin Records. All tracks written by Marsh/Oakey/Ware, except You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (Spector/Mann/Weill) and Toyota City (The Human League) Produced by The Human League, except *unspecified BBC engineer Cassette not generally available (2.5) I Don't Depend On You --------------------------- July 1979 I DON'T DEPEND ON YOU b/w Cruel 7"/12" single, Virgin VS 269/VS 269-12 This disco-influenced single was released under the name of The Men and was the result of Virgin pressing the group to record material which used more 'conventional' instruments, rather than just synthesizers. Virgin were afraid that the general public would not accept a synthesizer-only group at that time. Martyn had previously declared that the League would certainly consider recording material using non-electronic instruments, but "not under the name Human League". So, to appease their new label, they recorded I Don't Depend On You, with session musicians providing bass guitar and drums, and Katie Kissoon and Lisa Strike providing backing vocals. The group were obviously convinced that this record would provide them with their first hit single. Philip later revealed how the group had "planned what we were going to do on Top Of The Pops. We had all these actors and actresses hired for the backing group." However, the League were busy recording their debut album at the time of the single's release, and without proper promotion, the single failed to chart. The B-side, Cruel, was a remix of the A-side, from which Philip's vocals were absent. A Canadian release of I Don't Depend On You, credited to "The Human League (A.K.A. The Men)", featured Blind Youth on the b-side instead. Both tracks written by Marsh/Oakey/Ware Produced by Colin Thurston & The Men Single available on: Travelogue CD (Virgin CDV 2160) (2.6) Reproduction ------------------ October 1979 REPRODUCTION LP/cassette, Virgin V2133/TCV 2133 CD released in 1989, Virgin CDV 2133 remastered CD released in 2003, Virgin CDVR2133 Almost Medieval Circus Of Death The Path Of Least Resistance Blind Youth The Word Before Last Empire State Human Morale... You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling Austerity / Girl One [medley] Zero As A Limit additional tracks on CD: Introducing The Dignity Of Labour [Part 1]* The Dignity Of Labour [Part 2]* The Dignity Of Labour [Part 3]* The Dignity Of Labour [Part 4]* Flexi Disc* Being Boiled [Fast Product version]* Circus Of Death [Fast Product version]* The Human League's debut album was recorded at the Workshop studio on Sheffield's Love Street between the 4th and 21st of July 1979, and was mixed and overdubbed at producer Colin Thurston's Red Bus studio in London. The group had mixed feelings about the results. Ian: "Doing it was great. We thought 'Wow, this sounds fantastic, great'. But it was only a few months later when we listened to it on our normal systems that we decided it was lacking in quite a major way in several areas." The album also received lukewarm reviews in many music publications and the sleeve, depicting the trampling of babies (one of them apparently the child of Slade vocalist, Noddy Holder), was deemed distasteful by the public. As a result, the album did not immediately sell as well as the group and Virgin had expected (though it did eventually enter the UK charts on 22nd August 1981, peaking at Number 49 and spending a total of 23 weeks in the Top 75). This initial cool reception was a pity, as the album featured many innovative ideas, and when the melodies were not overpowered by the sometimes harsh percussion and stark electronic sounds, the overall effect was quite stunning. The second track, Circus Of Death, is a re-recorded version of the Being Boiled B-side. You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling is a cover of the song made famous in the 1960s by The Righteous Brothers. Empire State Human was the only single released from the album. The CD re-issues usefully add all the tracks from the first three Human League singles (not including I Don't Depend On You, which was released under the pseudonym of The Men). Note though that some of these tracks are not taken from the original master tapes, but have been transferred from the original records, and surface noise is occasionally audible. Curiously, the CD version included small changes to two of the original album tracks - Almost Medieval and The Path Of Least Resistance. Also, the Fast Product version of Circus Of Death lacks the short sample of dialogue included at the end of the Being Boiled B-side. One other small point - the extra track Being Boiled does not fade out, as on the original single release and the 1988 Greatest Hits compilation, but is presented in its entirety. It's possible that the master tape for this track no longer exists, at least in its original form, as synthesizer overdubs and new vocals were added to the track for one of the group's demo tapes, though hopefully this is not the case. Note: initial copies of the 2003 remastered CD listed Circus Of Death as Circus Of Love (!). This was rectified on later copies. All tracks written by Marsh/Oakey/Ware, except You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (Spector/Mann/Weil) and The Dignity Of Labour [Parts 1-4] (Marsh/Ware) Produced by The Human League & Colin Thurston, except *The Human League Available on: Reproduction CD (Virgin CDVR 2133) (2.7) Empire State Human ------------------------ October 1979 EMPIRE STATE HUMAN b/w Introducing 7" single, Virgin VS 294 re-issued June 1980 on 7" and 12" as Virgin VS 351 and VS 351-12 This, the only single taken from Reproduction, was issued shortly after the release of the debut album. Like the previous singles, it failed to make the UK Top 75, despite being one of the group's most infectious compositions at the time. However, the single was reissued the following June and this time fared slightly better - the record entered the UK Top 75 on June 21 1980, spending two weeks there and peaking at number 62. This improved performance was probably partly because the reissue included a free single with the first 15,000 copies - Only After Dark. Virgin had originally intended to release Only After Dark as a single with Empire State Human shrink-wrapped as a free disc, but the group objected to this plan and Only After Dark became the free single. The instrumental B-side, Introducing, was based on an earlier demo, Overkill Disaster Crash. Interestingly, Philip briefly sang on that demo, but the vocals were not re-used for Introducing, presumably because they detracted slightly from the music. The 12" edition of the June 1980 reissue featured the same tracks as the 7". Note: the Dutch edition of this single featured a 4'10" edit of You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling on the B-side instead of Introducing. Incidentally, if you've ever wondered about the identity of the strapping chap depicted on the UK sleeve, it's actually Ian Craig Marsh's dad...! Both tracks written by Marsh/Oakey/Ware Produced by The Human League & Colin Thurston Single available on: Reproduction CD (Virgin CDV 2133) (2.8) Holiday '80 (double) -------------------------- April 1980 MARIANNE b/w Dancevision* BEING BOILED b/w Rock 'N' Roll/Night Clubbing 7" double single, Virgin SV 105 Limited to just 10,000 copies, this EP, subtitled "Holiday '80", included Dancevision, a new version of Being Boiled (which would also appear on the Travelogue album the following month) and a medley of two cover versions - Gary Glitter's 1972 hit single Rock 'N' Roll and Iggy Pop's Night Clubbing, originally co-written and produced by David Bowie for Iggy's 1977 album The Idiot. Two versions of Marianne were completed, but the alternate version (which featured different backing vocals and effects, Philip singing the first verse one octave higher and a new ending) has only appeared in remixed and re-edited form on an Australian release of the Travelogue album. Of this version, Philip said, "We did a nice version of Marianne - much better than the Holiday '80 one. I think it was great - one of the best things we've ever done - but Virgin wouldn't put it out because they didn't like it." The EP didn't sell as well as Virgin had hoped, reaching only Number 80 in the UK charts, so the double pack was quickly replaced by a single record. There were two mispressed versions of the double pack, one of which had the following tracklisting: Being Boiled b/w Marianne, Dancevision (disc one) and Being Boiled b/w Rock 'N' Roll/Night Clubbing (disc two). The labels on the second mispressing listed the correct tracklisting on each record, but actually duplicated the contents of the first disc on the second disc. In early 1982, when EMI reissued the Fast Product debut single in the wake of the success of Don't You Want Me, Virgin quickly re-released Holiday '80, presumably to cash in on the interest in Being Boiled. They even cunningly added the song's title to the sleeve, which had not featured on the original sleeve in 1980. This reissue of the EP entered the UK charts on February 6 1982 and peaked at Number 46 during its five-week chart run. A 12" version (SV 105-12) was also prepared for the UK, but never released, though a 12" edition was released in Japan, with the additional track, Toyota City (long version). A few of the UK copies have appeared over the years and it contains the same tracks as the correctly pressed double pack. The back sleeve of the Japanese 12" featured a small article on the League, which roughly translates as follows (thanks to George Meakin for this): "Developed towards new area with passing time. The most remarkable thing is a group of alternative music that is Genesis P. Orridge, of Throbbing Gristle making Industrial music for concrete people. In England this sort of group came from industrial cities. Cabaret Voltaire and The Human League are typical groups of Sheffield. Both perform without drummers - in particular The Human League perform with synthesisers. It's a very typical modern group creating alternative music. The Human League is alternative with pop music. They create dance music for industrial people - Holiday '80 EP by The Human League is written by Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware. Ian and Martyn play synthesisers and were then joined by Philip Oakey who plays synthesisers too. And finally Philip Adrian Wright joins them - they are contracted to Fast Product, a minor label in Edinburgh. June 1980." Incidentally, the four images on the right-hand side of all Blind Youth pages are taken from this EP's gatefold inner sleeve (they also appeared on the back of the unreleased 12" sleeve). The EP's front cover features a photograph of Coney Island, which was taken by the League from a television screen whilst watching the film On The Town with the colour and contrast controls on their maximum settings. Marianne written by Marsh/Oakey/Ware, Dancevision written by Marsh/Ware, Being Boiled written by Ware/Marsh/Oakey, Rock 'N' Roll written by Glitter/Leander, Night Clubbing written by Osterberg/Bowie Produced by The Human League & John Leckie, except *Ian Marsh & Martyn Ware EP available on: Travelogue CD (Virgin CDV 2133) (2.9) Holiday '80 (single) -------------------------- April 1980 ROCK 'N' ROLL b/w Being Boiled, Dancevision* 7" single, Virgin SV 105 This single featured an edited version of the medley on the Holiday '80 double single, which faded out before the track segued into Night Clubbing. (This edited version has only been officially released on CD in Australia, on the revised Travelogue album.) Marianne, previously the lead track on the double single, was also missing from this single release. The group had been reluctant to release this single (read their views on cover versions on the Rock 'N' Roll: Only After Dark page), but eventually allowed Virgin to issue it. This single fared better in the UK charts than the double pack, entering the Top 75 on May 3 1980 and reaching Number 56 during its five-week chart run. Unusually, the group were asked to appear on the BBC TV show Top Of The Pops, even though the show traditionally only featured current Top 40 hits at that time. As with the double single, there were pressing problems with this record - some of the pressings contained Being Boiled on the A-side, instead of Rock 'N' Roll (which was listed on the label). Rock 'N' Roll written by Glitter/Leander, Being Boiled written by Ware/ Marsh/Oakey, Dancevision written by Marsh/Ware Produced by The Human League & John Leckie, except *Ian Marsh & Martyn Ware B-sides available on: Travelogue CD (Virgin CDV 2133) (2.10) Travelogue ---------------- May 1980 TRAVELOGUE LP/cassette, Virgin V2160/TCV 2160 CD released in 1989, Virgin CDV 2160 remastered CD released in 2003, Virgin CDVR2160 The Black Hit Of Space Only After Dark Life Kills Dreams Of Leaving Toyota City Crow And A Baby The Touchables Gordon's Gin Being Boiled* WXJL Tonight additional tracks on CD: Marianne* Dancevision** Rock 'N' Roll / Night Clubbing Tom Baker Boys And Girls I Don't Depend On You*** Cruel*** The second and final album by the early incarnation of The Human League was recorded in their own studio, Monumental Pictures, with Richard Manwaring co-producing all but two of the tracks (Toyota City and the re-recorded version of Being Boiled, which were taken from earlier recording sessions). Released just as the UK's so-called Futurist (or New Romantic) scene was taking off, the album's use of electronic sounds and occasional dance rhythms was more warmly received by the public than Reproduction, and Travelogue reached Number 16 in the UK charts. However, some critics raised an eyebrow at the group's reliance on old songs (Toyota City and Being Boiled were two of their earliest compositions) and cover versions (Mick Ronson's Only After Dark and Jeff Wayne's Gordon's Gin, which themselves were released just weeks after covers of Rock 'N' Roll and Night Clubbing). Critics also voiced concerns over the League's increasing use of traditional rock elements, which came as a disappointment to those who had hoped the group would forge a path towards a new electronic age of pop music, jettisoning tiresome rock clichés. It seems the group members were conscious of this as their later work would mostly shun rock influences in favour of pop and dance, with only the occasional nod towards Glitter beats and chants. As a whole though, Travelogue works well and can be considered a success, still outstripping most of its peers in terms of originality. Curiously, the CD version includes both sides of the first Human League single not to feature Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh - Boys And Girls b/w Tom Baker (which reached Number 48 in the UK charts in early 1981). The Canadian issue of Travelogue was released in a different sleeve, similar to the Holiday '80 front cover, and the tracklisting also differed: The Voice Of Buddha (the re-recorded version of Being Boiled under a different name), The Black Hit Of Space, Only After Dark, Life Kills, Dreams Of Leaving b/w Crow And A Baby, The Touchables, Gordon's Gin, Rock 'N' Roll/Night Clubbing, WXJL Tonight. Similarly, the Australian issue also featured a different tracklisting, though the original sleeve and song titles were retained for this release: Being Boiled, The Black Hit Of Space, Only After Dark, Life Kills, Dreams Of Leaving b/w Crow And A Baby, The Touchables, Rock 'N' Roll, Marianne (alternate version), Gordon's Gin, WXJL Tonight. All tracks written by The Human League, except Only After Dark (M. Ronson/S. Richardson), Gordon's Gin (Jeff Wayne), Being Boiled/I Don't Depend On You/Cruel (Ware/Marsh/Oakey), Marianne (Marsh/Oakey/Ware), Dancevision (Marsh/Ware), Rock 'N' Roll (Glitter/Leander), Night Clubbing (Osterberg/Bowie), Tom Baker (Oakey/Wright) and Boys And Girls (Wright/Oakey) Produced by The Human League & Richard Manwaring, except *The Human League and John Leckie, **Ian Marsh and Martyn Ware, *** Colin Thurston and The Men Available on: Travelogue CD (Virgin CDVR2160) (2.11) Only After Dark ---------------------- June 1980 ONLY AFTER DARK b/w Toyota City [long version] 7" single, Virgin VS 351 This single came free with the first 15,000 7" copies of the June 1980 reissue of the Empire State Human single, which reached Number 62 in the UK charts. It featured the group's version of Mick Ronson's Only After Dark and the full-length 5' 38" version of Toyota City (edited to 3' 15" for inclusion on the Travelogue album). The sleeve of the Travelogue CD lists Toyota City as being 5' 38", but unfortunately the CD contains the same 3' 15" edit used on the original LP and cassette. Commenting on the group's cover versions, Philip remarked, "I think we did them with a certain amount of taste and respect for the original, and we've made efforts not to put them out as singles. The easiest thing in the world to do is to do a way-out wacky cover of a well-known song. If we did The White Cliffs Of Dover with silly clangings in the background, everyone would rush out and buy it, and we'd sell lots of records. "We don't want to do that. In pure financial/career terms, it's cutting your own throat because if you make it on other people's songs, you're not giving people good reason to want to listen to what you do. Which is why we had a very big argument with Virgin Records over Only After Dark, which they pressed without telling us. We never wanted Rock 'N' Roll to come out as a single off the double EP, although we agreed to it. I must admit it was probably that which got us onto Top Of The Pops, but after that, we didn't want to release another cover version for a couple of records. Martyn: "We went into Virgin and they said, 'We're going to release it whether you want us to or not.' They actually said that, unequivocally. We said, 'You can do it completely against our wishes and we'll do everything in our power to get out of our contract.' They'd already shrink-wrapped Only After Dark with Empire State Human without telling us. We knew it was going to be released, so we said, 'We're not against re- releasing Empire State Human, so can't you make that the single to be pushed?' and they gave in to it. We wanted to re-release State Human at some stage. Philip: "There's only one thing Virgin can do without our consent - that's take two singles off each album, and we've had battles with them over every one." Nevertheless, Only After Dark was released as a single in its own right in Germany (Virgin 102 148 - 100), although it had a different b-side to the UK issue - WXJL Tonight from the Travelogue album. Only After Dark written by M. Ronson/S. Richardson, Toyota City written by The Human League Produced by The Human League & Richard Manwaring Only After Dark available on: Travelogue CD (Virgin CDV 2133) (2.12) In Darkness ------------------ late 1981? IN DARKNESS (unofficial 'bootleg' album) LP, RTS003 Blind Youth (demo) Year Of The Jet Packs (demo) Again The Eye Again (demo) Toyota City (demo) Dancevision (demo) No Time (Radio One) You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (Radio One) Being Boiled (Radio One) Blind Youth [Progression] (Radio One) This is an illegal release, issued without the consent of The Human League, Virgin Records or the BBC, and was not available in the average high street record shop. However, despite the poor sound quality of the record, it is of some interest to fans, as it features unreleased material from 1979's so-called 'Human League cassette', plus other recordings made for John Peel's influential late-night show on BBC Radio One, also in 1979. Of the demo recordings, two were commercially released, unchanged: Toyota City appeared on the free Only After Dark single, and Dancevision was part of both the Holiday 80 double single and single (later appearing on the Travelogue CD also). Two of the remaining three demos (Blind Youth and Again The Eye Again) were later re-recorded for the Reproduction album (Again The Eye Again would be re-titled The Word Before Last). The mis-labelled Interface is an instrumental which remains officially unreleased on vinyl or CD, though it can be heard in the Futuristic Sounds section of the Blind Youth site. The demos are separated by the Dominion jingle, though this is not listed on the sleeve or label. The Radio One recording, No Time, is another early version of The Word Before Last. This was re-recorded for the Reproduction album, as were Blind Youth and You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (which is rather shorter and slightly faster in this version, and excludes Reproduction's segue with Morale...). It seems the album was released in two different sleeves, one of which is pictured on the Blind Youth site. The other sleeve is said to sport a poor reproduction of a group photograph taken from the New Musical Express in July 1980, which depicts the group standing together in front of a projected slide of a hand (see group pictures in the Old Imagery section of Blind Youth). All tracks by Marsh/Oakey/Ware, except Toyota City (The Human League), Dancevision (Marsh/Ware) and You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (Spector/Mann/Weil), though the writing credits for Year Of The Jet Packs are unspecified. Demos produced by The Human League, Radio One recordings produced by BBC engineers (not specified). LP not generally available, though some 'specialist' dealers may have a copy. (2.13) The Future Tapes ----------------------- unreleased THE FUTURE TAPES LP, Virgin OVED 4 spoken introduction Blank Clocks (excerpt) Looking For The Black Haired Girls Almost Medieval Cairo (excerpt) Pulse Lovers (excerpt) Dreams Of Leaving Overkill Disaster Crash (first version) Interface Morale (third instrumental version) Dance Like A Star (instrumental) Treatment The Years Of The Jet Packs Disco Disaster (instrumental) Dance Like A Star (incidental sounds only) [title unknown] [title unknown] C'est Grave Dada Dada Duchamp Vortex The Last Man On Earth (excerpt) Once the second incarnation of The Human League began having major chart success in 1981, Virgin Records were predictably keen to capitalise on interest in the group and eager to make plenty of Human League 'product' available. As luck would have it, Martyn and Ian were interested in releasing a compilation of their work as The Future, prior to Philip joining them to form The Human League. Virgin realised they could easily sell such a compilation to the new legions of Human League fans, simply by mentioning the League's name on the album's sleeve. A compilation was quickly assembled, using extracts and full-length tracks from Martyn and Ian's archives, and a spoken introduction was recorded by their friend Nicholas Dawson, explaining the origin of the material to the listener (see the Avoid Those Mistakes section for a full transcription). However, when the planned release came to Philip's attention, he suspected that Virgin (and perhaps also Martyn and Ian) were simply exploiting the popularity of the new-look League, and recognised that no-one in the League's current line-up would profit from the album, because none of the group appeared on any of the tracks. So Philip intervened and prevented Virgin from issuing the album, even though its forthcoming release had already been announced on the sleeve of Heaven 17's 1981 debut album, Penthouse And Pavement. For twenty years, the majority of the tracks planned for inclusion on this album remained unreleased, but in 2002, Philip gave his consent for the release of the Dance Like A Star EP and The Golden Hour Of The Future, which between them included more than half of these songs in one form or another. The titles of two of the pieces on this album are unknown and they are not thought to have ever surfaced on bootlegs. Regarding the remaining titles listed above - some may not be the titles which would have been used on the released album, as many pieces from this period were known by more than one name. No sleeve artwork is known to be available, so it's possible that, for instance, the curious second version of Dance Like A Star above would have been listed with an alternate title (it does after all sound as though Martyn and Ian were trying to present this as a track in its own right). According to the album's spoken introduction, the tracks are split into thirteen 'bands', the first of which seems to include the first six tracks after the introduction, i.e. those recorded by the Marsh/Ware/ Newton line-up of The Future. Band thirteen appears to include both Dada Dada Duchamp Vortex and the excerpt of The Last Man On Earth, as C'est Grave is described as band twelve. Some of the tracks which had originally been recorded in mono were given a fake 'stereo' treatment, and even the tracks in 'band one', which were recorded in stereo, have been slightly altered in places, with the addition of effects. For reasons best known to Ian and Martyn, Blank Clocks and Looking For The Black Haired Girls are welded together as one track. The early version of Dreams Of Leaving is actually a good deal longer than the one-minute extract