Shake The Disease showed the world that there was a new Depeche Mode sound, a darker, glorious one that would go define the band's next few albums. It was a fine way to round off the first stage of their career and the decision to release The Singles 81-85 made sense as it provided a nice conclusion to that first stage.
Shake The Disease wasn't the only new track on that album however. Following the conclusion of their 1985 festival dates, the band recorded a couple of new tracks this time with Daniel producing alone as Gareth Jones had heard the demo of It's Call...sorry...was busy. One of these new tracks would carry on Shake The Disease's work by honing the new Depeche Mode sound further and focussing primarily on death.
The other was perplexingly chosen as the next single. It features a double 12" with a controversial remix, a terrible video and is not actually that good. If that hasn't whetted your appetite, I don't know what will. This is It's Called A Heart.
THERE'S A LOT OT BE LEARNED - IT'S CALLED A HEART
The Single
The Depeche Mode Information Service Newsletter of August 1985 announced that a new single was to be released on 16th September. The same issue promised a surprise too, saying with grammatical unhappiness "Keep your eye open for some surprises a few weeks after it's release too!" We'll come to the surprises shortly.
Let's be frank at this point. It's Called A Heart is not Depeche Mode's worst single - that is Hole To Feed, it is NEVER anything else - but it's not far from it. It's a poor song, especially by comparison to the previous few singles, and it's hard to disagree with Alan when he says that the song was "a backwards step" and that it was "an ultra-poppy number that did nothing for (DM's) reputation." On the Black Celebration re-issue DVD, Martin pointed out that the song was his "least favourite track that we've ever recorded" though that did predate Hole To Feed.
Having been released on 16th September, the song (BONG9) entered the UK charts on at number 21 on 28th September and the boys opened the 26th September edition of Top Of The Pops as you can see above. It's an odd performance in many respects including the fact that Martin is fully clothed. The set is replete with many of the, erm, tribal things that feature in the car crash of a video and Martin even plays some sort of vertical xylophone thing that doesn nothing at all to add anything to the performance. Where are the hammers and bits of metal? Why is Alan not 100% leather? Why has Fletch got a tiny gong? If you're going for a gong, surely you go for a big gong?
This oddball performance did see the song climb the charts however and it soared to number 18 the next week before dropping to 36, 53 and then, having been in the charts only on loan, fell out of the top 75.
By the way - number 18. That's the same number Shake The Disease reached. Remarkable.
There are good things about It's Called A Heart of course. It's a jaunty enough pop number, but Depeche Mode hadn't done that sort of thing since A Broken Frame. It has some pleasing noises ( I love that "simo-yes" noise for example) in it and, as ever, an eminently hummable melody, but where's the inventive spark that Depeche Mode were adding to every song they released at that stage? It does feel like a backward step, especially after two ground-breaking albums in Construction Time Again and Some Great Reward. The song was played at every date on the Black Celebration tour and the live version is far superior to the 7" version and much more in line with the really rather good Extended mix which we'll come onto. Check dmlive.wiki's Black Celebration tour page to hear some very good recordings of it.
The B-Side was of course Fly On The Windscreen. Again, let's not beat about the bush here - it's the superior song of the two. Alan claims he was outvoted when talk turned to which one of the two should form the A-side and it seems the label were reluctant to include a song that featured the word "death" so prominently. That argument is somewhat watered down when you consider the previous single actually had the word "Disease" in the title.
This blog series is not about the B-Sides however (don't worry - that's bound to come at some point) so we'll leave Fly On The Windscreen there. It has been played live an impressive 221 times making it probably the band's most played B-Side though I know that most of you are currently frothing at the mouth screaming "It's from Black Celebration - look I have the tracklist tattooed on my thigh beside several pictures of someone who looks in no way at all like Dave." I know that but this is a singles blog after all, it did first appear as a B-side and I make the rules. So there.
Finally, neither It's Called A Heart or Shake The Disease featured in the Black Celebration The 12" Singles boxset which makes no sense at all especially when they featured on the Black Celebration reissue and DVD. There's no place this point actually fits in this blog so it's going here. Not including them was a stupid decision.
The Video
Oh for f**ks sake.
Firstly, this video was filmed outside Reading, in England, The lyrics somehow inspired director Peter Care to imagine an Indonesian jungle scene and that's what we open on. A lake, some flames and a sense of quickly deepening dread. We're only four seconds in.
We eventually crawl to shore and then see all four members of Depeche Mode walking through a cornfield led by a singing Dave who Alan is doing his very best to hide behind. If the song had been called It's Called A Cob, and let's face it, it may as well have been, that would have worked. Alternatively, if they'd crawled through a field of artichokes (do they grown in fields? I have no idea), then fine. Corn though - nonsensical. I'm not even sure it grows that near water or in Indonesia. I'm actually surprised it grows in Reading. Anyway, I can't stall any longer - back to the video.
We see Alan banging away on a drum looking very serious in between shots of the walking Mode and it's at this point that some order is restored as we note that Martin is not wearing atop. A leather coat, a dress of some sort and a cowboy hat yes, but no top. Phew. Fletch starts banging a leather cymbal of some sort and Martin plays a lower down version of the Top of The Pops xylophone and you start wondering if this is all a badly directed dream. There's then a bit where Dave is singing and getting followed by the band holding up what I'm going to call lit up voodoo heads and at that exact point, I realise that I'm yearning for the serious art of the Leave In Silence video.
