One week at number one on 20th September 1986
By the time this reached the pinnacle of the indie charts, it had been over nine months since Depeche Mode had last been there. Their singles had once been considered shoe-ins for the top spot, their position a coronation rather than a competition, but things had changed since 1985 – the independent charts were now bustling with new life (no pun intended) from increasingly challenging forces.
Great news for lovers of music in 1986, who were feasting on all manner of new and exciting talent. Bad news for Depeche Mode fans, including me – I would have loved more of a chance to talk about “Black Celebration” on here, one of my favourite albums of all-time. While it's often been described as a left-hand turn following “It’s Called A Heart”, in reality there were hints all along. Depeche didn’t suddenly overhaul their sound so much as gradually grow out of their origins.
Despite this, “Black Celebration” can be heard as everything finally falling into place beautifully; it's filled with accomplished and stirring symphonic pop, delicate baroque synth lullabies and thundering disgust at modern life. Stuffed with obvious singles, however, it wasn’t. “Stripped” depended upon its expansive, gradually swelling arrangements rather than obvious golden hooks, and the closest thing to a traditional single, “A Question Of Lust”, was essentially mid-sixties Walker Brothers balladry with synthetic knobs on – a strange retro futuristic step which seemed to ultimately tickle neither the public nor their fans.
“A Question Of Time” was the last throw of the dice, and was also atypical of most Depeche Mode singles prior to this point. The central hook is a sampled guitar line (or at least, a guitar sound sampled and replayed through a synthesiser) which is almost rockist in its aspirations – a lick to punch your fist in the air to. The rhythm beneath it too is an ugly, churning sound, like an overloaded truck rattling along a dirt track. It’s not necessarily a novel step. It is, however, unexpected for this band, who usually preferred to pulse rather than grind.
Over the top of this, Gahan delivers Gore’s uncharacteristically rambling lyrics, which feel like an unvarnished rant about the sexual manipulation of young women. “I’ve got to get to you first” he declares, which sounds ominous (what for? He can’t lock her away, but any other potential readings of this lyric are unflattering to say the least) before clarifying later on “You’re only fifteen/ and you look good/ I’ll take you under my wing/ somebody should/ they’ve persuasive ways/ and you’ll believe what they say”. The song builds up to the pinnacle of its angst with the staccato delivery of the lines “It won’t be long until you do/ exactly what they want you to”, after which it gives up, feeling as if it can stretch itself no further, lets a snare beat introduce a second of silence, before starting all over again.
In my mind’s eye, Martin Gore is frothing mad and circling his study while writing these lyrics. They have moments of furious focus, but then also points where he circles around his own ideas frustratedly. “Sometimes I don’t blame them”, he shrugs at one point, then concludes “I know my kind/ what goes on in our minds”, which asks any male listener to assume that Gore thinks his mind (because it definitely is men being addressed here) works the same way as theirs – a common assumption among kinky men with bags of testosterone to spare. Guilt and shame drip off this record.
There are a number of interpretations you can put upon the lyrics here, and Gore has never been easily drawn on what inspired them. It feels plainly obvious that the drive behind their concern is the sexual manipulation of pretty teenage girls, though. There are whole chunks of the lyrics which sound paternal, with Gore acting as the doting, concerned father who knows his daughter’s period of innocence is likely drawing to a close. There are also possibly accidental parallels with tabloid imagery (The Sun ran a celebratory countdown to Emma Watson’s sixteenth birthday, a perverse idea which always reminded me of this song – a clock counting down before tabloid journalists decided they could afford to treat a young actress in a more titillating way). Of course, we also can’t ignore the possibility that Gore was writing about a young Depeche Mode fan he found attractive but knew he shouldn’t, and that she is the catalyst for the song’s concern. It would explain a lot, but if that’s the case, he’s perhaps wisely never said so.
The imagery of the fifteen year old’s childhood being destroyed by adult desires was revisited again on their next album “Music For The Masses”, with “Little 15” flipping the gender roles so instead of a girl, it’s a teenage boy being ushered around and used as a plaything by a woman. “Such a thing would never happen!” I hear you cry. Oh yes it bloody did, and presumably still does. Two bored housewives both embarked on liaisons with fifteen year old schoolboys on the very suburban cul-de-sac I grew up on, for the very reasons largely outlined in the song (“You help her forget the world outside”). The matter was largely hushed up but the community gossip did what it always does, and it was naturally the talk of the neighbours for many years after. Either Gore heard about this matter, which I deeply doubt, or it’s more common than we suppose (to note - I don't have all the details about these liaisons, so I've no idea if they truly crossed the line into abuse, but something strange was clearly afoot).