issued on The Future's early demo tape, and here lasts three and a half minutes. Also, Treatment would have been listed on the album's sleeve as Depression Is A Fashion, which is how it was re-titled after Martyn added vocals to the track - the album would not have included these vocals. Please note that there are a number of bootleg CDs and cassettes based on that early demo tape, and these are often titled The Future Tapes too. These are completely different to the album described here, and feature rather fewer tracks (usually eight or ten), though they do include full- length versions of tracks presented here as excerpts, plus a few tracks which were not included on the planned album. These bootlegs usually offer some or all of the following tracks: Blank Clocks, Looking For The Black Haired Girls, Almost Medieval, Cairo, Pulse Lovers (sometimes listed as Pulse Colours), Future Religion, Daz, Dancevision, Dreams Of Leaving (excerpt) and Philip's first solo effort, The Circus Of Dr Lao (often listed as Circus Of Dr Boo), which has nothing to do with The Future, other than the fact that Philip borrowed Martyn's synthesizer to create the track! Writing credits for Blank Clocks to Dreams Of Leaving and unknown titles are uncertain, though all other tracks are likely to be Marsh/Ware compositions, except C'est Grave (traditional, arr. Marsh/Ware/Pearce?) Produced by Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, except Blank Clocks, Looking For The Black Haired Girls, Almost Medieval, Cairo, Pulse Lovers and Dreams Of Leaving (co-produced with Adi Newton) and C'est Grave (co- produced with Timothy Pearce) Release cancelled (2.14) Dance Like A Star ------------------------ October 2002 DANCE LIKE A STAR 12" EP, Black Melody MEL 3 Dance Like A Star (v.1) C'est Grave Titled U.N Dance Like A Star (v.2) Morale... (instrumental demo, mis-labelled Treatment) Last Man On Earth (excerpt) This limited edition 12" record was released to promote The Golden Hour Of The Future, and like that album, was credited to The Future + The Human League. The EP includes two tracks (Dance Like A Star and Last Man On Earth) from that album, but the remaining four tracks are exclusive to this record. Only 2000 copies of the EP were pressed, many of which were issued to the media and various DJs. The remaining copies could be purchased either directly from the Black Melody label or via specialist music outlets. Note: the two versions of Dance Like A Star are labelled versions 1 and 2, though it's thought that v.1 was actually recorded after v.2. All tracks written by Marsh/Ware, except Dance Like A Star (Oakey/Marsh/ Ware) and C'est Grave (traditional, arr. Pearce/The Human League) All tracks produced by Marsh/Ware, except Dance Like A Star (The Human League) and C'est Grave (Tim Pearce and The Human League) Dance Like A Star and Last Man On Earth available on: The Golden Hour Of The Future CD (Black Melody MEL 4) (2.15) The Golden Hour Of The Future ------------------------------------ November 2002 THE GOLDEN HOUR OF THE FUTURE CD, Black Melody MEL 4 Dance Like A Star (first version) ** Looking For The Black Haired Girls * 4JG ** Blank Clocks * Cairo * Dominion advertisement ** Dada Dada Duchamp Vortex * Daz * Future Religion * Disco Disaster ** Interface ** The Circus Of Dr Lao *** Reach Out [I'll Be There] (instrumental) *** New Pink Floyd ** Once Upon A Time In The West [Funeral March] ** Overkill Disaster Crash (first version) ** The Year Of The Jet Packs ** Pulse Lovers * King Of Kings ** The Last Man On Earth (excerpt) ** * The Future, ** The Human League (many tracks featuring only Martyn and Ian), *** Philip Oakey This album, credited to The Future + The Human League, compiles recordings the two groups made between 1977 and the moment The Human League signed to Virgin Records in 1979. The project began soon after producer and recording artist Richard X contacted this site in early 2001 after noticing it features the sleeve of his first Girls On Top single, Being Scrubbed, which mixes Being Boiled with TLC's No Scrubs. After he expressed an interest in releasing the early works of The Future and The Human League on his Black Melody label, I contacted Martyn and Philip to find out how they felt about the idea, and both seemed interested. Richard and I then began gathering unreleased recordings from our collection of bootlegs, and following my visit to The Human League's Sheffield studio in October 2001, I was kindly given copies of further unreleased material by the League's long-standing engineer, David Beevers, including a copy of The Future Tapes, some of which had never been bootlegged. As the project began to gather momentum, David volunteered to explore the many master tapes stored in the League's studio and found many more unreleased recordings, some of which had probably not been played since the 1970s. While David was busy restoring and cleaning up these tapes, many of which were in bad condition, Richard and I met with Martyn and Ian, who also looked through their collections for other recordings and photographs which could be used for the artwork. After much deliberation, Richard arrived at the tracklisting above, though the album contains some additional snippets of material not listed above or on the sleeve. These are as follows: before Dance Like A Star: a spoken introduction by Philip, taken from the legendary 'Taverner tape' after 4JG: a bizarre recording of a young child, reciting the nursery rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep and attempting to pronounce "The Human League" while one of the League members tinkers with a synthesizer in the background after Dada Dada Duchamp Vortex: a spoken introduction by Philip (interrupted by Martyn), taken from the fourth version of Dance Like A Star (see the transcription in 4.3.3 below) after Disco Disaster: the 'Dominion jingle' after King Of Kings: Philip and Martyn recording screams for an apparently abandoned track after The Last Man On Earth: an excerpt from the introduction of the radio broadcast of the League's Festival Of Fools show in Amsterdam, June 1980 - one of the original line- up's final live shows Unfortunately, the sound quality is uneven throughout the album; this is due to the variable quality of the tapes available. Of the tracks listed on the sleeve, Philip's The Circus Of Dr Lao is probably the most lo-fi, as the only good quality recording of this track which could be located was missing Philip's vocals. The only available vocal version was actually taken from a bootleg cassette, and this appears on the album. Thankfully, the other recordings were taken, if not directly from the original master tapes, then from good quality DAT backups of those masters. While many more unreleased recordings remain in the League's archives, this album does provide the listener with a good overall introduction to both The Future and the League's early recordings which led to their publishing and recording contracts with Virgin companies. Incidentally, if you're wondering why the album has this title, check the introductory narrative for The Future Tapes. Writing credits: * The Future, ** Marsh/Ware, except Dance Like A Star, Dominion advertisement and Disco Disaster (Oakey/Marsh/Ware), Reach Out (B Holland/L Dozier/E Holland), Once Upon A Time In The West (Ennio Morricone) and King Of Kings (Miklos Rozsa), *** Philip Oakey Produced by Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, except * The Future, Dance Like A Star, Dominion advertisement and Disco Disaster (The Human League), and *** Philip Oakey Available on CD from Black Melody (2.16) Selected UK compilations ------------------------------- 1980 FAST PRODUCT - THE FIRST YEAR PLAN LP, EMI EMC 3312 THE MEKONS Never Been In A Riot THE MEKONS Heart And Soul THE MEKONS 32 Weeks SCARS Adult/ery SCARS Horror Show THE HUMAN LEAGUE Being Boiled THE HUMAN LEAGUE Circus Of Death 2.3 All Time Low 2.3 Where To Now GANG OF FOUR Love Like Anthrax GANG OF FOUR Armalite Rifle GANG OF FOUR Damaged Goods THE MEKONS I'll Have To Dance Then [On My Own] THE MEKONS Where Were You This album compiled early single releases on the Fast Product label, including both sides of the League's debut single. In the USA, the album was released by JEM the previous year as Mutant Pop 78/79 in a different sleeve (pictured right) and included additional music by Flowers. EMI's Australian release, also in 1979, was titled Fast Product / Various and omitted the final few seconds of the League's Circus Of Death (which also happened when the track was featured on the CD reissue of the Reproduction album). The UK album was reissued on CD by EMI in 1993 under a new title, Rigour, Discipline And Disgust (CDEMC 3654), with seven bonus tracks: THE FIRE ENGINES Discord THE FIRE ENGINES Meat Whiplash THE FIRE ENGINES Candy Skin THE HUMAN LEAGUE The Dignity Of Labour [Part 1] THE HUMAN LEAGUE The Dignity Of Labour [Part 2] THE HUMAN LEAGUE The Dignity Of Labour [Part 3] THE HUMAN LEAGUE The Dignity Of Labour [Part 4] Being Boiled and Circus Of Death written by Ware/Marsh/Oakey, The Dignity Of Labour [Parts 1-4] written by Marsh/Ware All Human League tracks produced by The Human League Deleted ----------- November 1980 MACHINES LP, Virgin V2177 ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK Messages THE SILICON TEENS Memphis Tennessee TUBEWAY ARMY Down In The Park THE HUMAN LEAGUE Being Boiled THOMAS LEER Private Plane DALEK I Dalek I Love You JOHN FOXX Underpass HENRY BADOWSKI Making Love With My Wife PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED Pied Piper FAD GADGET Ricky's Hand KAREL FIALKA The Eyes Have It GARY NUMAN Aircrash Bureau XTC The Somnambulist Virgin released this compilation to promote some of their lesser- known artists by placing them alongside a handful of vaguely similar 'chart acts', such as OMD (represented by their first big UK hit from May 1980) and two tracks licensed from Beggars Banquet which featured Gary Numan. The album was also released in New Zealand with a different tracklisting (the tracks by Thomas Leer, Dalek I and Karel Fialka were replaced by Crash Course In Science's Kitchen Motors and Irmin Scmidt & Bruno Spoerri's Rapido De Noir). Reviewing the album alongside the Cash Cows compilation (see below) for Sounds, Betty Page described the "overwhelmingly rich-textured second version of Being Boiled" as "just as good as the League's original. Technically swisher, it's real cabaret, padded out with synthinastics at every juncture with a rousing ornate climax". The term "synthinastics" is not explained. Being Boiled written by Ware/Marsh/Oakey Being Boiled produced by The Human League and John Leckie Deleted ---------- November 1980 CASH COWS LP, Virgin Milk 1 XTC Respectable Street THE HUMAN LEAGUE The Black Hit Of Space MIKE OLDFIELD Sheba JAPAN Ain't That Peculiar THE RUTS West One [Shine On Me] SKIDS Arena THE PROFESSIONALS Kick Down The Doors THE FLYING LIZARDS Hands 2 Take FINGERPRINTZ Yes Eyes CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & THE MAGIC BAND Dirty Blue Gene GILLAN Are You Sure KEVIN COYNE Taking On The World PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED Attack For completists only! Virgin threw together album tracks by such disparate artists as hard-rockin' Gillan, the then-avant-garde Public Image Limited and the suave, sophisicated Japan, and expected people to buy the resulting compilation, simply because it was cheap (a maximum price of £1.15 was stipulated on the sleeve's sticker). Strangely enough, this seemed to work; the album reached Number 49 in the UK charts, faring better than the superior Machines compilation which was released around the same time, priced £3.99. The album features The Black Hit Of Space, though as it is exactly the same version as was used on Travelogue, there is no good reason to seek out this shoddy compilation. As Betty Page remarked in her Sounds review, "it's only Aunty Bransonburgers getting desperate, so save the ackers for a rainy day"... The Black Hit Of Space written by The Human League The Black Hit Of Space produced by The Human League and Richard Manwaring Deleted ---------- 1982 METHODS OF DANCE (Volume 2) LP, Virgin OVED 7 CHINA CRISIS No Ordinary Lover I-LEVEL Give Me (American mix) RIP, RIG & PANIC You're My Kind Of Climate (party mix) DAF Kebab Traume THE MEN I Don't Depend On You SIMPLE MINDS Soundtrack For Every Heaven CULTURE CLUB I'm Afraid Of Me (Disconet remix) B.E.F. The Secret Life Of Arabia (dub mix) Volume 1 of Methods Of Dance (named after the song on Japan's Gentlemen Take Polaroids album) had featured a track by the second League line-up (a dub mix of Do Or Die from the Dare! album), as well as two tracks from Martyn and Ian (B.E.F.'s Groove Thang and Heaven 17's Soul Warfare). The album, which collected dance-oriented material by Virgin artists, was reasonably successful and was followed by this second volume. This time, the label delved back to 1979 for a Human League track - the single they released under the name of The Men, I Don't Depend On You. Note that Martyn and Ian also appear at the end of the album, on a remix of their B.E.F. collaboration with Associates vocalist Billy MacKenzie (a David Bowie cover version, the original mix of which had appeared on the B.E.F. album, Music Of Quality And Distinction). I Don't Depend On You written by Ware/Oakey/Marsh I Don't Depend On You produced by Colin Thurston and The Men Deleted ---------- October 1988 GREATEST HITS LP, Virgin HLTV 1 CD, Virgin CDHL 1 (also issued as a picture disc CD, CDHL 1) Mirror Man [Keep Feeling] Fascination The Sound Of The Crowd The Lebanon Human Together In Electric Dreams Don't You Want Me Being Boiled Love Action [I Believe In Love] Louise Open Your Heart Love Is All That Matters Life On Your Own This was the first compilation of hits by The Human League and as one might expect, the original group line-up is represented by a single track (the Fast Product version of Being Boiled, which was a UK Number Six hit when reissued in January 1982). The rest of the album is dominated by later incarnations of the group, with the exception of Together In Electric Dreams, which is not actually a Human League track, but a single Philip recorded with producer Giorgio Moroder in 1984. The compilation was also released as a video cassette, though as the group never made a promotional video for Being Boiled, Russell Mulcahy's video for the Reproduction version of Being Boiled's original b-side, Circus Of Death, was used instead. The album has also appeared on cassette, digital compact cassette and mini-disc. The LP's gatefold sleeve featured an interesting 'family tree' history of the group, but the quality of the vinyl within is appalling on some copies. Being Boiled written by Ware/Marsh/Oakey Being Boiled produced by The Human League Deleted ---------- November 1995 GREATEST HITS CD, Virgin CDV 2792 cassette, Virgin TCV 2792 Don't You Want Me Love Action [I Believe In Love] Mirror Man Tell Me When Stay With Me Tonight Open Your Heart [Keep Feeling] Fascination The Sound Of The Crowd Being Boiled The Lebanon Love Is All That Matters Louise Life On Your Own Together In Electric Dreams Human Don't You Want Me (Snap 7" remix) Virgin released the group from their recording contract after the disappointing sales of their 1990 Romantic? album and the next Human League album, Octopus, was issued by East West in 1995. Thanks to two Top 20 singles (Tell Me When and One Man In My Heart), the album sold respectably. Virgin were quick to capitalise on the group's renewed popularity and issued a second Greatest Hiits album. The second compilation was essentially the same as the first - even the sleeve's photograph was taken from the same session! However, the inclusion of Tell Me When and a then-unreleased track, Stay With Me Tonight, provided an incentive to prospective buyers, as did the final track, Snap's remix of Don't You Want Me. Arguably. The version of Being Boiled is again the original Fast Product single. A video collection was also issued by Warner Music Vision (licensed from Virgin - catalogue number 0630 12671-3), featuring Russell Mulcahy's videos for Circus Of Death and Empire State Human, which were filmed together in 1979. This collection was also issued as a laserdisc in Japan (catalogue number AMLE-8108). Other compilations have appeared since this one, without the consent (and sometimes without the knowledge!) of the group. These are usually budget-price affairs, containing a few hit singles and a lot of previously-released album tracks and b-sides to fill the gaps in between. Fans are advised to avoid these low-quality releases and stick with the group's 'official' albums... Being Boiled written by Ware/Marsh/Oakey Being Boiled produced by The Human League Currently available on CD ---------- September 2003 THE VERY BEST OF CD, Virgin HLCDX 2 CD 1: Don't You Want Me Love Action [I Believe In Love] Open Your Heart The Sound Of The Crowd Mirror Man [Keep Feeling] Fascination The Lebanon Life On Your Own Together In Electric Dreams Louise Human Heart Like A Wheel Tell Me When One Man In My Heart All I Ever Wanted Being Boiled Empire State Human CD 2: Don't You Want Me (Majik J Original Booty vocal mix) Open Your Heart (Laid remix) The Sound Of The Crowd (Trisco's PopClash mix) Love Action (Brooks Red Line vocal mix) [Keep Feeling] Fascination (Groove Collision TMC mix) Empire State Human (Chamber's Reproduced mix) The Things That Dreams Are Made Of (Jimmy 19 The A509 PWC remix) The Sound Of The Crowd (Freaksblamredo) Open Your Heart (The Strand remix) The Sound Of The Crowd (Riton re-dub) Love Action (Fluke's Dub Action remix) This is the latest 'best of' compilation, though the original League line-up are only represented by the final two tracks on the first CD, and a new remix of Empire State Human on the second CD. There is also a single-disc edition of this compilation, which features only the first CD and none of the remixes on the second CD, all of which were commissioned by Virgin during 2002 and 2003. The CDs were followed on September 29th by a DVD collection, also entitled The Very Best Of (catalogue number 7243 4 90788 9 5). This collects almost all of the League's promo videos to date, including Russell Mulcahy's clips for Circus Of Death and Empire State Human, plus six BBC television appearances by later line-ups of the group, a new interview with Philip, Joanne and Susan by music writer Simon Price and various other extras. The Fast Product version of Being Boiled plays when the DVD menus are viewed. Being Boiled, Empire State Human and Circus Of Death written by Oakey/Marsh/Ware (order of credits varies) Being Boiled produced by The Human League, Empire State Human and Circus Of Death produced by The Human League and Colin Thurston Currently available on CD and DVD (2.17) Miscellaneous releases ----------------------------- March 1981 B.E.F. - MUSIC FOR STOWAWAYS limited edition cassette, Virgin TCV 2888 (re-issued as OVEDC 230) Optimum Chant Uptown Apocalypse Wipe The Board Clean Groove Thang Music To Kill Your Parents By The Old At Rest Rise Of The East Decline Of The West This rare cassette was Martyn and Ian's first B.E.F. release following the split of the original League line-up. It's included here because the second track, Uptown Apocalypse, featured their former partner in the The Future, Adi Newton, on guitar and synthesizer (he also co-wrote the track). An alternate version of this collection was exported on vinyl to territories outside the UK. Entitled Music For Listening To, it featured a different tracklisting (Groove Thang, Optimum Chant, Uptown Apocalypse, B.E.F. Ident b/w A Baby Called Billy, Rise Of The East, Music To Kill Your Parents By) and catalogue number (BEF 1). In 1997, Virgin's US label Caroline Records released a CD edition of Music For Listening To (Carol 1124-2), with three extra tracks (Wipe The Board Clean, The Old At Rest and Decline Of The West) which were previously included only on the Music For Stowaways version of the collection. Uptown Apocalypse written by Marsh/Ware/Newton/Turner Uptown Apocalypse produced by B.E.F. (executive production by Bob Last) Deleted ---------- 1981 ARLENE PHILLIPS' HOT GOSSIP - GEISHA BOYS & TEMPLE GIRLS LP, Dindisc DID 13 Soul Warfare* Houses In Motion** I Don't Depend On You Burn For You*** Geisha Boys And Temple Girls* Morale... The Word Before Last Circus Of Death Hot Gossip were a British dance troupe created by choreographer Arlene Phillips, and they appeared regularly on British DJ Kenny Everett's TV comedy show in the late 1970s. With singer Sarah Brightman guesting on lead vocals, they scored a UK Number Six hit in 1978 with I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper, one of many dubious 'space'-themed records released to cash in on the success of the first Star Wars film. In truth, Hot Gossip contributed little more to the single than a spot of dancing in the video and Sarah Brightman dispensed with their services for her follow-up single, The Adventures Of The Love Crusader (shrewdly credited to Sarah Brightman & the Starship Troopers). But someone somewhere clearly thought there was a market for further Hot Gossip records, despite the fact that the dancers couldn't actually sing particularly well. Work on this album began in 1981, wiith Richard James Burgess (who had already recorded a Hot Gossip single, Criminal World, with his band Landscape) in the producer's chair. The album was to be a collection of cover versions, entitled The Hollywood Jungle, featuring songs by The Psychedelic Furs, The Rolling Stones, Adam & The Ants, The Police and Talking Heads, among others. However, Richard eventually abandoned the project, leaving Geoff Westley to complete production of Houses In Motion. Martyn and Ian were then asked to salvage an album from the inconclusive sessions. They decided to ditch most of the material and took the opportunity to fill 75% of the record with new recordings of their own Human League and Heaven 17 songs, retaining only the Talking Heads and Police numbers (Houses In Motion and Burn For You respectively). The album was finished within just two weeks and renamed after one of the Heaven 17 covers it now included. Soul Warfare (a Heaven 17 song from their debut album, Penthouse & Pavement) was issued as a single (DIN 38 and DIN 38/12) in February 1982, backed by a mercifully instrumental version. This was followed by the release of Hot Gossip's attempt at the single the League had released as The Men, I Don't Depend On You (DIN 39, pictured above, and the extended 12" version, DIN 39/12), which was backed by an alternate version, Depend On Us. Like every other Hot Gossip release since their 1978 hit, all of these records failed to reach the charts. All tracks written by Marsh/Oakey/Ware except *B.E.F./Gregory, **Byrne/ Eno/Talking Heads, ***Sting All tracks produced by The British Electric Foundation except **Geoff Westley Deleted ---------- early 1982 THE HUMAN LEAGUE - BOILING POINT bootleg LP early 1982 THE HUMAN LEAGUE - DRUMSET MYSTERY (LIVE AT THE ROLLING STONE CLUB) bootleg LP These live bootlegs are mentioned here simply because they include the 1981/1982 League line-up performing a few early songs among the Dare tracks, et cetera. Other post-split bootlegs exist - these were just the first to appear on vinyl. The early songs included on these items have brand new arrangements, all of them more pop-oriented than the originals, and around this time, Circus Of Death was being performed as a medley with Scott Joplin's The Entertainer (!). Captured on a hand-held cassette recorder in December 1981 at London's Rainbow venue, Boiling Point apparently features a completely incorrect tracklisting on the sleeve and terrible sound quality and editing throughout. The early tracks included on this album are Circus Of Death, Crow And A Baby and Blind Youth, the latter being the original line-up's demo version (not a live recording by the later line-up). Drumset Mystery, recorded in Milan on March 17th 1982, is said to have better sound quality despite being another audience recording. Early songs on this album are Circus Of Death, Marianne and Empire State Human. Like Boiling Point, this is not an item found in the average music store. ---------- October 1999 HEAVEN 17 - HOW LIVE IS CD, Almafame ALMACD9 Heaven 17 had never played a live concert before 1997, but began to tour occasionally in the late 1990s. This CD documents their 1997 show at Glasgow's SECC, where they were guests of Erasure, and it is included here because the final track is their version of The Human League's Being Boiled. This version is very similar to the League's 1980 recording of the song, as featured on Travelogue - so similar in fact that one has to wonder whether the original backing tapes were used! This show had originally been released exclusively through the official Heaven 17 site in June 1999 as Live At Last (catalogue number H17-1), limited to 1,000 copies and housed in a different sleeve (pictured right). How Live Is was available through regular music outlets and