This tripe carries on until we see a small TV playing some odd tribal footage. That's a TV in the "jungle" by the way, a place not known for its electricity supplies. We also see the band mucking around in what is now daylight throwing something to each other. It's bloody ridiculous.
From here, assuming there is any hill left, it goes down it. More TV's, angry wooden voodoo people, presumably annoyed because they'd been told this was actually the A-side, Alan and Andy blowing into something in one of those "here's what we sampled" moments that is clearly a lie.
It mercifully ends but not before the baffling words "Filmed entirely on location in Japan" appear. What? Of course it wasn't. Perhaps I'm the only person that's ever made it to the end of the video and am therefore the first person ever to see that. Someone have a look please. Perhaps I'm now in a coma having watched that video and am imagining things.
This is a very bad video.
The Formats
7BONG9 was available in two different ways. Firstly there was a standard 7" as we see above. The Shake The Disease hairy man has returned and while he may have outrun the turtle chasing him on the rear sleeve of 12BONG8, he's now being eaten by a big pink swan thing. Life is hard.
The B-side art is just feathers. What is nice about this release is the labels. They are really cool.
Keen eyed viewers who observed the poster earlier in the article and Depeche Mode collector nerds (hello fellow nerds) already know the other 7" variation. For those who are still asking (1) why they are reading this and (2) what variation, here it is. Early versions came with a poster and that poster showed the cover photo from the forthcoming The Singles 81-85 showing Martin's left nipple in all its, erm, glory.
12BONG9 is a two track affair with both songs from the 7" version presented in Extended form. The Extended remix of It's Called A Heart is fantastic and very much a hidden gem. Do check it out. The cover art appears to show Mr Hairy either dancing or being attacked by a neon snake.
The Extended mix of Fly On The Windscreen is a really good remix as well. The jiving swan beast on the rear sleeve clearly agrees.
Do you remember the Depeche Mode Information Service newsletter telling you to keep your "eye open" for a surprise (what was the other eye doing?)? Well here it is - the band's first ever double 12", D12BONG9. They wouldn't repeat this trick again until the Fragile Tension/Hole To Feed doubler so, if there's a lot be learned from this, it's double 12" = shoddy single. The front cover shows the jiving swan from the rear of the 12" chasing our hairy friend and above the swan it says "Special Limited Edition Twin Set Costing No More Than Two Pounds & Ninety Nine Pence." That's 75p or so per record. Decent value. The first 12" is the same as the standard 12".
Side 1 of record two, or side 3 as the lovely labels call it, is Fly On The Windscreen (Death Mix). It's great. Side 4 is not great. It features It's Called A Heart (Slow Mix) that is simply a slowed down version of the song which sees it slowed to half speed and played in full. Why? What on earth inspired that? Bloody nonsense.
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| Picture courtesy of depmod.com |
There is a wonderful 12" promo too with a hand stamped label. I've had to use a picture from depmod.com as I couldn't find my own.
The UK CD single from 1991 CDBONG9 takes the tracks from the 7", 12" and the Death Mix of Fly On The Windscreen aside and promises them they can appear on a CD if they forget the Slow Mix exists. They agree.
Let's leave the flaming lakes and voodoo heads of the UK and head to Germany. Firstly, we have the usual red vinyl 7"
It of course features the same tracks as 7BONG9.
The blue vinyl 12" is a splendid thing
Again, it features the same tracks as 12BONG9.
The German blue stripe CD single rather oddly takes the D12BONG 9 tracks and calls itself CDD12BONG9. One for fans of the Slow Mix.
Germany and France had their own vinyl versions of D12BONG9 but in today's "Why on earth do I own this"section, let's have a look at the Scandanavian release (above). It's a doubler as you can see although it issues no price orders on the front. What makes it fancy is this:
It's a gatefold. Yes, it's not only 7" purchasers who can keep their free eye on Martin's nipple - Scandanavian fans can too, this time in 12" form. The record that is, not the nipple. That would be very odd.
This version is available in numbered and unnumbered form. I have no idea why. I have even less idea why I have both versions.
The US 12" is a different affair from the UK one as it features two new remixes - the Emotion Remix and Emotion Dub of It's Called A Heart, both of which feature on the A-Side. They're pretty decent remixes but not quite as good as the Extended remix.
The "flip" side features the Deportation Mix of Flexible which is probably the same as the Pre-Deportation Mix from L12BONG8. I can't remember. It also features the 7" version of It's Called A Heart.
And with that, Phase 1 of Depeche Mode was very much over. A compilation album popped out and the band, rather tetchy with each other by this point anyway, headed off to Berlin to get even more annoyed with each other and record a landmark masterpiece genius godlike album that I refuse to ever be anything other than over excited about.
The first slice of wonder from that album was the band's next single and we'll look at that next.
Farewell Phase 1 of Depeche Mode. Pack away those voodoo heads, deflate the spacehoppers, say goodbye to the milkmen and let's never speak of the Slow Mix again.
Instead, let's have a Black Celebration.
