Talking In The Dark
Two years ago various seismic faults had begun to appear in the new rock 'n' roll structure and new bio — musical phenomena emerged to nudge their way through the atrophy of what only such a short time previously had been such a volatile and healthy renaissance. There is no question but that the Psychedelic Furs were one of those rude and uninvited little intruders, poking and prodding their unseemly way where they weren't wanted and where, initially at least, there was no room for them.
So the Furs made their own room. A year of their fissure tapped a magma source of glamorized venom and exploded through to the extreme with a St. Helens style display of force, gushingly exciting first album and sweeping to no. 18 with ease, a unheard-of feat at the time for a band with an unknown (then) status.
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-gates on the first dates of their current tour would seem to lend the notion credence. But then again, even the Undertones' positive touch has proved unequal to the task of retaining the fickle as well as the faithful.
But despite almost inevitable bad reviews "Talk Talk Talk" is a very healthy record that strikes a useful balance between making too clean a break with the past and merely clocking in as the first album, part two. "I would say that 50% is a direct follow-up from the first album, 25% is more accessible material and 25%, for example "All of This or Nothing" is a diversion for us - its strange" says sax-man Duncan Kilburn.
"This album didn't come easily, but it did come naturally. The first one took two years to write "Talk Talk Talk” we wrote in less than three months, with the exception of "Mr. Jones" and "So Run Down", both of which had been around for a while. The States helped a lot in tightening us up we didn't write any of the songs there but it did generate ideas which we worked on later."
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After several ploys two or three of the times still refuse to do anything more than make music while they’re on… they’re unstoppable forces. “I would certainly hope that it’s all recognizable as us.” comments Duncan archly. “Of course the first album was expanded at different times when the band was young and growing rapidly, and that probably gives it more light and shade than it would otherwise have had. But you can’t win, because now we’re criticized for what amounts to consistency and relatability!”
Having expressed retrospective dissatisfaction with Steve Lillywhite’s production on the first album. It comes as a surprise to find that he has been engaged again on “Talk Talk Talk.” Last May Butler was telling me how he “didn’t think Steve was right for the band, and I’m sure he’d agree himself” — now both he and Duncan express complete satisfaction with the outcome of “Talk Talk Talk”, Duncan opining that the album that the album the carries a very definite Lillywhite trademark. Butler: "I disagree that he has one advantage of Steve is that he looks at the band and says 'this is what they're trying to do, I'm gonna help them do that." Yes, because I don't hear the hand that guided "Boy" and "Kaleidoscope" on "Talk Talk Talk".
Duncan: "I agree but I'd recognise his stuff with us rather than Martin Hannett. Someone like Martin Hannett comes in and he’s just like John Wayne — he doesn’t have to act, it's just there. Steve came down the rehearsals and got involved from the word go — he'd ask had we thought of changing this or that bit even at that stage. And also he's got a great ear for melody in the studio he'd suggest something which would quite often end up being incorporated."
Some people (myself included) are beginning to feel that there's a touch too much saccharine creeping into Lillywhite's work- the Phil Spector of new English music, viz, all those bells on "Boy" — but the Furs strenuously deny that this time round he's softened their sound too much. What he has done, though, is fail to make the lyrics audible — Butler insists that they're much higher, but I still can't make 'em out.
Which is a pity, both because Butler himself (who writes all the lyrics) feels that they're more important, more personal than on the last album, and because some of them are likely to offend the sensibilities of committed libertarians — but more of that in a moment. Duncan sums up the lyrical shift as "we're not trying to wind anybody up — not like before.”
Butler: "The first album was knocking-
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-about wanting to get a relationship, being in a relationship, coming out of one, looking back on one — and it surprised me to discover that must have been my preoccupation at the time, because the album came together relatively quickly.”
Butler is proud of his new lyrics but accepts that the Furs are primarily a “sound” band, defending himself by saying that "obviously it's different for me because all I do is write the words and sing." But he's adamant about the validity of what could easily be construed as highly sexist lyrics. In “I Wanna Sleep With You" he sings "I don't want you always / I won't hold your hand / I won't give you flowers / I just wanna sleep with you" and the title of the first cut on side two, Into You Like A Train", is at the very least ambiguous.
That's gonna be misunderstood because it's not like pulling a train or plunging into a relationship regardless, it's intended as applicable to everybody. The first verse says "I don't wanna make no scene / Lovers come and go / Or make you Mrs. anyone | Or make you Mr. me" — all it's saying is I don't wanna change anything. It doesn't want to change the way you are, it's just a celebration of “I'm into everything".
Closer inspection reveals that the overall sentiment is actually the highly non-sexist one of not wishing to intrude into other people's personal space- "I don't wanna tape you down / Or shack you up with me / Or put you where the flowers go / Or get into your mind' and "If you believe that anyone / Like me would put in a song / Would try and change it all / That you have been put on" — and in fact it’s a train (sic) of thought that is repeated throughout the album. "Lovers will just steal your clothes / But I'm not one of them / Forgive me I just didn't want / To run away with you” ("I Wanna Sleep With You"), "I didn't want to put you on / Or tape you down at all / Or leave you here all alone" ("She Is Mine)
"Sexism is very much in the mind. In the way if you recognise a problem there and you help to perpetuate it. I think
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