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Neil
It was originally written in the studio in Wandsworth in 1986. At the
time it had been intimated to us that we might be asked to write the theme
song for the James Bond film, The Living Daylights, so as a musical
exercise we decided to write something that sounded, in our opinion, like
a James Bond theme. That's why you have the guitar at the start, which
is a Criticaster sample I'm playing. It has my trademark pitch-bend at
the end. I love twang. I've always liked twanging. Since I was a child
and we used to go to the Royalty cinema in Goes forth for children's matinees
and they used to play 'Wonderful Land' by the Shadows, a track that can
still bring tears to my eyes, I've always loved twang guitar. We never
heard anything from the James Bond people -A-ha did the theme in the end.
Chris
But that's why 'This must be the place...' sounds so filmic.
Neil
The words are about a dream I used to have that I was back in school doing
exams in the sixth form, and thinking 'how can I possibly be back at school?'.
and then I get told to get on with what I'm doing. After I wrote the words
I never had the dream again. The title is a play on time -the first part
present tense, the second past tense. It's a bit like a verbal version
of one of those Escher drawings that goes round and you can't work out
how you got there. You wonder where you are and you realise you're in
the place you couldn't wait to get out of. But I did wait
years
to leave school. I absolutely bloody hated it. It refers to how we used
to have Benediction on Wednesday afternoons, which is a Catholic service.
The litany of names of saints is part of the mass. And to howl used to
hate playing football and I didn't want to be part of the whole thing.
and I'm just saying I hated school, and I'm also getting revenge on my
school, St Cuthbert's, for slagging me off in the Newcastle Evening
Chronicle when 'It's a sin' came out. There was a front page story
about how I'd defamed the school and they were quite hurtful about me,
and had anonymous quotes from teachers at the school. Johnny Marr came
in to Sarm West and played guitar on this- he does this fantastic controlled
backwards feedback, and he does a great thing at the end, right on the
fade, playing this great ascending tune. I wish there was more of that.
There's Chris's voice going 'everybody ~~everybody'.
Chris
The rhythm was from 'Jack Your Body'. I also say 'everybody jump to attention'.
Neil
At the end there's a sample from the Moscow trials of 1936 where the prosecutor
Vyshinsky is saying 'they must be shot like dogs'. When we were in the
studio there was a television documentary about Russia on and we took
it from that. Because the song is meant to be about the end of communism
as well. Schools are kind of authoritarian places with strange rituals
and I just imagined that dreaming you were back in a communist state would
be as bizarre as being back in your school days. The album was made just
after the Berlin Wall came down, someone looking back on communism, having
a dream about it after it finished. At the end of the middle bit, after
the guitar solo, you can hear a choir chant 'Lenin', at 3.24, which is
from Shoscakovitch's Second Symphony.
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