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Interviews Behaviour DJ culture
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| NeilThis
came out of two things. At this time Chris used to write on a Fairlight
in his sitting room in Islington, and he wrote a load of bits and pieces,
one of which became 'In private', one of which became -much later- 'Dreaming
of the Queen', and one of which became the chorus of 'DJ culture'. Then,
when we were touring on the Performance tour; I wrote down in my
notebook this phrase 'DJ culture'. At the beginning of 1991, just as we
were about to go on tour; the Gulf War happened, and I'd had this idea-rather
a pretentious idea in some ways - of the way that everyone talked about
the Gulf War as though it was the Second World War. It was a very odd war;
the Gulf War; because it wasn't really hand-to-hand fighting - it was like
a computer game, almost, on Television. And at the end of the day no one
really won it. At the same time the cult of the DJ was becoming a big thing,
and records being sampled too, and I thought: people don't just sample records,
they also sample attitudes from the past. Things don't tend to be authentically
experienced now, they tend to be expressed as samples from the past so that
we all understand them, and that was what I really wanted to say. People
pretend President Bush and John Major are successful war leaders.
People pretend to sound concerned, or have that empty positivism. Musical culture in particular had a relentless positivism that was completely and utterly banal, a brainless positivism that just consisted of empty catchphrases. There were a lot of bullshit attitudes going on in the early Nineties, and the song is about how facile and pretentious modern life was. The third verse is about how, if you have no history, you can reinvent yourself. There's a reference to Madonna in it 'She after Sean'; after her marriage with Sean Penn broke up she sort of came back as a sex goddess. 'Liz before Betty' is something Heather Carson, the lighting designer; said on the Performance tour: 'that's so Liz before Betty' i.e. Liz Taylor before the Betty Ford Clinic. It's one of those things I've always liked, like 'West End girls', trying to be a bit like The Wasteland meets Grandmaster Flash. In this there are all these different voices like there are in The Wasteland. It also quotes from Oscar Wilde who, when he was sentenced to two years' hard labour; after the judge read the sentence, said, 'And I, may I say nothing, my lord?' I misquote it on the record. He wasn't allowed to say anything. He was just led away. The chorus is about how, with all the media and satellite television channels, there are very few genuine responses to anything, only fake ones, drowning out people's genuine responses, hence the Oscar Wilde quote. We'd had the idea of writing a song with a song structure a bit like 'West End girls': spoken words and a sung chorus. I wrote a chord change, which became the verse to lead into Chris's chorus. Chris We recorded it with Brothers In Rhythm at Sarm West. They'd done remixes for 'How can you expect to be taken seriously?' and 'We all feel better in the dark'. I loved their records, 'Such A Good Feeling' and 'Peace And Harmony', and also Sabrina Johnston's 'Peace In The Valley’, which they'd done. The funny thing was, all those records were really uplifting piano house, and of course what we get is Miserablism... Neil
We went into the studio with Brothers In Rhythm to make two hit singles
for Discography. Chris And I was right. I've always had a problem with the idea that you write 'hits' for greatest hits that haven't been hits; therefore it's a bit presumptuous to put them on the album in the first place. Neil I agree. But I think it's a really good track, 'DJ culture', actually, but it's not a huge intemational hit single. At the time this was a record we thought might do something in America - are we insane? But I love the chorus - we took the idea of Tessa Niles singing behind me in the chorus from 'Absolute Beginners' by David Bowie; there's a girl singing with David Bowie all the way through that and I've always liked that. We did the twelve-inch (CD2, track 10] in the studio at the same time. We weren't quite happy with the Brothers In Rhythm seven-inch so we did the twelve-inch thinking we might get ideas for the seven-inch. Then, quite sometime later; we brought in Stephen Hague to work on the seven-inch. He suggested I change the words in the chorus- in the twelve-inch the words don't change when there's a double chorus, but in the seven-inch I add the ... wondering who's your friend' bit. He also put a string line in the middle section, which is really nice. |
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