included three bonus CD- ROM video tracks recorded live at London's Sound Republic in March 1999. ---------- January 2003 THE HUMAN LEAGUE - ELECTRONICALLY YOURS... THE HUMAN LEAGUE SAMPLER CD, Caroline 17689 Being Boiled (Fast Product version) Blind Youth Empire State Human The Black Hit Of Space WXJL Tonight Marianne The Sound Of The Crowd Love Action [I Believe In Love] Don't You Want Me (Love & Dancing version) This is a North American promotional-only release, issued by the Caroline label to promote the January 2003 remastered editions of Reproduction, Travelogue and the Dare / Love & Dancing package. As this is not a commercial release, it is only likely to be on sale through outlets who specialise in such items for the collectors' market. However, all of the material is readily available on the three CDs this release was intended to promote, so this is only really of interest to completists. *********************************** (3) Songs They Didn't Know *********************************** This section details all tracks officially released by the original line-up of The Human League, and attempts to catalogue all unreleased material recorded by The Future and The Human League before the group split in 1980. However, it is highly likely that the details of unreleased material are far from complete. If you know of any Future or Human League material which should be listed here (or if you notice any errors!), please email Blind Youth with details - thank you. Tracks are listed alphabetically by title. (3.1) A ------- * Again The Eye Again This is simply the original title of the track which later became The Word Before Last. A demo version of the song was recorded while it still had this title and featured slightly different lyrics. The music itself did not differ greatly from the final version released on the League's debut album. According to the 'Taverner tape', this composition is "a study into the solely subjective existence of time". Obviously. Demo version released on the 'Human League cassette' and In Darkness (unofficially) Also included on the 'Taverner tape' * Almost Medieval This song began life as an instrumental track recorded by The Future. Although the basic synthesizer melody was already evident on this version, the rhythm track was quite rudimentary and there was little more to the arrangement than various strange incidental sounds flying in and out of the mix. When Philip joined Martyn and Ian, lyrics were added and the song was re-recorded as the opening track of the Human League's debut album. This version was driven by a much more powerful rhythm and certain additional melodies had a stronger 'medieval' flavour, in keeping with the song's title, though the lyrics are mostly obscure, with only vague references to stagecoaches and a return to "the age of men" (!). The song would usually begin differently when performed live; the opening keyboard sequence used on the album version would be replaced by a short series of drum beats before the group launched into the first verse. The Future's version unreleased The Human League's version released on Reproduction * Austerity This song was originally an instrumental piece, written and recorded by Ian and Martyn shortly after Adi Newton left The Future. This version was almost issued on Virgin's The Future Tapes before the album's release was cancelled. The track was re-recorded with lyrics for the League's debut album, forming a medley with Girl One. It had previously had three other titles - Treatment, Depression Is A Fashion and The Martyr. Instrumental version released as Treatment on Dance Like A Star * Austerity / Girl One (medley) A medley of two songs, both of which had previously been recorded as separate tracks. The League's medley is something of an epic (at six minutes and 38 seconds, it's one of the League's longest recordings) and the musical tone alternates between the bright, optimistic sounds of Girl One and the less certain moods of Austerity. Both songs reflect upon one of Philip's favourite early lyrical themes - the relationship between a father and a daughter. Released on Reproduction (3.2) B ------- * Being Boiled While the Sex Pistols' early singles had been hugely important in proving to Britain's youth that anyone could express themselves in a rock 'n' roll band, The Human League's debut single, recorded in a disused factory on a domestic tape recorder at a cost of £2.50, demonstrated that anyone could make electronic pop music. Opening with what sounds like the long-overdue release of some incredible pent-up pressure, the track begins its voyage through a series of unearthly effects without ever losing sight of that all-important pop sensibility. The almost incomprehensible lyrics could only add to the sense of this being something new, something original. An outstanding debut, by anyone's standards. The League later added some overdubs to the original track, including a new vocal, and this version was distributed to record companies on a demo cassette compilation. Another demo version was recorded around this time, known as the 'dub mix'. Mainly instrumental, it features possibly the most tedious introduction in recorded history (the same riff repeated for about two minutes!) and minimal vocals (Martyn intones just one line twice, "Listen to the voice of Buddha"). Soon after this, the group recorded the song for John Peel's BBC Radio One show, using a new keyboard arrangement and a similar dance-oriented rhythm. This formed the basis of a third demo version, with similar rhythms but another new keyboard arrangement, which was more forceful but perhaps a little over-ambitious in places. Many of the ideas present in this recording would then serve as a blueprint for the final version recorded in 1980 with producer John Leckie. Although some complained that the 1980 version was too 'glossy', it took the song to a new level. Gone were the lo-fi home-made electronics - this version was perhaps the most sophisticated-sounding track the early League ever recorded. The infectious rhythms, in-your-face hand-claps and Funkadelic-inspired 'synthetic horns' by Martyn and Ian (calling themselves the Boys Of Buddha) combined to create a dynamic dance-pop classic. The recording of the 'horns' was inspired by the experiments of Frank Zappa, who would record instruments at half-speed to create new sounds, and the League recorded the horn parts in this way, partly because they were too intricate to play at full speed, but also to give the sounds more 'attack'. Incidentally, an alternate version has appeared on certain bootleg tapes, which does not have quite so many layers; this version lacks the 'synthetic horns' and certain percussive sounds such as the hand-claps which were overdubbed later. An excerpt from the completed 1980 version was adopted by Radio One DJ Richard Skinner as his signature 'jingle' in the early 1980s. In late 2000, Richard X (as Girls On Top) mixed the music of the original single version with the vocals from TLC's hit single No Scrubs to create the much-sought- after bootleg single, Being Scrubbed (Black Melody MEL 1), which featured a pastiche of the Fast Product sleeve on its front cover - see Old Imagery: Miscellaneous on the Blind Youth site. Richard has since used Being Boiled for another single, this time re- recording the original music with pop group Liberty X singing Chaka Khan's Ain't Nobody over the top, to create the March 2003 Virgin single, Being Nobody. The song has also covered by numerous other artists, including Hybrid Machine's Kraftwerk-style arrangement on their 1994 album Concrete Ground, and Garlands' version, recorded with jangly 'indie' guitars (!) for March Records' disappointing League 'tribute' album Reproductions in 2000. Simple Minds also covered the song on a b-side in 2001, though with limited success. Martyn and Ian nowadays often perform the song live with Heaven 17 and a recording of this is available on their How Live Is album - see Miscellaneous releases (part two). Fast Product version released on single, Reproduction (CD only), Fast Product (The First Year Plan) - see Compilations (part one), German 12" reissue (1988), and Greatest Hits (1988 and 1995) - see Compilations (part two) first 'demo' version possibly released on some editions of the 'Human League cassette' John Peel session version unofficially released on In Darkness second and third demo versions and 1980 pre-overdubs version unreleased completed 1980 version released on Holiday '80 (double single and single), Travelogue, Cash Cows - see Compilations (part one), and as a bonus track on German 12" reissue of Fast Product single (1988) * Black Hit Of Space, The A tongue-in-cheek piece of sci-fi, telling of an extraterrestial record so terrifyingly bland that it numbs the minds of the entire human race, taking control of the planet Earth. Along the way, there are mentions for fictional hero Buck Rogers and James Burke, who at the time was well-known in Britain as a presenter of primetime science-based TV programmes. Set to a suitably futuristic backing track, this was a great and original way to begin the second album, with highly effective use of abrasive noise (used throughout the album) and no shortage of drama. The track originally had a longer introduction which was edited for the final version - unsurprising, as the deleted section added nothing to the song. Incidentally, this song apparently began life with a completely different title (I Held You Underwater), though it's not known whether the track had lyrics at that stage. The Black Hit Of Space has been covered twice in recent times - first by London's Ex-Rental (download an MP3 of the demo version exclusively from the Blind Youth site) and also by The Hidden Variable, on March Records' Reproductions compilation. Released on Travelogue and Machines - see Compilations (part one) * Blank Clocks An interesting experiment by The Future. After the spoken introduction, the three take turns to utter phrases composed of two words. The first word each time is one of constantly repeating cycle of four words (your, the, my and blank). This is followed by one of a second constantly repeating cycle, this time comprising seven words (face, clock, mind, heart, thigh, pain and time - though the fifth of these sometimes sounds more like fine). This loop continues until the music ends, by which time all possible combinations of words have been used at least twice. The music itself is a light (some would say insubstantial) mid-tempo arrangement and is again a series of loops, not really going anywhere and very nearly outstaying its welcome... Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * Blind Youth One of the League's earliest compositions, the original demo was known as Optimistic Anthem - an apt title, given the song's rejection of the nihilistic attitude adopted by many punk bands at that time. The opening line, "'No future', they say" refers to the closing refrain of the Sex Pistols' God Save The Queen (Philip once remarked, "I can't believe they're serious"). Although the demo version didn't quite gel, a faster-paced recording (subtitled [Progression]) was later made for John Peel's BBC Radio One show. A similar tempo was also used for the second demo version, which is perhaps the best recording of this song. Although lacking some of the additional synthesizer melodies used on the album version, the second demo featured a driving rhythm track and highly energetic keyboard and vocal performances. However, the group evidently decided that this approach was a little too fast and recorded a slightly slower version for their debut album. Discussing the group's lyrics, Martyn once commented, "I don't think we've ever written a conventional lyric. I think the nearest is Blind Youth, which is saying to the youngsters in the audience, 'don't worry - your time will come'. I don't see any reason to be depressed." Original demo version and John Peel session version released (unofficially) on In Darkness Original demo version also officially released on the 'Human League cassette' and included on the 'Taverner tape' Second demo version unreleased Album version released on Reproduction and Canadian I Don't Depend On You single (3.3) C ------- * Cairo The BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, best known for their pioneering use of electronic instruments on the TV series Doctor Who, were an influence on many British electronic artists in the 1970s, and this track suggests that The Future were among those artists. Mainly instrumental, the piece is particularly reminiscent of the Radiophonic Workshop's incidental music for Doctor Who stories in the early 1970s. The primary motif is a pastiche of ancient Egyptian music and the track concludes with a brief spoken word section taken from J G Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition (chapter four, You: Coma: Marilyn Monroe). Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * C'est Grave This is a collaboration between The Human League and their tour manager/engineer Timothy Pearce, who provides lead vocals. It is certainly one of the most bizarre tracks associated with the League; musically, it could almost be a blueprint for the New Romantic dancefloor antics of Visage (who this track pre-dates), but Timothy Pearce's demented vocals are a world away from those of Steve Strange! It's virtually impossible to imagine Philip singing this one... Released on Dance Like A Star * Circus Of Death One of the League's earliest and most intriguing recordings, the original version came about when the group first attempted to cover Iggy Pop's Night Clubbing. Martyn: "We had the echo unit doubling the beat and created another beat, and we decided 'this is too good for Night Clubbing - we'll use it for a track of our own'". The lyrics mainly concern a fictional psychopathic clown and his drug-crazed followers, but the song also makes reference to Commissioner Steve McGarrett from the TV series Hawaii Five-O. (Martyn: "We were trying to get Phil to say 'One, two, three, book him, Chin' at the beginning of the song.") The original version ended with a sample from John Carpenter's 1974 sci-fi film, Dark Star, though this only appeared on the Fast Product single (probably removed from later releases because of problems with copyright clearance). The single's sleeve included this note: "Dominion is the name given to the fictitious drug administered by the ringmaster/clown to subjugate those who fall prey to his power." An alternate version of the Fast Product recording appeared on the 'Human League cassette'. This replaced Philip's spoken introduction with a piece of dialogue about solar winds. Also, the song faded out after the penultimate verse, though the Dark Star extract was again appended to the end of the track. When re-recorded in 1979 for the group's debut album, the song opened with another sample, of an ITV presenter announcing the imminent transmission of an episode of Hawaii Five-O. This was followed the Dominion jingle, after which the song began in earnest. Although this was a fine version, most would argue that the original's low-budget gave it a slightly more chilling edge. Martyn and Ian produced a new (and not at all chilling) version of the song for Hot Gossip in 1981, which lasted almost seven minutes and included some rather dubious wildlife sound effects, ending with synthesized whipcracks and the sounds of a fairground organ. This was released on the Geisha Boys And Temple Girls LP - see Miscellaneous releases (part one). The song was also amusingly covered in industrial gothic style by German band Project Pitchfork in 1993 on their Carrion single, using the same sample of the aforementioned ITV presenter. Fast Product version released on Being Boiled, some editions of the 'Human League cassette', Reproduction (CD only) and Fast Product [The First Year Plan] - see Compilations (part one) Album version released on Reproduction Album version's promotional video released on VHS Greatest Hits (1988 and 1995 editions) - see Compilations (part two) * The Circus Of Dr Lao For years, this track has been circulated on bootleg cassettes as Circus Of Dr Boo, credited to The Future. Not only was the title wrong, but no members of The Future are actually involved! But this track is actually connected to the early work of The Human League... Philip: "I remember borrowing Martyn's synthesizer one weekend, when he was away. By the time he had come back, I had made my first Philip Oakey composition. It was called The Circus Of Dr Lao. The title came from a book by the science- fiction writer Charles G Finney. It was a Joy Divison type of dirge with bells, clangs and somebody talking on the telephone. It was terrible!" Also, bootleg cassettes have generally presented this track as a 23-minute 'epic'. In fact, that version is actually a series of six recordings heard individually one after the other. They show how the piece was built up, track by track. Quite how the tracks ever came to be distributed in this form is a mystery! The first recording is simply what might loosely be described as the bass-line. This is followed by the same track with the addition of clanging sounds, and to this, harsh, vaguely percussive effects are added for the third recording. The fourth and fifth recordings add spooky effects and high-pitched synthesizer melodies, reminiscent of the pseudo-Egyptian melodies used by The Future in Cairo. The sixth and presumably final recording features the voice of someone (Philip?) having a difficult telephone conversation: "Hello? Doctor.... Doctor what? Sorry? Doctor... who? Hello?", et cetera. Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * Crow And A Baby Like Austerity / Girl One and Marianne, this song looks at father-daughter relationships, albeit somewhat obliquely. Over a catchy stop-start rhythm, Philip delivers one of the group's less charitable lyrics, though the idea for his words came from a surprisingly innocent source... Philip: "Crow And A Baby was written because of a children's show called You & Me where the characters were a crow and a hamster. I used to watch TV with the sound off and get ideas from the pictures." Presumably the song never actually had the title Crow And A Hamster! The finished lyrics probably wouldn't have been deemed appropriate for children's TV; lines such as "Now I want all fathers dead" would undoubtably have upset most parents! Incidentally, the original recording was just over five minutes long, but the final eighty or ninety seconds were edited from the released version. The removed section featured little more than further detuning of the synthesizers, as hinted at by the closing moments of the album version, and various other incidental sounds here and there. Released on Travelogue * Cruel Simply an alternate mix of I Don't Depend On You, almost instrumental and featuring none of Philip's vocals. Released on I Don't Depend On You, Travelogue (CD only) (3.4) D ------- * Dada Dada Duchamp Vortex Apparently a spoof track, of which two mixes are known to exist (one being five and a half minutes long and in stereo, the other being around two minutes shorter and in mono). The longer version was almost released on The Future Tapes and the track is also known to some as Duchamp Duchamp Dada Vortex. According to Ian, the track had "a really strange thing occurring that wasn't put on (the tape) by either of us. It was on my machine, a random thing like a guitar that kept coming in and out. It was really emotive, the most emotive thing on the tape. But it wasn't anything to do with what I was playing at all." Although lacking a strong melody, the overall results work well; the track features no percussion, relying purely on intertwining textures to create a strange but serene effect which some might regard as 'ambient'. Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * Dance Like A Star As much as the League loved the better disco music of their time, they couldn't help but be aware of all the genre's 'naff' associations. Asked whether the group were disco-biased in 1978, Martyn replied, "No. I'd say we were dance- biased. Disco's a bit of an evocative word, isn't it? You see all these people going out in Birmingham bags and shiny suits..." Dance Like A Star could be said to have been born from these mixed feelings; although musically it sounds like a genuine attempt to write a futuristic disco song, the words are meant to parody the inane lyrical content of certain disco records. Unfortunately, many people thought the dumb lyrics were meant to be taken seriously, so the song was dropped from the group's live set in the summer of 1978. Six versions of the song exist - three of them (one vocal, two instrumental) based on the first arrangement, which sounds the more polished of the two (the vocal version is available as an MP3 on the Futuristic Sounds page of this site). One of the instrumental versions is simply a minute of incidental sounds and both were almost released on The Future Tapes. The other three versions are based on the same backing track - two vocal versions (each with unique introductions) and one instrumental version. This version has a lot more energy than its predecessor. Vocal version of first arrangement released on Dance Like A Star Vocal version of second arrangement released on some editions of the 'Human League cassette', and on Dance Like A Star and The Golden Hour Of The Future All other versions unreleased * Dancevision This instrumental was recorded by both The Future and The Human League, although it's likely that both versions feature only Martyn and Ian. Although it was about seventy-five seconds longer than the League's version, the Future version is otherwise very similar, using the same basic melodies and rhythm. When released on the Holiday '80 singles, the League's version was listed on the record sleeve as "recorded opposite Kelvin Flats, Sheffield on budget Sony 2-track Nov 77 by Ian + Martyn as The Future". Future version unreleased Human League version released on the 'Human League cassette', Holiday '80 (double single and single), Travelogue (CD only), the Canadian 12" of The Sound Of The Crowd and In Darkness (unofficially) * Daz This Future track sounds a lot like the group experimenting with their reverberation equipment. It consists of little more than noises being processed with short, sharp echo effects, and the only vocals used are the occasional deadpan and heavily-treated pronounciation of the track's title. It's extremely unlikely that this track will ever be used in a commercial for Daz washing powder. Lyrics: "Daz" (over and over) Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * Depression Is A Fashion This is an alternate version of Treatment, featuring rough lead vocals by Martyn, who sings very different lyrics to those which would be used when the song was again re-titled Austerity for the Reproduction album. This title would have been used for Treatment, had it been released on the cancelled album, The Future Tapes. Unreleased * Dignity Of Labour, The Although the League initially described The Dignity Of Labour as a three-part work, the three original components were actually created independently as separate instrumental pieces. Only later did the group decide to link them with a theme, and when the first part appeared on early demo cassettes, it featured Philip describing the theme. When commercially released, this narrative was removed from the first part, and a new fourth part was added. The first part sets the tone for the whole EP; there's a tune there if you listen hard enough, but most people would have trouble persevering with the patience- testing arrangement for more than a minute. Anyone skipping to part two in search of melody would be disappointed; this is the most unnerving of the four segments. Brutal sounds attack the listener throughout, with the only respite coming in the middle of the track, when everything stops abruptly for a moment, before fading back in. Part three chugs along without actually going anywhere until light relief arrives halfway through the track, with some semblance of melody. This is perhaps the only segment that is recognisable as The Human League. The fourth part is again lacking in conventional melody, but is thankfully considerably softer than its predecessors. One gets the impression though that the group were simply improvising on this track. Overall, the four-part work is easily the most difficult of the group's official releases, and in retrospect was just about the least likely bridge between the first and third singles (Being Boiled and I Don't Depend On You) imaginable. Considering the League were keen to be accepted as a mainstream pop group, this was a truly bizarre release. Useless trivia: part three of The Dignity Of Labour was apparently used as incidental music for a drag-racing feature on the BBC children's television show, Jim'll Fix It...! Released on the 'Human League cassette', The Dignity Of Labour, Reproduction (CD only) and the Rigour, Discipline And Disgust compilation (see section 2.16) * Disco Disaster An early League track, seemingly about the frustration, loneliness and violence associated with the disco/nightclub scene. The song may never have been completed, as only a rough version is known to exist, which is quite dark and introspective (see the Futuristic Sounds page of the Blind Youth site for an MP3 of this recording). However, it's unsurprising that the song never made it onto a record, as it's certainly one of the group's less memorable moments. An instrumental version also exists, but it's simply a slightly edited version of the vocal version without the voices. Released on some editions of the 'Human League cassette' and The Golden Hour Of The Future * Dominion advertisement A hilarious mock radio commercial for Dominion, "the drug which gives the clown power" in Circus Of Death. Philip narrates the track, which is set to a bizarre psychedelic backing. The League recorded it for possible inclusion on Reproduction, but by the time they began recording the album, the idea had been abandoned. Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * Dominion jingle Also known as the 'Human League jingle', this brief piece of music was used extensively in the group's early days, at live shows and on demo cassettes. Intended as a kind of 'signature tune', it consisted of a few minatory chimes and other-worldly voices, and would be used between songs. At the League's early live shows, the jingle was played after almost every song, which the group probably realised was over-repetitive. The jingle was soon dropped, but later reappeared as the opening section of the album version of Circus Of Death. Note: another 'Dominion'-related recording has recently been discovered in The Human League's vaults - a mock advertisement for Dominion ("the drug which gives the clown power" in Circus Of Death). This is apparently hilarious and was to have been included on Reproduction, but was never included on the final release. Released unofficially on In Darkness (bootleg), and officially on some editions of the 'Human League cassette' and on Reproduction (as part of Circus Of Death), and also on The Golden Hour Of The Future Also included on the 'Taverner tape' * Dreams Of Leaving An early version of this track was recorded by The Future in 1977, at which point it was an instrumental piece with little in common with the League's later version. Only an excerpt of this was included on The Future's much-bootlegged demo tape, and their full-length version has rarely been heard. When revisited for the Travelogue album, the music was greatly expanded and lyrics were added. For many, this song is one of the highlights of that album. Reviewing it for Sounds in May 1980, Dave McCullogh accurately described it as "an evocative anthem" and "astonishing, original and totally captivating". Like many of the most effective League songs, the lyrics fire the listener's imagination, describing the plight of the narrator who finds himself an enemy of a political regime and longs to escape to more congenial surroundings. Combined with these words, the music works extraordinarily well, initially expressing the desperation of the narrator's situation. This develops into a harsh, driving militaristic rhythm in the central instrumental section, which gives way to a strange dream-like passage (incidentally, this instrumental interlude was not part of the original Travelogue recording and was inserted later in the sessions; when the song was performed live, this section would be omitted). The song then ends with the optimism of the final verses and the warmth and grace of the closing sequence - a rare moment of beauty in the League's early output. The Future's version unreleased The Human League's version released on Travelogue (3.5) E - G ----------- * Empire State Human Probably the first overtly commercial track released under the Human League name, this song has a decidedly nursery rhyme feel about it. The nonsensical lyrics tell of a bizarre longing to be "as big as a wall", while the rhythm thumps along somewhere between a military march and the Glitter rock to which the group would often refer in their 1980 releases. The album/single version features heavily-treated backing vocals which lend an extra sci-fi element to the proceedings, though these were not present on the group's original demo version. This was a rather more raw-sounding affair, with Philip sounding breathless on lead vocals and drowned out by Martyn's few backing vocals at the end of the track. Also, the demo's synthesizer solo is a lot less noisy than the later version. Useless trivia: an amusing tape of the group's May 1980 show at Birmingham University captured Philip's temporarily revised second verse of Empire State Human, following an minor accident that night: "With concentration... I just hit myself in the eye... and I can't see a f---ing thing... at least." The song was later recorded by Optiganally Yours for the March Records album of League covers, Reproductions, in 2000. Ex-Rental remixed the Human League's version for Virgin Records in December 2002, though it's not yet known whether this remix will be commercially released. The remix features alternate lead vocals on certain lines and even headphone 'leakage' from the original master tapes - note the differences in the lyrics page for this song. Lyrics Demo version unreleased Album/single version released on Empire State Human, Reproduction Mile high mix by Ex-Rental currently unreleased Promotional video released on VHS Greatest Hits (1995 edition only) - see Compilations (part two) * 'Flexi Disc' This four-minute dialogue between the League and manager Bob Last was originally released on a 7" flexidisc, given away with The Dignity Of Labour. The disc is mostly filled by discussions of what should be included on the flexi disc (!). This is followed by a short statement from Philip on what The Dignity Of Labour and its sleeve are meant to represent. Released with The Dignity Of Labour and on Reproduction (CD only) * 4JG A curious Human League instrumental. It's not clear whether the recording was actually a completed track as it consists of little more than a few riffs, all played using the same synthesizer sound, over a simple fluttering dance beat faintly reminiscent of Dance Like A Star. It sounds as though this might have formed the basis for a more elaborate recording, but it seems the piece never evolved beyond this arrangement. Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * Future Religion A doom-laden instrumental by The Future, mainly consisting of a synthetic medieval-style drone, with various electronic clanging sounds seemingly appearing at random. Perhaps not surprisingly, this track was not scheduled for release on the cancelled compilation album, The Future Tapes - it's fairly unremarkable. Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * Funeral March See Once Upon A Time In The West [Funeral March] (N - O). * Girl One Originally recorded as an instrumental demo by Martyn and Ian prior to the League's formation, a second demo was produced when Philip joined them. Set to a pounding dance rhythm, the League's breezy demo featured some intriguing electronic percussion, reminiscent of certain African instruments. However, it's unsurprising that the group decided to re-record the song as a medley with Austerity for their debut album, as their Girl One demo lacked a proper introduction and ended rather abruptly. The medley overcame this problem, by using elements of Austerity at both ends of Girl One. Demo versions unreleased Medley with Austerity released on Reproduction * Gordon's Gin An instrumental written by Jeff Wayne for a TV commercial advertising Gordon's Gin, which the League recorded three times. The two demos, recorded with a vaguely disco-influenced arrangement, formed the basis of the version played at many of the original group's live shows. The first demo was subtitled Inept (probably because it included a number of mistakes!) and was followed by a more sophisticated version, known simply as Gordon's Gin 2. In 1980, the track was re-recorded for the Travelogue album, this time replacing the disco traces with a slightly harder, more urgent approach. Demo versions unreleased 1980 version released on Travelogue (3.6) I - K ----------- * I Don't Depend On You The a-side of the only early League record to feature guitars, drums or female vocals, this song was released under the name The Men and made for an unlikely follow-up to The Dignity Of Labour. A sublime, sophisticated disco track, it dispenses with the group's usual lyrical obscurity for a frank assessment of complacency in human relationships. It also recycles the main synthesizer riff from Being Boiled! Philip: "I can't imagine why we did The Men. We were always fascinated by disco. It was so alien to us... I remember Martyn coming in and saying we should do that sort of stuff, and he had Let's All Chant by the Michael Zager Band in his hand. So we tried to do that, but thought we'd better not call it The Human League. It was probably a really stupid move." Writing for the New Musical Express in 1990, Stuart Maconie remarked that the song's musical style "jars quite noticeably with the period. Utterly commercial, the irritating bleep-content is all but lost under lashings of catchy Euro-Pop sheen (with prophetic female backing to boot). The HL were quite clearly ahead of their own time, never mind anyone else's." A cover of this song was produced by Martyn and Ian in 1981 for Hot Gossip's Geisha Boys And Temple Girls album. It was released as a single the following year - see Miscellaneous Releases (part one) for details. Original version released on I Don't Depend On You, Travelogue (CD only) and Methods Of Dance (Volume 2) compilation - see Compilations (part two). * I Held You Underwater This was a charming early title for the song which later became The Black Hit Of Space. Presumably, this title was used as a temporary name for the track before it had lyrics, as some of the synthesized sounds have something of a 'gargling' quality...! Released as The Black Hit Of Space on Travelogue * Interface An early Human League instrumental from 1978, this featured on many of the group's demo cassettes. On one cassette compilation issued to record companies, Philip took on the guise of an imaginary television presenter named Jason Taverner and introduced various tracks; Interface was described as a track the League had written for his best-selling record There'll Be A Good Time With Taverner Tonight...! Surprisingly, the track was never officially released, but an MP3 of the demo is available on the Futuristic Sounds page of this site. There has been much confusion over the title of this track, and many know it as The Year Of The Jet Packs, which is a different instrumental. (Note that the MP3 is the incomplete version as included on a number of bootlegs, and omits the opening sequence which borrows from Elmer Bernstein's musical West Side Story.) Released on some editions of the 'Human League cassette' and on The Golden Hour Of The Future, and unofficially on In Darkness (mis-labelled Year Of The Jet Packs) Also included on the 'Taverner tape' * Introducing Based on elements of an earlier demo, Overkill Disaster Crash, this is perhaps the sound of the League at their most perverse; a demented mix of bleeps, sirens, alarm bells and explosions over a sinister three-note bass riff, which still manages to be darkly comic (it's hard to take seriously the screams into the radio transmitter at the end of the track!). Introducing is perhaps the ideal song to play to anyone wishing to dismiss The Human League as "that pop band who did Don't You Want Me"... Released on Empire State Human and Reproduction (CD only) * King Of Kings This track was to have opened the League's 'unique automated cabaret' shows, supporting Talking Heads on their 1979 UK tour (see The Way It Was: Automatic Stations). As these shows never took place, the song has remains unreleased. This piece became known as King Of Kings because it is the League's interpretation of some music composed by Miklos Rozsa for the 1961 film of this name, directed by Nicholas Ray. The correct title for the piece is unconfirmed at the time of writing. Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future (3.7) L - M ----------- * The Last Man On Earth Surely the longest track ever associated with The Human League, this piece by Martyn and Ian lasts around 25 minutes. Interestingly, the phrase "the last man on Earth" would crop up again in Philip's original introduction to Circus Of Death. This excerpt revolves around a gentle, descending looped sequence, around which various incidental effects and harmonies appear at random. The overall effect is generally quite serene - ambient even - although variations in the looped sequence and some of the extraneous sounds are occasionally unsettling. Excerpt released on Dance Like A Star and The Golden Hour Of The Future * Life Kills An urgent, dramatic number by The Human League, concerning the stress of working life. Travelogue, the album on which this song appeared, was criticized in some quarters for its reliance on rock 'n' roll influences, and this track is a prime example of just that. Some of the synthesizer sounds could easily be treated electric guitar, and the chorus owes much to the football terrace chant style of certain 1970s rock acts. While Life Kills is not by any means a bad song, NME's Chris Ryan made some valid points in his review of the album: "Hey! Hey! Rock 'n' Roll! Back into the future, reverse into tomorrow with The Human League... the Gary Glitter/Mike Leander axis is the unseen force at work - the endless commercial potential of the handclap, the stacked heel footstomp, the clenched fist. "The band thrash around with [Philip K] Dick's transcendental autobiographical style and [J G] Ballard's subjective sci-fi, but on cold vinyl it becomes more like The Members' Solitary Confinement / Sound Of The Suburbs songbook (Life Kills)... more significantly, they have fashioned nothing on this album that could not be played as effectively by the boring traditional line-up of three guitars and a set of drums. Why bother with synthesizers when all you wanna play is Johnny B Goode?" Harsh, but not entirely unfair... Released on Travelogue * Living On A Bombsite This Human League demo would form the basis of Marianne. Although the instrumentation of the two tracks is almost identical, the vocal melody differs significantly in places, and many of the lyrics were altered before this track became Marianne. However, the lyrical theme did not change. Unreleased * Looking For The Black Haired Girls A strange track by The Future. Opening and closing with the screams of a woman, the content between is no less disconcerting; each member contributes demented spoken parts, and pistol shots ring out over the nightmarish music. The track is available in MP3 form on the Futuristic Sounds page of the Blind Youth site. Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * Marianne Based on the music of an earlier demo, Living On A Bombsite, this song finds Philip exploring one of his favourite early themes, the father / daughter relationship. In this song, the lyrics are written from the viewpoint of a father disappointed by his favourite daughter. Although the League thought this to be one of their better songs, it seems Virgin had little faith in it; when the Holiday '80 double single it headed failed to chart, the label were quick to re-package the EP without this track, taking the safer option of the Rock 'N' Roll cover version as the a-side. When the group produced an alternate version of Marianne, they were unable to persuade Virgin to release it as a single in its own right. Original version released on Holiday '80 double single and Travelogue (CD only) Alternate version released on Australian Travelogue LP * The Martyr This is simply an early title for Austerity. The song was still known by this title when the League recorded their debut album, as it is labelled on the original master tape's box as 'The Martyr / Girl 1'. Released as Austerity on Reproduction * Morale... This slightly unsettling track relies heavily upon Philip's vocal performance, as there is only minimal instrumentation involved. Before it came to serve as Reproduction's prelude to You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling, this song had existed in two other instrumental forms. The first version sounds more like a rough sketch than a completed track (some of the keyboard playing was noticeably out of time in places), but the overall effect is generally quite peaceful and sedate; there are even neoclassical elements in evidence. The second version uses softer sounds and its arrangement is slightly less complex. The third has much in common with the second version, but has one or two additional layers. The master tape for this version also features Philip singing an early draft of the lyrics (ending with the line, "I'll always be stuck here in this foul little room with a view of the curtains"), using a noticeably different melody to the Reproduction version. Martyn and Ian also produced a cover version of Morale... for Hot Gossip's 1981 album, Geisha Boys And Temple Girls - see Miscellaneous releases (part one). This version had very slightly different lyrics. Second demo version released on Dance Like A Star (mis-labelled Treatment) Final version released on Reproduction Other early versions unreleased (3.8) N - O ----------- * New Pink Floyd It's likely that New Pink Floyd was simply a working title for this track, though as no other title was listed on the tape box when it was recently rediscovered, it has been released with this title. The track is a discordant instrumental, featuring little in the way of conventional melody and using harsh metallic sounds, probably achieved by the application of distortion and gating effects to the synthesizer's outputs. Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * Night Clubbing The first time the League attempted to cover this Iggy Pop / David Bowie composition, they found themselves writing Circus Of Death instead. On the next attempt, they came up with a similar arrangement to the original version (found on Iggy's first album of 1977, The Idiot), which they would regularly perform live. When the group decided to create a medley of this track and Rock 'N' Roll for live performance, it wasn't long before the odd coupling found its way onto record, as the closing track on the Holiday '80 double single. However, this release was quickly deleted in favour of a single record, from which all trace of Night Clubbing was removed. Although the League would sometimes play Rock 'N' Roll separately at concerts after this, the medley was still performed live from time to time; they even rehearsed an extended eight-minute version in which Night Clubbing was performed at a slower speed, but it's not clear whether this arrangement was ever played live. Compared to Iggy's version (which is actually titled Nightclubbing, i.e. one word), the League's recorded version is slightly faster and more crisply produced, and naturally omits the original closing guitar solo. Released on Holiday '80 double single and Travelogue (CD only) * No Time An early version of The Word Before Last, with only minor lyrical and musical differences. The track was recorded during the group's session for BBC Radio One DJ John Peel. The earlier demo of this song had been titled Again The Eye Again, though it's likely that the demo appeared on some editions of the 'Human League cassette' under the name of No Time. Radio One session version released (unofficially) on In Darkness * Once Upon A Time In The West [Funeral March] This is the League's version of Ennio Morricone's instrumental Funeral March from Sergio Leone's epic western, Once Upon A Time In The West (1969). As might be expected, the piece is a slow-paced, brooding affair, in a similar vein to the League's other cover of music from a movie soundtrack, King Of Kings. Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * Only After Dark A version of the Ronson / Richardson composition, originally found on 1974's Slaughter On 10th Avenue, the debut solo album by David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust-era guitarist, Mick Ronson. Whereas the original was heavily rooted in Ronson's classic Spiders Of Mars style, the League present the song as an uptempo electro-bop, which is arguably equally as effective. This was almost released as a single in the UK, but the group persuaded Virgin to instead package it as a free disc with the reissued Empire State Human single. Released on Travelogue and Only After Dark * Optimistic Anthem The original title for the song Blind Youth. The first recording was released on early demo cassettes circulated to record companies, and was introduced by the mythical Jason Taverner as an "optimistic anthem". Released as Blind Youth (demo) on the 'Human League cassette' and (unofficially) on In Darkness Also included as Blind Youth on the 'Taverner tape' * Overkill Disaster Crash This track was recorded three times by the League before evolving into Introducing. However, the first two versions bear very little resemblance to that track, and the only thing all four recordings have in common is a fast tempo and the use of the same notes in the riff which occurs throughout, though even the riff is played very differently on the first two versions. Opening with around thirty seconds of bleeps, explosions and incoherent words, the first version then cuts to dialogue from John Carpenter's film Dark Star ("Hi guys... glad we got your message. You'll be interested to hear it was broadcast live all over Earth in primetime..."). The track then switches to a minute or so of galloping percussion, which sounds remarkably like something which might have emerged from the techno scene a decade or more later. Chess champion Garry Kasparov also appears on the track; he happened to be giving an interview on the television while the League were recording the track, so they decided to throw in an excerpt from the programme. The second version is around twice the length of the first, using the same opening sequence with added effects, followed by a much-extended version of the track's main body. This section is less sparse than the first version, as it features repetitive synthesizer overdubs and some of the sound effects and dialogue which would later appear in Introducing. However, the overall effect is slightly tedious as the track seems to go on and on without ever changing a great deal until it speeds up and ends with a synthesized 'explosion'. This third recording is far more recognisable as Introducing, using a very similar rhythm track, the same ominous three-note bass pattern and sharing many of the sound effects, such as sirens, alarm bells and explosions. The only major differences are that Introducing ends with dialogue not used on this track, and this recording is split into three distinct parts (listed separately on some bootlegs as Overkill Disaster, Crash and Overkill Disaster reprise). The first part lasts around three minutes and its arrangement is generally similar to the released version of Introducing, if a little less powerful. The second part uses a slowed-down version of the familiar percussive tape loop as a base, and is dominated by a buzzing synthesizer sound. Although initially fairly menacing, this sound soon begins to grate, especially towards the end, when it seems as though the player is simply ad-libbing, meandering around with no particular place to go, or tune to play. The final part is simply a 47-second reprise of the first part, on which Philip sings eight lines of lyrics, half of them almost indecipherable and none of retained for Introducing. This is what they probably are: "Here it comes, once again Disaster strikes beasts and men The building burns, the vehicles crash The bridge will fall, two tankers smash Suburbs will quake, waves will tide Sharks will bite, worlds collide Submarines sink, airships fall Parachutes fail and tigers maul..." (Words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware, published by Virgin Music [Publishers] Ltd.) First version released on The Golden Hour Of The Future Second and third versions unreleased (3.9) P ------- * The Path Of Least Resistance A very simple but effective song, reflecting on human apathy and the pitfalls of over-reliance on material comforts. The song started life as an instrumental by Martyn and Ian, slightly faster and longer than the later vocal versions. The League then recorded two demos of the song, both similar in arrangement to the album version recorded for Reproduction. The first demo featurws harsher keyboard sounds and was recorded in a lower key, while the second demo is prefaced by a short recording of the computer Orac from BBC TV's sci-fi series, Blake's 7. For reasons unknown, when the album version was released on CD in 1988, its second half was subjected to some kind of treatment not used on the original LP version. Around the time of the LP's release, the group made a rare television appearance, performing this song on the British show, Mainstream. A short clip of which was featured on BBC2's Young Guns documentary devoted to the League in 1999. Lyrics first demo version possibly released on some editions of the 'Human League cassette' and also included on the 'Taverner tape' second demo version unreleased album version released on Reproduction * Perfect Day A cover of the Lou Reed song, from his classic 1972 album Transformer. The League recorded a studio version of this song and also played it live in 1980 (a bootleg of a European radio performance is known to be in circulation). The arrangement is considerably starker than Lou Reed's original, using only minimal instrumentation and the most basic crashing percussion. Martyn and Ian would later record this song in 1982 with Glenn Gregory for the British Electric Foundation album, Music Of Quality & Distinction. A similar approach was taken with the musical backing, but the vocal arrangement was more ambitious. Unreleased * Pulse Lovers One of The Future's less menacing moments, this composition finds the group veering surprisingly close to melody, though the icy vocals ensure the track doesn't become too approachable. The track is known to many as Pulse Colours. An MP3 of the track is available on the Blind Youth site - see the Futuristic Sounds page. Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * QED This is simply an early alternate title for Zero As A Limit, as noted in Philip's 'Jason Taverner' dialogue on the 'Taverner tape'. (3.10) R - S ------------ * Reach Out [I'll Be There] This cover of the Holland/Dozier/Holland classic made famous by The Four Tops was recorded by The League for possible use in their live shows, though it was never actually performed live. Vocals were never recorded for the song, but the instrumentation itself is interesting enough; using percussion sounds reminiscent of Almost Medieval, the mood is lighter in tone than most of the League's own compositions, though it's odd that the track fades out if it was planned for live use. Perhaps this was intended to annoy rock 'purists' who objected to the group's use of backing tapes... Released on The Golden Hour Of The Future * Ring Mod Singing Nothing is known about this track, which was committed to four-track tape by the League, probably in 1979. It is possible that this song was later released with an alternate title. This may even be an abbreviated title, but this is how it is listed in notes accompanying the original master tape. Unreleased, at least under this title * River Deep, Mountain High A cover of the Spector/Barry/Greenwich song made famous by Ike & Tina Turner in 1966. The League's version unsurprisingly replaces Phil Spector's original wall-of-sound production with an altogether sparser electronic arrangement. An instrumental version of the first recording has appeared on bootleg cassettes (this is likely to be a backing track used for live performances of the song), but a second version also exists, recorded at the 24-track Townhouse studio in London, and this includes vocals. Interviewed about the B.E.F. collaboration with Tina Turner on 1982's Music Of Quality & Distinction album (Virgin 2219), Martyn remarked, "We did a version of River Deep, Mountain High with the League, but it never got released, for obvious reasons. We did have this perverse thought that we'd suddenly spring this old backing track on Tina Turner and say, 'Well, you wouldn't mind just knocking off a quick vocal on this, would you Tina?'" (They eventually chose the Temptations' Ball Of Confusion instead.) Unreleased * Rock 'N' Roll Always a live favourite, this cover of Gary Glitter's first hit very nearly provided the League with their own first hit. It was originally issued as a medley with Night Clubbing, but the latter track was edited from the recording for single release. The single's limited success was enough to win the original line-up of the group their first (and only) appearance on the British music television institution, Top Of The Pops. When performed live independently of Night Clubbing, the closing instrumental section would often be slightly extended, allowing Martyn and Ian to improvise a little. Much of the success of Gary Glitter's original single could be attributed to the remix on the b-side, Rock 'N' Roll [Part 2], which had been hastily produced when those involved realised their budget would not allow the recording of a brand new song. The first time Martyn and Ian recorded this song (shortly after Adi left The Future), their arrangement was based on the Part 2 version. This demo version was much longer than the League's later single version, lasting almost eight minutes, and the only vocals used were occasional inserts of some pre-recorded "hey"s. Gary, who in 1980 was on the verge of another comeback, apparently appreciated the League's recording and often played it before taking the stage at his live shows that year. Martyn and Ian would later record a track with Gary himself in 1982, for the B.E.F. album Music Of Quality And Distinction. Together, they re-worked the tender Elvis Presley classic Suspicious Minds in the trademark stomping Glitter style, complete with raucous backing vocals (!). Who knows what Elvis would have made of it all...? Martyn and Ian's version unreleased The Human League's version released on: Holiday '80 (double single and single), Travelogue (CD and Canadian/Australian LP only) * Rotation Club This track dates from the League's recording sessions for the Reproduction album. Although listed on the box containing one of the album's master tapes, it's not clear whether this is an unreleased track or simply a song which was renamed and released on the album. Philip has suggested this may have been a version of The Year Of The Jet Packs, but is not sure. Unreleased, at least under this title * Sandor Sandor A song by Philip which was never finished, though a lyric sheet is known to exist. 'Sandor' is possibly a reference to a character from the 1970s animated sci-fi series, Star Blazers. Unreleased * Stylopops This is one of the many titles for the song which became Marianne. The song had this title on the planned setlist for the League's automated set on their UK tour with Talking Heads (see The Way It Was: Automatic Stations). Released as Marianne on Travelogue (3.11) T -------- * title unknown #1 At the time of writing, the title of this Marsh/Ware instrumental, which was to have appeared directly after the second version of Dance Like A Star on The Future Tapes, is unknown. Lasting less than two minutes, the piece consists of nothing more than one synthesizer riff repeated over and over, while various vaguely traffic-like sounds soar in and out of the mix. It doesn't sound much like a finished track and it's likely that Martyn and Ian would have planned to add vocals, to complement the music here. Unreleased * title unknown #2 An instrumental recorded by Ian and Martyn prior to the formation of The Human League, this track was set for inclusion on The Future Tapes, preceding C'est Grave. Its relentless crunching rhythm is fairly similar to that which Joy Division would employ on their She's Lost Control single a couple of years later. Over this, a chord sequence is repeated throughout the track's three and a half minutes, played using a variety of synth sounds, including a stabbing organ-like sound (recalling certain techno records of the early 1990s!), and an oscillating sound which the League would later use on WXJL Tonight. Unreleased * Titled U.N This is the backing track for an untitled and unfinished song which was re- discovered by the League's current engineer (David Beevers) in 2002 while searching for material for the Golden Hour Of The Future project. The music is a fairly upbeat and uptempo affair, and had the song been completed, it would probably have made for quite a catchy pop song. A slightly different version was later released by Martyn and Ian on their BEF cassette, Music For Stowaways (see Rock 'N' Roll: Miscellaneous Releases), under the title Wipe The Board Clean. Released on Dance Like A Star * The Touchables One of the lighter tracks on the second Human League album, this nevertheless showed the group were capable of writing catchy melodies when they wanted to. Naturally, the lyrics are another matter altogether, referring to such cheery themes as guilt, panic and indifference. Still, this song, like Marianne, is probably a good indication of the warmer, more commercial direction the group might have taken had they made the decision to try and break into the pop mainstream instead of splitting. An early recording of the song exists, which is essentially the same as the album version with slight differences in the rhythm, certain synthesizer and backing vocal melodies absent and an alternate lead vocal, though the final choruses are presented in full, unlike the album version. Early version unreleased Album version released on Travelogue * Toyota City This instrumental appeared on the League's first demo tape, along with Being Boiled and Circus Of Death. A soft, hypnotic exercise in repetition, the piece revolves around a simple eight-note motif which persists throughout the track, adorned with an array of incidental musical asides. According to Philip's dialogue on the 'Taverner tape', this piece was intended as 'mock- oriental tune', which explains the choice of title. The original version lasted over five and a half minutes, but was edited to less than three and a half minutes for inclusion on the group's second album. An alternate edit of this track was also created for the 'Taverner tape'. Instead of fading in from silence, this edit opens with a few unsettling notes not used on the released versions. The track is quite brief, fading and ending after little more than two minutes. Short version released on Travelogue Long version released on the 'Human League cassette', In Darkness (unofficially), Only After Dark and the Japanese 12" edition of Holiday '80. Alternate edit unreleased but included on the 'Taverner tape' * Treatment, Treatments These are simply early titles for Austerity. Under this title, the song started life as a mesmerising instrumental - slightly less focussed than the Reproduction version, but highly effective, full of dynamic percussion. Martyn then added vocals to this instrumental and it briefly became known as Depression Is A Fashion. However, these lyrics were completely re-written shortly afterwards and it's thought the song probably reverted back to the Treatment title when performed on the League's first European tour, supporting Iggy Pop. Around the time of the recording of their debut album, the title was changed to The Martyr and the song was finally released as Austerity a few months later. Reviewing the group's February 1979 show at Manchester's Factory for Sounds, writer Mick Middles described Treatment as "commercial" and "Kraftwerkesque". Early versions unreleased (note: the track labelled Treatment on Dance Like A Star is actually the second demo version of Morale...) Final version released as Austerity on Reproduction (3.12) V - W ------------ * The Voice Of Buddha This is simply the title under which Being Boiled was released on the Canadian edition of the second League LP. Presumably the Canadian record company thought this would be a more memorable title for the song? Released on the Canadian Travelogue LP * The Word Before Last The League recorded three versions of this song, each offering only minimal variations in lyrical or musical content, but all of them having different titles. First came the demo version, Again The Eye Again, which was retitled No Time shortly afterwards and recorded a second time for John Peel's BBC Radio One show. The final recording appeared on the group's debut album as The Word Before Last, which featured an excerpt from a TV interview with former British Prime Minister James Callaghan. The song became a favourite among many of their early fans, even though Philip had once remarked that it "could be construed as pretentious garbage"... Ian and Martyn produced yet another version in 1981 as producers for dance troupe Hot Gossip, released on the Geisha Boys And Temple Girls album - see Miscellaneous releases (part one). This might have worked if it had not been spoiled by some unappetising sub-Toyah vocals... Again The Eye Again released on the 'Human League cassette' and unofficially on In Darkness, and also included on the 'Taverner tape' No Time released unofficially on In Darkness The Word Before Last released on Reproduction * WXJL Tonight One of the more sophisticated, warmer-sounding tracks on the League's second album, and effectively the last song released by the original line-up, being the last track on their final collection of new music. The marvellously evocative lyrics describe the plight of a fictitious radio station named WXJL, which is having difficulty in attracting or retaining listeners. Set to a pleasingly original musical arrangement featuring juddering morse code-style synthesizers, this was in retrospect a fine (perhaps even apt) way to close the first chapter of the Human League's career. Released on Travelogue and the German single release of Only After Dark (3.13) Y - Z ------------ * The Year Of The Jet Packs An early Human League instrumental, this features some gorgeous old synthesizer sounds, which are ear-splittingly distorted in places. The track is available as an MP3 on the Futuristic Sounds page of this site. There has been considerable confusion over this track's true title since another early League instrumental (Interface) appeared on the In Darkness bootleg album, mis-labelled Year Of The Jet Packs. Released on the 'Human League cassette' and on The Golden Hour Of The Future * You Broke My Heart This is one of several early titles for the song which became Marianne. Released as Marianne on Holiday 80 (double single) and Travelogue (CD only) * You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling A cover of the Spector / Mann / Weil song made famous by The Righteous Brothers, which many considered an unusual choice for an electronic group. Martyn: "That's one of the reasons we do it. But the main reason is simply that it's a great song, probably my favourite song from the '60s. We do it very different from the original. We've tried to reinterpret the original in a form that would be emotive on a synthesizer. Electronic music is regarded as unemotive, but that's a very emotional song." The League played the song at their first live show and it remained a regular highlight of their concerts until it was dropped for the Travelogue tour in 1980, to make way for another cover version (Perfect Day). A demo version was recorded early in the group's lifetime which, although heavy on the moody keyboards, was slightly brighter in tone than the versions which followed and the production of the vocals was occasionally reminiscent of Phil Spector's original. The group also recorded the song during their BBC Radio One session for influential DJ John Peel, but their definitive recording was the astonishing version released on their debut album. As the opening chimes drift in from the eerie sonic residue of Morale..., the listener cannot help but be captivated for the next six-and-a-half minutes; both Philip and Martyn deliver remarkable vocal performances over the simple lullaby keyboard arrangement, and the overall effect is quite breathtaking. Demo version unreleased Radio One session version released on the 'Human League cassette' and In Darkness (unofficially), and also included on the 'Taverner tape' Album version released on Reproduction 4'10" edit (without Morale...) released on Dutch Empire State Human single * Zero As A Limit This song, also known as QED, closed the original LP release of Reproduction in chaotic fashion, beginning quietly at a slow pace and gradually growing in both volume and tempo until imploding in quite spectacular style. The lyrics combine with the ever-accelerating music to tell the cheerful tale of a pedestrian being struck by a speeding motor vehicle. Three demo versions of this song were recorded. The first was fairly rough- sounding, with slightly different lyrics to the other recordings and noticeable effects applied to Philip's vocals. The keyboard arrangements were less certain and the overall acceleration of the song's tempo was uneven compared to subsequent recordings. This version's climax also lacked much of the memorable chaos with which later versions would culminate. The second and third demo versions both opened with the sound of synthesized waves on a seashore (not used on Reproduction) and both were more than a minute longer than the album version. There is little difference between the two demos other than a change of key. The song's title is thought to be taken from Robert Moore's science-fiction story of the same name, first published in 1934 by Astounding magazine. Zero As A Limit was also used as the title of Adrian's short film which was shown at the League's live shows to promote their debut album in late 1979. Incidentally, the Reproduction version is listed on the master tape's box as Zero's The Limit. Demo versions unreleased, although the first was included on the 'Taverner tape' Album version released on Reproduction *********************************** (4) Avoid Those Mistakes (lyrics) *********************************** (4.1.1) Almost Medieval ----------------------- There's something in your soul that makes me feel so old In fact, I think I've died about six hundred times There's less of me now and more of me then I'm moving back to the age of men Jump off the tarmac There's no stagecoach speed limit Outside the office hangs the man on the gibbet Soft lenses grow to glasses Small world dimly seen through cataracts Your program Newspaper So they say Rumour spread by word of mouth Jump onto the escalator Press the button on the lift Raise the dust on old stair carpets Endless treads like waves of regret Now it seems I'm going madder Falling off this rotting ladder Soft lenses grow to glasses Small world dimly seen through cataracts Jump onto the escalator Press the button on the lift Raise the dust on old stair carpets Endless treads like waves of regret Now it seems I'm going madder Falling off this rotting ladder Your program Newspaper So they say Rumour spread by word of mouth Jump onto the escalator Press the button on the lift Raise the dust on old stair carpets Endless treads like waves of regret Now it seems I'm going madder Falling through this rotting ladder There's something in your soul that makes me feel so old In fact I think I've died about six hundred times There's less of me now and more of me then I'm moving back to the age of men Jump off the tarmac There's no stagecoach speed limit Outside the office hangs the man on the gibbet Jump off the tarmac There's no stagecoach speed limit Outside the office swings the man on the gibbet words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.1.2) Circus Of Death ----------------------- * Being Boiled b-side version: This is a song called the Circus Of Death It tells the true story of a circus we met The first two verses concern the actual arrival at Heathrow Airport of Commissioner Steve McGarrett The third emotionally describes a map showing the range of the circus The fourth and fifth were extracted from an article in the Guardian of March the 19th, 1962 The last is a short wave radio message from the last man on Earth Nine o'clock flight from Hawaii The Trident is just touching down We're waiting here on the tarmac McGarrett is wearing a frown He's here to help with a problem A blood-spattered curse on our land Please cast your eye over this map, sir This business is quite out of hand The circus of death is approaching Its pathway is painted in red Before it the frightened and helpless Behind it a trail of the dead The narcotic that forges their union is a substance known only to one To the clown it is known as Dominion It's a secret that he'll give to none The drug which gives the clown power means the circus can never be stopped And his dream can go on unhindered 'til the last human being has dropped Spare me and my family I've done you no wrong Go away, please let us be I've known you for too long Think we'll ever find any real intelligent life out there? Who cares? * 'Human League cassette' version: ...theories of violent, prolonged solar storms, lasting several years, caused by a certain instability in the sun, had enlarged the Van Allen belts and diminished the Earth's gravitational hold upon the outer layers of the ionosphere. As these vanished into space, depleting the Esrth's barrier against the full impact of solar radiation, temperatures began to climb steadily... Nine o'clock flight from Hawaii The Trident is just touching down We're waiting here on the tarmac McGarrett is wearing a frown He's here to help with a problem A blood-spattered curse on our land Please cast your eye over this map, sir This business is quite out of hand The circus of death is approaching Its pathway is painted in red Before it the frightened and helpless Behind it a trail of the dead The narcotic that forges their union is a substance known only to one To the clown it is known as Dominion It's a secret that he'll give to none The drug which gives the clown power means the circus can never be stopped And his dream can go on unhindered 'til the last human being has dropped Think we'll ever find any real intelligent life out there? Who cares? * album version: In just a few moments we're off to Hawaii to join Steve McGarrett and the team for tonight's adventure... Nine o'clock flight from Hawaii The Trident is just touching down We're waiting here on the tarmac McGarrett is wearing a frown He's here to help with a problem A blood-spattered curse on our land Please cast your eye over this map, sir This business is quite out of hand The circus of death is approaching Its pathway is painted in red Before it the frightened and helpless Behind it a trail of the dead The narcotic that forges their union is a substance known only to one To the clown it is known as Dominion It's a secret that he'll give to none The drug which gives the clown power means the circus can never be stopped And his dream can go on unhindered 'til the last human being has dropped Spare me and my family I've done you no wrong Go away, please let us be I've known you for too long words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.1.3) The Path Of Least Resistance ------------------------------------ * first demo version: Faced with the choice, what would you say? The path of least resistance - it seems the only way But let's look a little further To level four, I think Self-belief's the answer Not another drink The safe method, the only way You'll rationalise your course Stay part of the crowd and never find the source Feel wanted, feel numb But stay as you are The truth is - comfort kills And you don't need that car So sad, the early grave When all the fun's for free Start digging the early grave and keep it warm for me Faced with the choice, what would you say? The path of least resistance - it seems the only way But can't we look a little further? Up to level four, I think Self-belief's the answer Not another drink The safe method, the only way You'll rationalise your course Stay part of the crowd and never find the source Feel wanted, feel numb But you stay as you are The truth is - comfort kills And you don't need that car second demo version: Confirmed Faced with the choice, what would you say? The path of least resistance - it seems the only way But can't we look a little further? To level four, I think Self-belief's the answer And not another drink The safe method, the only way You'll rationalise your course Stay part of the crowd and never find the source Feel wanted, feel numb Just stay as you are The truth is - comfort kills And you don't need that car So sad, the early grave When all the fun's for free Start digging the early grave and keep it warm for me Faced with the choice, what would you say? The path of least resistance - it seems the only way But can't we look a little further? To level four, I think Self-belief's the answer And not another drink The safe method, the only way You'll rationalise your course Stay part of the crowd and never find the source Feel wanted, feel numb Just stay as you are The truth is - comfort kills And you don't need that car * album version: Faced with the choice, what would you say? The path of least resistance - it seems the only way But can't we look a little further? To level four, I think Self-belief's the answer And not another drink The safe method, the only way You'll rationalise your course Stay part of the crowd and never find the source Feel wanted, feel numb Just stay as you are The truth is - comfort kills And you don't need that car So sad, the early grave When all the fun's for free Start digging the early