|
|
|
|
|
|
| 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). |
| Lyrics |
| Released
on The
Golden Hour Of The Future |
|
|
|
|
|
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 |
|
|
|
|
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. |
| Lyrics |
| 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) |
|
|
|
|
| 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 |
|
|
|
|
| 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. |
| Lyrics |
| Released
on Travelogue |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