Whatever his motivation for writing either of these songs, he seems strangely obsessed (particularly for a pop star) with the idea of teenagers being allowed to be confused teenagers – for them not to be used as either sexual playthings or trophies or be dragged into the concerns of a world they currently don’t understand, and shouldn’t yet be troubled with. It’s a weirdly raunchy song about the value of innocence, delivered by a group who sound far from it. At one point in their careers, though, they did look the part, appearing in the public eye as fresh-faced youths in 1981, beaming and joyous, a faint nerdiness created by a look in their eyes which suggested they didn’t quite know what they were doing or what was going on around them. So while the lyrical subject matters of “Time” and “Little 15” seem peculiar on the surface, I’ve sometimes wondered if there was something more personal beneath them, something about growing up in public which daren’t express itself in other more direct ways.
“A Question Of Time” certainly does its utmost to signal their maturity. The single began their close and ongoing association with photographer and video director Anton Corbijn, who eventually also designed their stage sets. The promo for it is a black-and-white Super 8 mini-movie about a Frank Kelly (aka Father Jack Hackett) lookalike delivering babies to the group in a motorcycle side-car. Its an idea which seems a little bit too pretentious to work, but it does, and their association with Corbijn as a director would create stronger and more surreal visuals in the near future. While initially reluctant to work with the group, he appeared to actually understand the filmic, symphonic aspects to their work, and how these could easily be married to all manner of dreamlike visuals.
As for me, I was immediately grabbed by the sheer propulsion and hookiness of “Question Of Time” when I first heard it, and I still enjoy it to this day, but as the years have gone by it’s become one of the Depeche Mode singles I listen to least. Unlike some of their other songs from around the same period, it lacks care and intricacy and instead hits you with a wallop (and a sampled guitar). Their next three albums from this point forwards would contain one of these moments – “Never Let Me Down Again”, “Personal Jesus” and “I Feel You” – each rocking out more than the one before with either greater or less creative success. All further hints towards unexpected future sounds journalists claimed to be shocked by, hiding right there in plain sight.
New Entries In The Chart
12. Swans - A Screw (Holy Money) (K422)
Peak position: 7
While Depeche Mode tinkered with industrial influences, Swans by this point sounded as if they thought that the use of any actual musical instruments was selling out. “A Screw” is entirely driven by its pounding rhythm track and various lathes battering and banging about. Fascinatingly, it also manages to bare a faint resemblance to Queen’s “We Will Rock You” in the process, something I doubt Michael Gira had in mind at the time. Although who knows?
20. The Beloved - This Means War (Flim Flam)
Peak position: 20
The Beloved battled on the margins in 1986, their final identity not yet fully realised. While they would eventually become one of the prime “indie-dance” movers and shakers, that phrase hadn’t been invented at this point, and they had to make do with being called New Order copyists instead.
“This Means War” is actually far better than those early criticisms would suggest, combining delicate guitar jangles with gorgeous, euphoric keyboard lines. While many indie acts claimed “There’s always been a dance element to our music” in 1989, The Beloved could at least be seen as more honest than most of them. This single already has its Ecstatic hug in place.
22. The Meteors - Wrecking Crew (ID)
Peak position: 21
23. The Godfathers - Sun Arise (Corporate Image)
Peak position: 5
Arguably the first of the cheeky, ironic Rolf Harris covers – firmly a thing of the past these days, obviously – The Godfathers took on the now-disgraced Australian children’s entertainer’s most intriguing single and gave it a strangely sixties beat feel. They weren’t the first, as unbelievably Alice Cooper also had a go, but this version feels like a Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich B-side (and that’s now the third time they’ve been mentioned in the context of this blog. Perhaps Dee and his pals really were the unsung godfathers of mid-80s indie).
Better is the other unlisted A-side on this release, the demanding and almost thuggish garage rocker “I Want Everything”. “Instant coffee and instant sex!” they snarl, perhaps echoing back to that other indie classic, The Red Guitars “Good Technology”. It’s a rare example of a Godfathers single which really communicates their threat and virility as a live act, and is a regular spin of mine at home. I tend to give the other side a miss.
Number One In The Official Charts
The Communards - "Don't Leave Me This Way" (London)
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