grave and keep it warm for me Faced with the choice, what would you say? The path of least resistance - it seems the only way But let's look a little further To level four, I think Self-belief's the answer And not another drink The safe method, the only way You'll rationalise your course Stay part of the crowd and never find the source Feel wanted, feel numb Just stay as you are The truth is - comfort kills And you don't need that car words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.1.4) Blind Youth ------------------- * first demo version (a.k.a. Optimistic Anthem): "No future", they say But must it be that way? Now is calling The city is human Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon We've had it easy, we should be glad High-rise living's not so bad Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Dehumanisation is such a big word It's been around since Richard III Dehumanisation - it's easy to say But if you're not a hermit, well then the city's OK "No future", they say But must it be that way? Now is calling The city is human Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon * Radio One John Peel session version (Blind Youth [Progression]): "No future", they say But must it be that way? Now is calling The city is human Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon We've had it easy, we should be glad High-rise living's not so bad Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Dehumanisation is such a big word It's been around since Richard III Dehumanisation - it's easy to say But if you're not a hermit, then the city's OK "No future", they say But must it be that way? Now is calling The city is human Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon We've had it easy, we should be glad High-rise living's not so bad Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon * second demo version: "No future", they say But must it be that way? Now is calling The city is human Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon We've had it easy, we should be glad High-rise living's not so bad Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Dehumanisation is such a big word It's been around since Richard III Dehumanisation - it's easy to say But if you're not a hermit, you know the city's OK "No future", they say But must it be that way? Now is calling The city is human Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon We've had it easy, we should be glad High-rise living's not so bad Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon (Whoo!) * album version: "No future", they say But must it be that way? Now is calling The city is human Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon We've had it easy, we should be glad High-rise living's not so bad Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Dehumanisation is such a big word It's been around since Richard III Dehumanisation - it's easy to say But if you're not a hermit, you know the city's OK "No future", they say But must it be that way? Now is calling The city is human Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon We've had it easy, we should be glad High-rise living's not so bad Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.1.5) The Word Before Last ---------------------------- * demo version (Again The Eye Again): I spent a bad day yesterday with a man and a picture of himself The tape was running and the TV turned How different these people were, I learned This man I saw was happy then And then loved And on TV, well But now he cried and cried And of course he had to want to die But he watched him, which made it worse Of course, of course, of course, of course You understand he didn't know it was someone else who looked the same A similar voice taken The clothes changed, but the face retained Surrounded by this imagery His brain bypassed The eternal moment laid bare No time to heal Continual pain, continual pain, continual pain, continual pain I spent a bad day yesterday with a man and a picture of himself The tape was running and the TV turned How different these people were, I learned * Radio One John Peel session version (No Time): I spent a bad day yesterday with a man and a picture of himself The tape was running and the TV turned How different these people were, I learned This man I saw was happy then And then loved And on TV, well But now he cried and he cried And of course he had to want to die But he watched him, which made it worse Of course, of course, of course, of course You understand he didn't know that it was someone else who looked the same A similar voice taken The clothes changed, but the face retained Surrounded by old imagery His brain bypassed The eternal moment laid bare No time to heal Continuum, continuum, continuum, continuum I spent a bad day yesterday with a man and a picture of himself The tape was running and the TV turned * album version: You will notice... you will notice that very appropriately I'm left-handed... This man I saw was happy then And then loved And on TV, well But now he cried and he cried And of course he had to want to die But he watched him, which made it worse Of course, of course, of course, of course You understand he didn't know that it was someone else who looked the same A similar voice taken The clothes changed, but the face retained Surrounded by old imagery His brain bypassed The eternal moment laid bare No time to heal Continual pain, continual pain, continual pain, continual pain I spent a bad day yesterday with a man and a picture of himself The tape was running and the TV turned ...described Mrs Thatcher's first three months in power as disastrous... words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.1.6) Empire State Human -------------------------- original demo version: Since I was very young I've realised I never wanted to be human size So I avoid the crowds and traffic jams They just remind me of how small I am Because of this longing in my heart I'm going to start the growing art I'm going to grow now and never stop Think like a mountain, grow to the top Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall With concentration, my size increased And now I'm thirteen storeys high Empire State Human, just a bored kid I'll go to Egypt to be the pyramids Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall (fetch more water) I want to be tall, tall, tall (fetch more sand) As big as a wall, wall, wall (biggest person) As big as a wall, wall, wall (in the land) And if I'm not tall, tall, tall (fetch more water) Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl (fetch more sand) Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall (biggest person) Tall, tall, tall, tall (in the land) Reproduction version: Since I was very young I've realised I never wanted to be human size So I avoid the crowds and traffic jams They just remind me of how small I am Because of this longing in my heart I'm going to start the growing art I'm going to grow now and never stop Think like a mountain, grow to the top Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall, tall With concentration, my size increased And now I'm fourteen storeys high at least Empire State Human, just a bored kid I'll go to Egypt to be the pyramids Tall, tall, tall (brick by brick) I want to be tall, tall, tall (stone by stone) As big as a wall, wall, wall (growing 'til he's) As big as a wall, wall, wall (fully grown) And if I'm not tall, tall, tall (brick by brick) Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl (stone by stone) Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall (growing 'til he's) Tall, tall, tall, tall (fully grown) Tall, tall, tall (fetch more water) I want to be tall, tall, tall (fetch more sand) As big as a wall, wall, wall (biggest person) As big as a wall, wall, wall (in the land) And if I'm not tall, tall, tall (fetch more water) Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl (fetch more sand) Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall (biggest person) Tall, tall, tall, tall (in the land) Brick by brick, stone by stone Growing 'til he's fully grown Brick by brick, stone by stone Growing 'til he's fully grown Tall, tall, tall (fetch more water) I want to be tall, tall, tall (fetch more sand) As big as a wall, wall, wall (biggest person) As big as a wall, wall, wall (in the land) And if I'm not tall, tall, tall (fetch more water) Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl (fetch more sand) Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall (biggest person) Tall, tall, tall, tall (in the land) Tall, tall, tall (brick by brick) I want to be tall, tall, tall (stone by stone) As big as a wall, wall, wall (growing 'til he's) As big as a wall, wall, wall (fully grown) And if I'm not tall, tall, tall (brick by brick) Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl (stone by stone) Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall (growing 'til he's) Tall, tall, tall, tall (fully grown) Fetch more water, fetch more sand Biggest person in the land Fetch more water, fetch more sand Biggest person in the land mile high mix by Ex-Rental: Brick by brick, stone by stone Growing 'til he's fully grown Fetch more water, fetch more sand Biggest person in the land Brick by brick, stone by stone Growing 'til he's fully grown Fetch more water, fetch more sand Biggest person in the land Since I was very young I've realised I never wanted to be human size So I avoid the crowds and traffic jams They just remind me of how small I am Because of this longing in my heart I'm going to start the growing art I'm going to grow now and never stop Think like a mountain, grow to the top Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall, tall With concentration, my size increased And now I'm fourteen storeys high at least Empire State Human, just a bored kid I'll go to Egypt to be the pyramids Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall (brick by brick) I want to be tall, tall, tall (stone by stone) As big as a wall, wall, wall (growing 'til he's) As big as a wall, wall, wall fully grown) And if I'm not tall, tall, tall (fetch more water) Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl (fetch more sand) Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall (biggest person) Tall, tall, tall, tall (in the land) Tall! Tall! Tall! Tall! Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall I want to be tall, tall, tall As big as a wall, wall, wall As big as a wall, wall, wall And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will fall, fall, fall Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall (brick by brick) I want to be tall, tall, tall (stone by stone) As big as a wall, wall, wall (growing 'til he's) As big as a wall, wall, wall fully grown) And if I'm not tall, tall, tall (fetch more water) Then I will crawl, crawl, crawl (fetch more sand) Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall (biggest person) Tall, tall, tall, tall (in the land) Tall, tall, tall (brick by brick) I want to be tall, tall, tall (stone by stone) As big as a wall, wall, wall (growing 'til he's) As big as a wall, wall, wall fully grown) And if I'm not tall, tall, tall Then I will fall, fall, fall Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall Tall, tall, tall, tall I'll go to Egypt now To be the pyramids words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.1.7) Morale... ----------------- Don't talk Close the door You've been here before Your shape dim I'm an old man now The air's thin The walls very damp now And if I don't go, I'll always be stuck here in this poor little room With a view of the corner I don't forget, though I've grown weak now Experience is useless unless you can learn And I've never met anyone who used their knowledge To avoid those mistakes made again and again And if I don't go, I'll always be stuck here in this poor little room With a view of the corner words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.1.8) You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling --------------------------------------- * Radio One John Peel session version: You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips And there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips You're trying hard not to show it But baby, baby I know it You've lost that lovin' feeling Woah, that lovin' feeling You've lost that lovin' feeling Now it's gone, gone, gone Woa-woah Now there's no welcome look in your eyes when I reach for you And girl you're starting to criticise little things I do It makes me just feel like crying 'Cause, baby, something beautiful's dying You've lost that lovin' feeling Woah, that lovin' feeling You've lost that lovin' feeling Now it's gone, gone, gone Woa-woah Baby, baby, I'd get down on my knees for you If you would only love me like you used to do, yeah We had a love, a love, a love you don't find every day So don't, don't, don't, don't let it slip away Bring back that lovin' feeling Woah, that lovin' feeling Bring back that lovin' feeling Now it's gone, gone, gone And I can't go on Baby (baby), baby (baby) I want you please (woo-oo), please (woo-oo) I need your love (I need your love) I need your love (I need your love now) Now bring it on back (bring it on back) Bring it on back now (bring it on back now) Bring it on back * album version: You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips And there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips You're trying hard not to show it (baby) But baby, baby I know it You've lost that lovin' feeling Woah, that lovin' feeling You've lost that lovin' feeling Now it's gone, gone, gone Woa-woah Now there's no welcome look in your eyes when I reach for you And girl you're starting to criticise little things I do It makes me just feel like crying (baby) 'Cause, baby, something beautiful's dying You've lost that lovin' feeling Woah, that lovin' feeling You've lost that lovin' feeling Now it's gone, gone, gone Woa-woah Baby, baby, I'd get down on my knees for you If you would only love me like you used to do, yeah We had a love, a love, a love you don't find every day So don't, don't, don't, don't let it slip away Bring back that lovin' feeling Woah, that lovin' feeling Bring back that lovin' feeling Now it's gone, gone, gone And I can't go on Baby (baby), baby (baby) I want you please (woo-oo), please (woo-oo) I need your love (I need your love) I need your love (I need your love now) Now bring it on back (bring it on back) Bring it on back now (bring it on back now) Now bring it on back words and music by Spector / Mann / Weil published by Screen Gems / EMI (4.1.9) Austerity / Girl One (medley) ------------------------------------- * Depression Is A Fashion (early version of Austerity): Shall I even bother to eat? It'll all be shit tomorrow I'll have more room for my bile I'm feeling pretty sick now I think I'll take a pill or two And take away a few more hours Tomorrow brings another day It's the same as all the others To carry on in a similar way And stay under the covers Don't talk to me of worthless life And living is such a strain Just stretch yourself and see the change We've all seen blankness times before Switch on the light, project yourself Ideas so countless you can't list If you're not happy, you can change You just enjoy depressing Help yourself and don't forget You run the risk of failing They say the swamp of science drowns The spirit of humanity Well, we know better - just believe Forget that you're a casualty Help yourself and don't forget You run the risk of failing Depression is a fashion you don't want Look, here's a depressive [word(s) unclear] Depression is a fashion you don't need You need it even less than speed Take in a movie or walk the streets In the street, the heart still beats There are hundreds just like you Switch on the light, project yourself Ideas so countless I can't list Just stretch yourself and feel the change Don't talk to me of worthless life And living is such a strain Just stretch yourself and feel the change There are hundreds just like you There are hundreds just like you Just like you * Girl One demo: You've got your keys to get back in You've washed your face so you can smile You've got your pocket full of lending cash Your ticket to the ladies' mile You brush away a flake of zinc Advance toward the street outside You close your mind so you can't think The ride, the hide, the tide But the scenes come rushing in like eels into your net And it's just like Joseph said Another walk you can't forget But you push into the bleak where all the women walk in fear Another three-word phrase - the near, the peer, the dear You're a lonely little girl who just wants to please her dad So you thought you'd be a nurse, just like your mother had But you make the patients worse And the doctors know you're bad (Better get back to the oracle) The oracle in this case is a message on your phone It says where you go Gravity has gone You know this is true, but you want to speak of love Prediction and ambiguity go hand in glove The oracle in this case is a face on your wall It says where you go People will fall * album version (medley): In the town The start of day The father thinks in sadness On why his daughters went away On youth and other madness I know we don't choose who we love And malice is so human When your principle's no good, it's time to find a new one I was brought up to believe that to avoid disaster in life As in your dreams, you've got to be the monster When you've done your very best When things turn out unpleasant When the best of men take bribes Isn't it the fool who doesn't? In the town, by the house The journalist is waiting And near this place, there is a space A subject contemplating You've got your keys to get back in You've washed your face so you can smile You've got your pockets full of lending cash Your ticket to the ladies' mile You brush away a flake of zinc Advance toward the street outside You close your mind so you can't think The hide, the ride, the tide But the scenes come rushing in like eels into your net And it's just like Joseph said Another walk you can't forget But you push into the bleak where all the women walk in fear Another three-word phrase - the near, the clear, the dear You're a lonely little girl who just wants to please her dad So you thought you'd be a nurse, just like your mother had But you make the patients worse And the doctors know you're bad (Better get back to the oracle) The oracle in this case is a message on your phone It says where you go Gravity has gone You know this is true, but you want to speak of love Prediction and ambiguity go hand in glove The oracle in this case is a face on your wall It says where you go People will fall And near this place, there is a space Our subject's contemplating And in the town, the sun goes down No-one investigating words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.1.10) Zero As A Limit ------------------------ * first demo version Take the lovebird Leave the trailer Kiss the stranger Take the car Feel the sound rushing over you QED See my finger The way it points you Follow quickly into the road Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the stranger getting nearer Iron teardrop Collision course Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the stranger getting nearer Iron teardrop Collision course Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the blood now, overflowing No more compression Compression done Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the blood now, overflowing No more compression Compression done Feel the sound rushing over you I saw it happen You saw it happen We saw it happen It can't be true The stranger crashing into you I saw it happen You saw it happen We saw it happen It can't be true The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you Into you To you, to you The stranger crashing into you To you * second demo version: Take the lovebird Kiss the stranger Leave the trailer Take the car Feel the sound rushing over you QED See my finger The way it points you Follow blindly into the road Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the stranger getting nearer Iron teardrop Collision course Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the stranger getting nearer Iron teardrop Collision course Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the blood now, overflowing No more compression Compression done Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the blood now, overflowing No more compression Compression done Feel the sound rushing over you I saw it happen You saw it happen We saw it happen It can't be true The stranger crashing into you I saw it happen You saw it happen We saw it happen It can't be true The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you Into you, into you Into you, into you Into you, into you Into you, into you * third demo version: Take the lovebird Leave the trailer Kiss the stranger Take the car Feel the sound rushing over you QED See my finger The way it points you Follow blindly into the road Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the stranger getting nearer Iron teardrop Collision course Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the stranger getting nearer Iron teardrop Collision course Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the blood now, overflowing No more compression Compression done Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the blood now, overflowing No more compression Compression done Feel the sound rushing over you I saw it happen You saw it happen We saw it happen It can't be true The stranger crashing into you I saw it happen You saw it happen We saw it happen It can't be true The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you Into you, into you Into you, into you Into you, into you Into you, into you * album version: Take the lovebird Kiss the stranger Leave the trailer Take the car Feel the sound rushing over you QED See my finger The way it points you Follow blindly into the road Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the stranger getting nearer Iron teardrop Collision course Feel the sound rushing over you QED See the blood now, overflowing No more compression Compression done Feel the sound rushing over you QED I saw it happen You saw it happen We saw it happen It can't be true The stranger crashing into you I saw it happen You saw it happen We saw it happen It can't be true The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you The stranger crashing into you Into you, into you Into you, into you Into you, into you Into you, into you Into you Into you words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.1.11) Introducing -------------------- Level One Nine, do you want to report any activity down there? Level One Nine, is anything happening? Level One Nine Come in, Level One Nine What's going on? words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (see also notes on Overkill Disaster Crash - 3.8 above) (4.1.12) Flexi Disc ------------------- * This transcription may not correctly identify all speakers, and some incidental comments are missing. Two names are mentioned and are unclear - these are replaced by [???] in each case. Martyn: Tell us about this flexi disc idea... I mean, how cheap are they? Philip: No, we wanna get this record out. It's never gonna get out at this rate, what with Bob wanting this on and that on. Bob: Ah, come on, you can't blame me, just for saying that... Martyn: No, no, listen... you could entirely divorce the music from the explanation... Bob: I'm quite happy to put it out like it is now. Martyn: ...it'd be like having a booklet inside... Bob: Yes, I like the idea actually. Philip: If you're quite happy about putting it out like it is now, what are we doing? Bob: Well, I'm saying that... well, let's not put that... I'm quite prepared to put it out now, but I'm, er, I'm... thinking about it, you know, and I felt obliged to, er, say what I thought. I was talking to [???] the other day about flexi discs and he said he reckons they only cost about 2p. Martyn: Mmm. Bob: And I don't see why it should take any longer to get flexis 'cause it doesn't mean any extra sleeves or anything - you just put... Martyn: Well, exactly. Bob: You don't even have to announce it, you just put the flexi disc... you could put 'plus commentary' on the sleeve somewhere, you know, and you could just bung the flexi disc in and have [???] warbling on about it, you know. Martyn: I think... I think it's a reasonable idea. Bob: I really like the idea, actually. Martyn: I mean, people can throw it away if they're not interested. Ian: I mean, but... what time limit have we got for sorting this flexi disc... accompanying flexi disc out? Bob: Well, what I'm saying is... I think that you should edit together... if you want someone to put this heavy statement on and some of the other stuff on... you put some of the heavier statement and some of the other stuff on, edit it together, you get... Ian: I think also what might be worthwhile is, er, nipping down to the library and actually getting some facts that you're looking at... Philip: Yeah, but the whole point about the whole thing is that it's not about facts. It's not about Yuri Gagarin. The trouble is that as soon as you start on a flexi disc, you're gonna have so many minutes and you're gonna feel like filling them up. Martyn: Well, depending on what it sounds like, we could slice... Bob: We can't do that, we can't license it. That will take ages to do and that's getting over the top, that's distract... I mean, point is the commentary is... it doesn't have to have... you've only got one side to play with - there's no reas... you could have a flexi disc with thirty seconds on it. There's absolutely no reason why you should fill it up. Philip: Yeah, well, people say that, but they always do fill everything up that is available. Bob: Why? You're threatening to now, are you? I think you're being really silly on that, Philip. I mean, you're just trying to find things to make things difficult on that score. You know what you've got here, you know what you need the flexi disc to do... I mean, I can see absolutely no reason why you should say... I mean, you can decide now not to fill it up. There's absolutely no reason why... Ian: Decide now just to put that comment on, if you wished. Bob: Yeah. That statement you made all about you're gonna die soon and whatever... um, if you want that on, then I think you should use this anecdote about Yuri Gagarin having a cup of tea... an edited version of Yuri Gagarin having a cup of tea and that statement... Martyn: An edited version of Yuri Gagarin having a cup of tea! Ian: And then we could bring out the tea... Martyn: And then we could bring out the twelve inch disco version of it later... ------- Adrian: I think there has to be something about, er, that peasant that greeted Yuri Gagarin when he actually landed. Bob: Is that right? Adrian: When Gagarin landed, he landed and nobody were there, were they? And he went for a cup of tea with that peasant... Adrian: He did! They landed... I mean, Russians never land in the sea - they always land in Russia or Asia... and they landed in this farm over there and he came up to the rocket and Gagarin got out and he took him for a cup of tea. Philip: I didn't know they drank tea in Russia. Adrian: Yeah... and then about half an hour later, all these Russians appeared and says "Where's Yuri?" ------- Philip: What we've got in this is not simple, like everything else and it's not even complex; it's multiplex. The picture of Yuri Gagarin isn't just about the Russian space effort and it's not just about Russian society. It is about the individual as opposed to the group and it's about human frailty; no matter how big you are, you're gonna be dead pretty soon. Bob: Cut. ------- Adrian: The kid's swapping a fishing rod for a Dr Feelgood album... published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.2.1) The Black Hit Of Space ------------------------------ Been out all night I needed a bite I thought I'd put a record on I reached for the one with the ultra-modern label And wondered where the light had gone It had a futuristic cover lifted straight from Buck Rogers The record was so black, it had to be a con The autochanger switched as I filled my sandwich And futuristic sounds warbled off and on The Black Hit of Space It's the one without a face It's the hit that doesn't fit You can only see the flip The Black Hit of Space Sucking in the human race How can it stay at the top when it's swallowed all the shops? As the song climbed the charts, the others disappeared 'til there was nothing but it left to buy It got to Number One, then into minus figures Though nobody could understand why The Black Hit of Space It's the one without a face It's the hit that doesn't fit You can only see the flip The Black Hit of Space Sucking in the human race How can it stay at the top when it's swallowed all the shops? I couldn't stand this bland sound anymore, so I walked towards my deck to turn it off All I could see was the b-side of the disc, which had assumed a doughnut shape with the label on the outside rim I reached for the arm, which was less than one micron long but weighed more than Saturn And time stood still I knew I had to escape, but every time I tried to flee, the record was in front of me The Black Hit of Space Get James Burke on the case It's the hit that's never gone Time stops when you put it... (on) words and music by The Human League published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.2.2) Only After Dark ----------------------- I feel my spirit fly Only after dark, a-a-a-ah I kiss the world goodbye Only after dark, a-a-a-ah Fights with the city lights Only after dark, a-a-a-ah Run, I'd like to run away Only after dark, a-a-a-ah Won't you disappear into midnight with me? Why won't you come, why won't you come Why won't you come and fly with (me)? Sweet elusive fate will be our company A-ah, a-ah, ah A-a-ah, a-a-ah, a-a-ah Bring out the vamp in me Only after dark, a-a-a-ah Moon, sinful as can be Only after dark, a-a-a-ah It's wrong to feel so free Only after dark, a-a-a-ah Only you know it can be Only after dark, a-a-a-ah Won't you disappear into midnight with me? Why won't you come, why won't you come Why won't you come and fly with (me)? Sweet elusive fate will be our company A-ah, a-ah, ah A-a-a-ah, a-a-a-ah A-a-a-ah, a-a-a-ah A-a-a-ah, a-a-a-ah A-a-a-ah, a-a-a-ah A-a-a-ah words and music by M. Ronson / S. Richardson published by Mainman Ltd. (4.2.3) Life Kills ------------------ When you fall into your seat, you know you feel you might be dying As the breath rasps in and out of your burning throat You can't control your lungs because you're so tired You're half awake with one arm in your coat Well thank God that there is someone there to drive you You know you couldn't make it on your own He helps you through the door You sit down on the floor And you're asleep before you are alone Your life is like a schedule You run to meet the bills No one's awake to tell you Life kills Your life is like a schedule You run to meet the bills No one's awake to tell you Life kills For a while it seems exhaustion has subsided The day is over and the moon is high But your period of work is predecided Funny how the hours of freedom seem to fly Well thank God that there is someone there to drive you You know you couldn't make it on your own He helps you in the door You sit down as before Another shift to pay another loan Your life is like a schedule You run to meet the bills No one's awake to tell you Life kills Your life is like a schedule You run to meet the bills No one's awake to tell you Life kills Your life is like a schedule You run to meet the bills No one's awake to tell you Life kills Your life is like a schedule You run to meet the bills No one's awake to tell you Life kills words and music by The Human League published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.2.4) Dreams Of Leaving ------------------------- Someone stopped the clock when we should have started early If we miss the morning meeting, our lives will be in danger Someone's trying to stop us There is someone in our party It is someone with a grudge and they won't let us reach the border Our lives are in his hands We pay with Krugerands The currency of pain to help us leaving While back in our homeland, the ones who make a stand are taken from their homes And no-one hears of them again I felt I had to come here I thought things would be better The situation's changed, but I find I'm still resented Someone wants my job It is someone in this building Someone's spreading rumours and I don't feel I can stay here I think I'm going north And now's the time to leave The people there they say are good to strangers And if I do my best and try to settle in I'm sure I can be just like someone's neighbour I'm sure I can be just like someone's neighbour words and music by The Human League published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.2.5) Crow And A Baby ----------------------- A crow and a baby had an affair The result was a landslide The result was a dare The result was a baby who wanted it all Moved out of the doll's house Moved out of the hall With one wing on the town and a gleam in an eye of red Said "My father was a crow Now I want all fathers dead Find the fathers of this world Treat them as a fatal foe Put them in the deepest hole Then cover the pit with snow" With one wing on the town and a gleam in an eye of red I'm just trying to tell you what you'll come up against If you venture from my side If you think you're so mature You will end up in a field You will be someone's manure, mushrooms growing from your back Feeding some damn carrion bird Do you want to contribute to the corruption of the world? With one wing on the town and a gleam in an eye of red A crow and a baby had an affair My dream was the baby The crow was your hair Parts of me love parts of you That at least is obvious Give my baby back to me You must see it's only just With one wing on the town and a gleam in an eye of red With one wing on the town and a gleam in an eye of red With one wing on the town and a gleam in an eye of red words and music by The Human League published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.2.6) The Touchables ---------------------- * early version: Speaking of which, what is your choice? Your conversation will suffice I feel the need that's known to all Better use it up before the levels fall You can take me back to the primal drive You can carry on until we arrive Hypnotised inside Now I'm not young and you're not old I'd rather purchase than be sold Crazed friends so bold It's not easy to conceal when you're so touchable People will hide indifference, just to be touchable They still emit split-second screams when they are touchable Under the surface just for kicks Sincerely touchable You say it's OK, but what do I feel? Guilt, compassion, or Achilles Heel? Little feet march down grey matter hill And panic occurs No seeds to spill What's the matter now? Please look up and speak Your spirit's wilting and your flesh is weak Eight days a week I can't imagine what'll happen now I wonder when and I wonder how the end will come It's not easy to conceal when you're so touchable People will hide indifference, just to be touchable They still emit split-second screams when they are touchable Under the surface just for kicks Sincerely touchable It's not easy to conceal when you're so touchable People will hide indifference, just to be touchable They still emit split-second screams when they are touchable Under the surface just for kicks Sincerely touchable The final answer to all our fears Abrupt conclusion to all our years Still touchable but no one hears They carry on, hypnotised inside * album version: Speaking of which, what is your choice? Your conversation will suffice I feel the need that's known to all Better use it up before the levels fall You can take me back to the primal drive You can carry on until we arrive Hypnotised inside Now I'm not young and you're not old I'd rather purchase than be sold Crazed friends so bold It's not easy to conceal when you're so touchable People will hide indifference, just to be touchable They still emit split-second screams when they are touchable Under the surface just for kicks Sincerely touchable You say it's OK, but what do I feel? Guilt, compassion, or Achilles Heel? Little feet march down grey matter hill Then panic occurs No seeds to spill What's the matter now? Please look up and speak Your spirit's wilting and your flesh is weak Eight days a week I can't imagine what'll happen now I wonder when and I wonder how the end will come It's not easy to conceal when you're so touchable People will hide indifference, just to be touchable It's not easy to conceal when you're so touchable People will hide indifference, just to be touchable They still emit split-second screams when they are touchable Under the surface just for kicks Sincerely touchable The final answer to all our fears Abrupt conclusion to all our years Still touchable but no one hears They carry on, hypnotised inside words and music by The Human League published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.2.7) Being Boiled -------------------- * Fast Product version: OK, ready Let's do it Listen to the voice of Buddha, saying stop your sericulture Little people like your offspring, boiled alive for some god's stocking Buddha's watching, Buddha's waiting Just because the kid's an orphan is no excuse for thoughtless slaying Children, don't forget this torture just because you call her mother Doesn't mean that she's your better Once more with the voice of Buddha He'll say carry on your slaughter Who cares for the little children? You may slice with no conviction Blind revenge on a blameless victim * first 'demo' version (overdubbed Fast Product version): Listen to the voice of Buddha, saying stop your sericulture Little people like your offspring, boiled alive for some god's stocking Buddha's watching, Buddha's waiting Just because the kid's an orphan is no excuse for thoughtless slaying Children, don't forget this torture just because you call her mother Doesn't mean that she's your better Once more with the voice of Buddha He'll say carry on your slaughter Who cares for the little children? You may slice with no conviction Blind revenge on a blameless victim * Radio One John Peel session version: Listen to the voice of Buddha, saying stop your sericulture Little people like your offspring, boiled alive for some god's stocking Buddha's watching, Buddha's waiting Just because the kid's an orphan is no excuse for thoughtless slaying People, don't forget this torture just because you call her mother Doesn't mean that she's your better Once more with the voice of Buddha He'll say carry on your slaughter Who cares for the little children? You may slice with no conviction Blind revenge on a blameless victim Listen to the voice of Buddha, saying stop your sericulture Little people like your offspring, boiled alive for some god's stocking Buddha's watching, Buddha's waiting Listen to the voice of Buddha Listen to the voice of Buddha * second demo version: Listen to the voice of Buddha, saying stop your sericulture Little people like your offspring, boiled alive for some god's stocking Buddha's watching, Buddha's waiting Just because the kid's an orphan There's no excuse for thoughtless slaying People, don't forget this torture just because you call her mother Doesn't mean that she's your better Once more with the voice of Buddha He'll say carry on your slaughter Who cares for the little children? You may slice with no conviction Blind revenge on a blameless victim Listen to the voice of Buddha, saying stop your sericulture Who cares for the little children? You may slice with no conviction Blind revenge on a blameless victim Listen to the voice of Buddha Listen to the voice of Buddha Listen to the voice of Buddha * Holiday '80 / Travelogue version: Listen to the voice of Buddha, saying stop your sericulture Little people like your offspring, boiled alive for some god's stocking Buddha's watching, Buddha's waiting Just because the kid's an orphan is no excuse for thoughtless slaying Children, don't forget this torture just because you call her mother Doesn't mean that she's your better Once more with the voice of Buddha He'll say carry on your slaughter Who cares for the little children? You may slice with no conviction Blind revenge on a blameless victim Listen to the voice of Buddha, saying stop your sericulture Who cares for the little children? You may slice with no conviction Blind revenge on a blameless victim Listen to the voice of Buddha Listen to the voice of Buddha Listen to the voice of Buddha words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.2.8) WXJL Tonight -------------------- The way it was in the past, a long, long time ago Before staff levels dropped, they used to listen to the radio And listen to the DJs talk about the songs they didn't know As if it really mattered Hit-pick or phone-in show I don't want you to go tonight Ten thousand watts of power News headlines on the hour tonight Our music beats the best You just don't need the rest tonight Once I couldn't care at all But I can feel the ratings fall tonight And twenty years ago, no-one seemed to care The people must have known the DJ's role was only there To fill in space between the songs that talk of love and other things As if they didn't matter Automatic stations came and sent them all away And now I'm left alone I haven't got a word to say And you're the one who makes the choice to turn me on or turn me off But now it really matters Hit-pick or phone-in show I don't want you to go tonight Ten thousand watts of power News headlines on the hour tonight Our music beats the best You just don't need the rest tonight Once I couldn't care at all But I can feel the ratings fall tonight Hit-pick or phone-in show I don't want you to go tonight Ten thousand watts of power News headlines on the hour tonight Our music beats the best You just don't need the rest tonight Ten thousand watts of power News headlines on the hour tonight words and music by The Human League published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.2.9) Marianne ---------------- * demo version (Living On A Bombsite): Living on a bombsite Guarding your door in a land where there's no property After all my other girls let me down I'd have thought you would care about me Do you think your mother brought you up for this? Baby I know it wasn't easy with your sisters at home And I thought you were better than this Is it just a reaction against being so good-looking? A popular and eligible Miss Whatever you think, I'm still your father Won't you kiss me? I remember the days I thought we couldn't lose Running 'round the garden in your mother's shoes Playing with your sisters And bringing me tea On a cold Autumn day When the car had broken down The best of my girls Why'd you give it all away? Leaving me on my own, alone One so sad, one so tough With you back at home, I would have enough Living on a bombsite Guarding your door in a land where there's no property After all my other girls let me down I'd have thought you would care about me Do you think your mother brought you up for this? Baby I know it wasn't easy with your sisters at home And I thought you were better than this Is it just your reaction against being so good-looking? A popular and eligible Miss Whatever you think, I'm still your father Won't you kiss me? (In all my dreams) I'm still your father (In all my dreams) I'm still your father (In all my dreams) I'm still your father (In all my dreams) * Holiday '80 version: I take one look at you It leaves me breathless I see your dreams come true You're not so restless, or light, or bright Marianne One day I might not care what happens to me Your lack of sympathy fails to disturb me I've got a life of my own I remember the day I thought we couldn't lose Running 'round the garden in your mother's shoes Playing with your sisters (I didn't see you were a grown up girl) And bringing me tea (But is it life in a grown up world, is it life?) On a cold autumn day (Someone's wife) When the car had broken down The best of my girls (I didn't see you were a grown up girl) [Oh how I hate the] But you give it all away (But is it life in a grown up world) [The celebration] Leaving me on my own (Is it life?) [I can't wait for the end of] At home? (Someone's wife) [The celebration] Add it up All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before One day I might not care what happens to me Your lack of sympathy fails to disturb me I've got a life of my own Add it up All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before Marianne (Add it up) All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before Marianne (Add it up) All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before Marianne (Add it up) All that's left is a space in a life at the end of the world Marianne * alternate version: I take one look at you It leaves me breathless I see your dreams come true You're not so restless, or light, or bright Marianne One day I might not care what happens to me Your lack of sympathy fails to disturb me I've got a life of my own (Ah ah ah) I remember the day I thought we couldn't lose (Ah ah ah) Running 'round the garden in your mother's shoes (Ah ah ah) Playing with your sisters (Ah ah) And bringing me tea (Ah ah ah) On a cold autumn day (Ah ah) When the car had broken down (Ah ah ah) The best of my girls [Oh how I hate the] (Ah ah) But you give it all away [The celebration] (Ah ah ah) Leaving me on my own [I can't wait for the end of] At home? [The celebration] (Ah ah) Add it up All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before One day I might not care what happens to me Your lack of sympathy fails to disturb me I've got a life of my own Add it up All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before Marianne (Add it up) All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before Marianne (Add it up) All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before Marianne (Add it up) All that's left is a space in a life at the end of the world Marianne * alternate version - alternate mix: I take one look at you It leaves me breathless I see your dreams come true You're not so restless, or light, or bright Marianne One day I might not care what happens to me Your lack of sympathy fails to disturb me I've got a life of my own (Ah ah ah) I remember the day I thought we couldn't lose (Ah ah ah) Running 'round the garden in your mother's shoes (Ah ah ah) Playing with your sisters [Oh how I hate the] (Ah ah) And bringing me tea [The celebration] (Ah ah ah) On a cold autumn day [I can't wait for the end of] (Ah ah) When the car had broken down [The celebration] (Ah ah ah) The best of my girls [Oh how I hate the] (Ah ah) But you give it all away [The celebration] (Ah ah ah) Leaving me on my own [I can't wait for the end of] At home? [The celebration] (Ah ah) Add it up All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before One day I might not care what happens to me Your lack of sympathy fails to disturb me I've got a life of my own Add it up All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before Marianne (Add it up) All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before Marianne (Add it up) All that's left is a space in a life that goes on as before Marianne (Add it up) All that's left is a space in a life at the end of the world Marianne words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.2.10) Rock 'N' Roll ---------------------- Rock 'n' roll, rock, rock 'n' roll Rock 'n 'roll, rock Do you still recall in the jukebox hall when the music played And the world span around to a brand new sound in those far off days? In their blue suede shoes, they would scream and shout And they'd sing the blues, let it all hang out Rock 'n' roll (hey), rock 'n' roll Rock 'n' roll (hey), rock 'n' roll Rock 'n' roll (hey), rock 'n' roll Rock 'n' roll, rock, rock 'n' roll Rock 'n 'roll, rock Little Queenie bopped to the high school hop, dancing to the beat With her US male and her pony tail Well, she looked so sweet Times are changing fast but we won't forget Though that age is past, we'll be rockin' yet Rock 'n' roll (hey), rock 'n' roll Rock 'n' roll (hey), rock 'n' roll Rock 'n' roll (hey), rock 'n' roll Rock 'n' roll, rock, rock 'n' roll Rock 'n 'roll, rock Hey (hey) Hey (hey) Hey (hey) Hey (hey) Hey (hey), hey (hey) Hey (hey), hey (hey) Hey yeah (hey yeah), hey yeah (hey yeah) Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey Do you still recall in the jukebox hall when the music played And the world span around to a brand new sound in those far off days? Times are changing fast but we won't forget Though that age is past, we'll be rockin' yet Rock 'n' roll (hey), rock 'n' roll Rock 'n' roll (hey), rock 'n' roll Rock 'n' roll (hey), rock 'n' roll Rock 'n' roll, rock, rock 'n' roll Rock 'n' roll, rock, rock 'n' roll Rock 'n 'roll, rock words and music by Glitter / Leander published by Leeds Music / Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.2.11) Night Clubbing ----------------------- Night clubbing, we're night clubbing We're what's happening Night clubbing, we're night clubbing We're an ice machine We meet people, brand new people They're something to see when you're night clubbing We're night clubbing Oh, isn't it wild? Night clubbing, we're night clubbing We're walking through town Night clubbing, we're night clubbing We walk like a ghost We learn dances Brand new dances like the nuclear bomb When we're night clubbing Bright white clubbing Oh, isn't it wild? words and music by Osterberg / Bowie published by Fleur / Bewlay Bros. (4.2.12) I Don't Depend On You ------------------------------ The night so young You could lose, you could gain Your temperature's rising Better pull in to the outside lane You always say you're not the jealous kind Then you tell all your friends that I've got one thing on my mind I've played this scene before You had one foot in the door But there's always plenty more Don't try to use me I don't depend on you I've got my own friends too I'll never be your wife Don't try to use me I've played this scene before You had one foot in the door But there's always plenty more Don't try to use me It's cruel but it's true I don't depend on you It's cruel but it's true Go back to the end of the queue I've played this scene before You had one foot in the door But there's always plenty more Don't try to use me I don't depend on you I've got my own friends too I'll never be your wife Don't try to use me I've played this scene before You had one foot in the door But there's always plenty more Don't try to use me The night so young You could lose, you could gain Your temperature's rising Better pull in to the outside lane You always say you're not the jealous kind Then you tell all your friends that I've got one thing on my mind I've played this scene before You had one foot in the door But there's always plenty more Don't try to use me I don't depend on you I've got my own friends too I'll never be your wife Don't try to use me I've played this scene before You had one foot in the door But there's always plenty more Don't try to use me It's cruel but it's true I don't depend on you It's cruel but it's true I don't depend on you It's cruel but it's true I don't depend on you b-side version (Cruel): It's cruel but it's true I don't depend on you It's cruel but it's true I don't depend on you It's cruel but it's true I don't depend on you words and music by Ware / Oakey / Marsh published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.3.1) Blank Clocks -------------------- I stand alone on Westminster Bridge Amid acoustic distortion I turn towards Big Ben There is no time The face across the street is blank Blank clocks Blank clocks Blank clocks Blank clocks Your face The clock My mind Blank heart Your thigh The pain My time Blank face Your clock The mind My heart Blank thigh Your pain The time My face Blank clock Your mind The heart My thigh Blank pain Your time The face My clock Blank mind Your heart The thigh My pain Blank time Your face The clock My mind Blank heart Your thigh The pain My time Blank face Your clock The mind My heart Blank thigh Your pain The time My face Blank clock Your mind The heart My thigh Blank pain Your time The face My clock Blank mind Your heart The thigh My pain Blank time Your face The clock My mind Blank heart Your thigh The pain My time Blank face Your clock The mind words and music by The Future (4.3.2) Cairo ------------- This Venus of the dunes Virgin of the time slopes Rose above into the meridian sky Diffused upon its crests Into the wind words by J G Ballard, music by The Future (4.3.3) Dance Like A Star ------------------------- * first version, including spoken introduction: And now, from the heavier tenets of our ideology, here is a number described by our Member C as an affectionate nod in the direction of Donna Summer This is called 'Dance Like A Star'... Dance like a star, baby Take my hand Come to the dancefloor Dance to the band Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance You look so good now And I'm your man Come to the dancefloor, baby You're in my plan Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance * second version, including spoken introduction: This is a song for all you big-heads out there who think disco music is lower than the irrelevant musical gibberish and tired platitudes that you try to impress your parents with We're The Human League, we're much cleverer than you and this is called 'Dance Like A Star'... Dance like a star, baby Take my hand Come to the dancefloor Dance with the band Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance You look so good now And I'm your man Come to the dancefloor, baby You're in my plan Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance You look so good now And I'm your man Come to the dancefloor, baby You're in my plan Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance like a star, baby Take my hand Come to the dancefloor Dance with the band Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance (Dance like a star) (Be who you are) (Hear the guitar) Hear the guitar (Dance like a star) Dance, dance, dance, dance * fourth version, including spoken introduction: Philip: We are The Human League There are no guitars... Martyn (in silly voice): Or drums! Philip: We're the Human League There are no guitars or drums played on this record Dance like a star, baby Take my hand Come to the dancefloor Dance to the band Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance You look so good now And I'm your man Come to the dancefloor, baby You're in my plan Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance Nn... nn! (?) You look so good now And I'm your man Come to the dancefloor, baby You're in my plan Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance like a star, baby Take my hand Come to the dancefloor Dance to the band Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance (Dance like a star) (Be who you are) (Hear the guitar) (Dance like a star) Dance, dance, dance, dance Dance, dance, dance, dance Won't (won't, won't...) words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware (4.3.4) The Dignity Of Labour ----------------------------- * narrative on demo cassette version only: The metallic beat you are now listening to forms the basis of the first part of a new three-part work by The Human League, entitled The Dignity Of Labour. The Dignity Of Labour is supposed to show that modern technology depends almost entirely upon the worker. In this case, the example is the Russian space program. The first part has the miners underground in Russia, digging up the coal to make steel. The second part shows gantries being made from the steel, for Yuri Gagarin's spaceship. The third part is an instrumental tribute to Yuri Gagarin. The next music you hear after this piece ends will be Part Two of The Dignity Of Labour. music by Marsh / Ware (narrative credits unknown) published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd. (4.3.5) Disco Disaster ---------------------- Running with the endless beat (Running) Looking at the teenage heat (Looking) Waiting for a future light (Waiting all night) Looking for a senseless fight (Looking for you) Moving in a machine daze (Moving your heart) Waiting for a lonely gaze (Waiting for you) Killing with a speeding glance (Killing) Waiting for the brand new dance (Waiting) Running with the endless beat (running) Looking at the teenage heat (looking) Waiting for a future light (waiting all night) Looking for a senseless fight (looking for you) Moving in a machine daze (moving your heart) Waiting for a lonely gaze (waiting for you) Killing with a speeding glance (killing) Waiting for the brand new dance (waiting) words and music by Marsh / Oakey / Ware (4.3.6) Dominion advertisement (narrative) ------------------------------------------ Feeling depressed? The pressures of modern life can bring you down... ...until now, that is. Now, Punchinellon Labs brings you... Dominion. When you're down, it brings you up. When you're up, you feel even better. Dominion - non-habit-forming and safe when used as directed. Dominion - available now. (4.3.6) 'Jason Taverner' dialogue (1), (2) and (3) -------------------------------------------------- (1) - introduction to the 'Taverner tape' Hi, I'm Jason Taverner and I'm here to introduce this third demonstration tape by a great group of guys, The Human League. I first met The Human League when they appeared on my network TV show last year. Then, and a couple of times since that they've played a song for us, I was impressed that here was a bunch of lads who were doing something new and melodic in music when the majority of bands were just trying to shock people. Here is the boys' optimistic anthem, 'Blind Youth'... (2) - between Again The Eye Again and Toyota City on the 'Taverner tape' That last song was a study into the solely subjective existence of time called 'Again The Eye Again'. Preceding it was an instrumental entitled 'Interface', the basic theme of which was written for my best-selling LP record, 'There'll Be A Good Time With Taverner Tonight'. Coming next is 'Toyota City', a mock-oriental tune... (3) - between Zero As A Limit and You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling on the 'Taverner tape' You have just heard 'The Path Of Least Resistance', followed by 'Zero As A Limit', which is also known as 'QED'. Besides their interest in contemporaneity, The Human League have a healthy respect for the past. Here, courtesy of the BBC, is their version of a well-loved standard... (4.3.7) The Future Tapes (introduction) --------------------------------------- In 1977, two computer personnel, Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware, together with a long-time friend and colleague, Adi Newton, began a unique experiment in popular music. Their goal was to create a new type of commercially-acceptable composition utilising only sound sources of electronic origin. Although the means which were available to them at that time were crude - they only had a relatively unsophisticated two- track tape recorder and no mixing facility - these first recordings demonstrate an ambition matched only by their resourcefulness. This ambition inspired them to contact several major commercial recording companies in August 1977. The first band on Side One of this record consists of extracts taken from the demonstration cassette which, at the time, aroused only cursory interest in the seven record companies to whom the tape was presented. Ironically, one of the few companies whose invitation The Future declined was Virgin Records, who were later to sign The Human League to a long-term worldwide recording contract. Bands two to six are representative of material produced immediately after the departure of Adi Newton, who subsequently formed Clock DVA. It is of interest to note that Morale... and Depression Is A Fashion were later to form the basis of the instrumental backings for two tracks on the Human League album, Reproduction. Bands seven to eleven and thirteen date from the period immediately preceding the formation of The Human League. The Last Man On Earth appears here in an abbreviated form, the original lasting a surprising one hour and thirty-seven minutes. Band twelve, Se Grave, is the result of a collaboration with producer, engineer and vocalist Timothy Pearce. The Death March forms the basis for this prophetic fusion between contemporary dance music and the classics. As mentioned earlier, the rudimentary nature of the equipment and techniques used in these recordings means that inevitably the overall quality of reproduction will suffer. We hope these factors will not impair your enjoyment of this record. All of the recordings used, except for bands one and twelve, were originally realised in mono and have been electronically re- processed to produce an enhanced stereo effect. Here is 1977 - the golden hour of The Future. (4.3.9) Perfect Day ------------------- * this version is transcribed from the League's June 1980 performance in Amsterdam for the Festival Of Fools, as broadcast on Dutch radio, and these lyrics differ slightly from Lou Reed's original version) Such a perfect day Drink sangria in the park And then later, when it gets dark We go home Just a perfect day Feed animals in the zoo Then later, a movie too And then home Oh, it's such a perfect day I'm glad I spent it with you Oh, such a perfect day But you keep me hanging on You just keep me hanging on Just a perfect day Problems all left alone Weekends on our own It's such fun Just a perfect day You made me forget myself I thought I was someone else Someone good Oh, it's such a perfect day I'm glad I spent it with you Oh, such a perfect day But you keep me hanging on You just keep me hanging on You're going to reap just what you sow You're going to reap just what you sow You're going to reap just what you sow You're going to reap just what you sow words and music by Lou Reed published by Oakfield Music Avenue Ltd./Screen Gems-EMI Music Inc. USA ************************************************************ (5) original sleeves notes for The Golden Hour Of The Future ************************************************************ These are reproduced here as some people may find the text inside the CD inlay card difficult to read. These notes were slightly edited for the inlay card, so you may notice a few minor differences. The notes are essentially a condensed version of The Way It Was, chapters 1 - 7 and 11. ------------------------------------------------------------ SCENARIO: In the summer of 1977, The Human League was formed due to the members finding no conventional channels for their immense talents. BACKGROUND: None of The Human League have any orthodox musical training, but prefer to regard compositions as an extension of logic, inspiration and luck. Therefore, unlike conventional musicians, their influences are not so obvious. CONCLUSION / MANIFESTO: Interested in combining the best of all worlds, The Human League would like to positively affect the future by close attention to the present, allying technology with humanity and humour. They have been described as 'Later Twentieth Century Boy' and 'Intelligent, Innovatory and Immodest'. (The Human League's 'worldview', taken from their 1978 Fast Product publicity pack) Sheffield, 1973: the South Yorkshire city once famed for its thriving steel industry was in serious decline. For the young people of the city, prospects were looking bleak. Fortunately for 16-year-old Ian Craig Marsh, branded 'an undesirable subversive element' by his school, the local civic theatre group Meatwhistle offered the area's more creative teenagers an outlet for self-expression. Here he would form satirical 'theatre-rock' duo Musical Vomit, coaxing noise from a cheap Woolworths guitar with vocalist Mark Civico. After a couple of shows, the duo expanded into a full band with a very fluid line-up including at various times Meatwhistle associates such as Glenn Gregory, Haydn Bowes-Weston, Adolph 'Adi' Newton and Martyn Ware, who would contribute sounds from his deluxe dual-stylus Stylophone. Although Ian left Meatwhistle and Musical Vomit in search of work after being expelled from school during his A-level studies, the band continued to bemuse audiences with strange compositions such as Denim Mind and Whip King Of Mars. Ian returned a year later, armed with the primitive synthesizer he'd built from a kit and in the summer of 1976, Musical Vomit even performed at the famous Reading rock festival. By this time, Ian and Martyn had found work as computer operators, but continued to play with various Meatwhistle-related bands with colourful names such as The Dead Daughters, The Underpants, Dick Velcro & The Space Kidettes and The Hari Willey Krishna Band. Each of these bands played live at least once, usually on Sundays in a small room known as Simon Scott's Kit Kat Club. Martyn: 'Sheffield engendered a certain desperation to get on with something different and creative. It was a place of great depression at the time, 'cause of all the factory closures. I was desperate not to replicate my father's life, 'cause he worked in a steel works for fifty years and had to retire early through ill health, probably through inhaling metal filings through most of his life. He got a gold watch and a pension, so I was going, "This is outrageous, I am never going to be in this position again". This was my motivation.' Eager to forge a career in music, Martyn decided to buy a Korg 770S synthesizer and teamed up with Ian and Adi to form a new group, The Future. Inspired by pioneering records such as Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express and Donna Summer's I Feel Love, The Future resolved to use only sounds of electronic origin and occasional vocals, and began recording at a semi-professional studio in the home of a local music engineer. The recordings were a world away from the punk guitar sounds then sweeping the nation in the wake of London's Sex Pistols, though The Future found the 'do-it-yourself' attitude of the new wave bands refreshing after the stagnant mid-1970s period which had been dominated by cheesy MOR 'entertainers' and bloated rock dinosaurs. Martyn: 'The Sex Pistols played in Sheffield with The Clash, but I didn't go. To be honest, we thought rock was a bit "old hat". We had our own thing going in Sheffield and considered ourselves completely separate from London. We were operating at the quirky end of disco, something more futuristic. But punk was the liberating influence that allowed us to do what we wanted to do.' Keen to embrace new technology, Ian and Martyn developed a computer program named CARLOS (Cyclic And Random Lyric Organisation System) to generate lyrics in the style of David Bowie's Burroughs- influenced 'cut-up' experiments. Meanwhile, Adi helped assemble a collection of tapes to incorporate into their recordings, some of them made using Ian's early Betamax VCR. Their music made extensive use of unusual sounds and textures, drawing not only on favourite TV and film soundtracks by artists such as the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Walter Carlos and John Carpenter, but also their home city itself. Martyn: 'In Sheffield, you're surrounded by strange sounds, with the steel works all the time, you know? You're surrounded by music concrête, the drop forges hammering away at night. It was a natural environment for us - they sounded like very natural sounds, not alien at all. The sound of machinery is what we grew up with.' However, the group's bold experiments were not warmly received by the record companies with whom they met in London. Upon listening to The Future's tapes, certain A&R representatives even suspected the group were playing a joke on them and ordered security staff to forcibly eject the group from the building. Adi, deciding he wanted to explore acoustic as well as electronic sounds, left The Future shortly afterwards to form Clock DVA. Martyn and Ian continued to work together for several months, concentrating mostly on original instrumentals before deciding to seek a replacement for Adi. They initially considered asking their old Meatwhistle friend Glenn Gregory, but as he was in London with his band 57 Men at the time, Martyn instead invited his old schoolfriend Philip Oakey to join, simply because 'he looked like a pop star'. Ian: 'We wondered what role he was going to have because he hadn't got any money to buy a synthesizer or anything.' This changed when Philip came up with some lyrics to a song which would become known as Being Boiled. Ian: 'We'd got the instrumental part and Philip came along with these lyrics and just started singing them. So we had vocals then. I thought the lyrics were just completely crazy.' Philip: 'I'd got some religions mixed up and I thought that, like, Buddhism was the same as Hinduism, and it was sort of a plea for vegetarianism really, against killing the silkworms to make socks or something. I got really confused about it.' The group renamed themselves The Human League, a name taken from the sci-fi board game Star Force. Next, they compiled a demo cassette featuring Being Boiled, Circus Of Death and Toyota City, recorded in a disused factory using the two-track tape recorder and 100 System Synthesizer the group had recently bought under 'hire-purchase' agreements. The demos came to the attention of Bob Last, head of the tiny but influential Fast Product label in Edinburgh. He immediately offered to release Being Boiled and Circus Of Death as the Electronically Yours single in June 1978. In the five-month wait for the single's release, the League recorded many new tracks, such as The Year Of The Jet Packs, Interface and the tongue-in-cheek Dance Like A Star, and Philip even borrowed Martyn's synthesizer for a weekend to put together his own piece, The Circus Of Dr Lao. Then on June 12th 1978, the group made a reluctant live debut at the Psalter Lane art college's Bar 2. Art student Philip Adrian Wright, who lived in the room adjacent to the League's makeshift studio, saw their first few shows and was intrigued by the League's blend of then-provocative backing tapes, live keyboards and vocals, but knew they were lacking something in the visual department. Adrian (as he would become known): 'They said, "We hear you've got this slide collection… we're pretty boring onstage - why don't you come and liven us up?".' He agreed and was appointed the League's 'director of visuals', a role which primarily involved the use of multiple projection screens to present a stream of slides to accompany live performances. Initially, the focus was on snapshots from popular culture, such as Star Trek, Captain Scarlet, Iggy Pop and the Bay City Rollers, though the scope would later expand to text and imagery intended to complement the songs being performed. Upon release, the Electronically Yours single, which had cost around £2.50 to record, sold respectably and prompted mixed reactions; while John Lydon dismissed the League as 'trendy hippies' in the New Musical Express, David Bowie declared them to be the future of music and apparently expressed an interest in collaborating with them. The single was followed by a publicity pack issued by Fast Product to journalists and others in the music industry. This included the group's manifesto in the form of a computer print-out, an Electronically Yours sticker and a cassette of the group's recent demo recordings. The contents of this cassette would later be made available to anyone who responded to a Fast Product classified advertisement, which instructed fans to 'send us a tape and we'll fill it!'. In December that year, the League embarked upon their first full British tour, as special guests of Siouxsie & The Banshees. Fearing hostile reactions from the Banshees' audience, Ian and Martyn brought with them special fibreglass 'riot shields' to protect their equipment from the anticipated hail of spit and beer bottles. But after replacing the set's unpopular instrumentals with pop-oriented numbers such as Rock 'N' Roll, the 'riot shields' proved to be an unnecessary precaution and the League were well-received on most dates of the tour. By this time, major record labels were expressing an interest in the group, and realising that Fast Product could not offer the resources the League needed to break into the mainstream, Bob Last suggested Martyn, Ian and Philip put together a new demo cassette with which to court the larger labels. The League devised a novel idea to ensure the labels took note of the demos: Philip posed as an imaginary local TV celebrity named Jason Taverner and recorded spoken introductions for several of the demos, which were then used between songs on the cassettes. This ploy intrigued several labels and Virgin were persuaded to help finance Fast Product's second Human League record, a four-track 12" entitled The Dignity Of Labour. New fans acquired on the Banshees' tour, expecting the kind of pop material aired at those shows, were somewhat bewildered by this obscure instrumental EP and the record was met with a muted reception in the press. Nevertheless, Virgin's Simon Draper remained eager to lure the League to his label and eventually beat off strong competition from Chris Parry's new Polydor imprint Fiction to sign the group. The League were swiftly packed off to tour Europe with their hero Iggy Pop, before returning home to Sheffield to begin work on their debut album... This collection brings together early recordings from the pre-Virgin period and includes tracks by The Future and The Human League which remained officially unreleased until now. The original line-up of The Human League featured here went on to record two outstanding albums for Virgin, Reproduction and Travelogue, before splitting acrimoniously in late 1980. Martyn and Ian then formed a production company, the British Electric Foundation, and released records under this name, many of them featuring well-known guest vocalists. However, they remain best- known for the group they formed with Glenn Gregory, Heaven 17, who remain active to this day, having scored a number of hit singles and albums. Ian and particularly Martyn have also had much success producing material for other artists. Philip and Adrian of course achieved international success with a new- look version of The Human League, their Dare album helping to popularize electronic pop around the world. This too was followed by numerous hits, and although Adrian left the group in 1986 to concentrate on film-making, Philip continues to perform and record as The Human League with co-vocalists Susan Ann Gayle and Joanne Catherall from the 1981 line-up. The lasting impact of the early League records is still evident among today's electronic artists, and it's surely no great exaggeration to suggest that modern music might sound just a little different, were it not for the contributions of Martyn, Ian and Philip...