This is the third entry chronicling the first two volumes of the now out-of-print 80s music collection, Living in Oblivion, which will proceed in track order. Sadly, the third time is not at all the charm.

MP3 – “Talk Talk” by Talk Talk
Lyrics – “Talk Talk” by Talk Talk

Yet another case of a song by a band who’s done much better (in this case “It’s My Life”), Talk Talk (the band, not the song) distinguishes itself by performing an even less interesting Duran Duran imitation than Kajagoogoo. I don’t think I’ve ever said anything so insulting.

A quick by-the-numbers on Talk Talk (the song, not the band):

Time spent on verses: 53 seconds
(14 seconds of which are sort of a gimme since the first half of the third verse sounds a little like it’s supposed to be a bridge but the band wasn’t imaginative to come up with different chords)

Time spent on choruses: 1:42

Number of times the word “talk” is said in the song not counting the weird echo-y voice in the background during the third chorus that kinda sounds like it’s saying “talk talk” but after several repetitions sounds more like the Swedish Chef saying “nog”: 86

Those 53 seconds of lyrics aren’t much to write home about. It’s the usual grab bag of loss of identity ascribed to possible romantic infidelity, inflamed by resulting paranoia and a smattering of manic depression right at the end. Or as I like to call it, high school.

As initially sympathetic as the singer sounds here, if you give this a solid listen, you have to end up siding with the unheard from partner on this one. If you engender the ire of your beloved merely for crying when he or she is sad or laughing when he or she is happy, you have to know you’re in a damned if you do/don’t scenario. Congrats to Talk Talk for flipping the script, I suppose, but the end result means you’re looking at the least sympathetic protagonist since Lolita or, more recently, My Best Friend’s Wedding.

Other than the moment at about 1:50 when the drums are actually so loud in the mix that they completely overwhelm the lyrics (which in light of the above isn’t such a bad thing), the only other notable thing I can say about this work is that it completes a trilogy of songs appearing on albums of the same name, and named after the bands that performed them, thereby following in the footsteps of Bad Company’s “Bad Company” off of Bad Company and Living in a Box’s “Living In A Box” off of Living in a Box*, which coincidentally shows up on Volume 2 of the Living in Oblivion series, so I’ll end up getting to it and it’s New-Jack-Swing-by-way-of-Rick-Astley grooves sometime around Thanksgiving.

I realize this project is still in its infancy, but this one was tough to get through. I even did laundry while I was writing it. Let me make this clear: I procrastinated writing a blog post about music by DOING LAUNDRY. It was especially tough since there’s a good spate of songs after this one, which made writing this entry something akin to being told “You can’t have dessert until you eat three more bites of those beets on your plate.”

I never had a problem with this song before, but man I sure as hell do now.

* Are these the only three examples of this? If not, drop some knowledge in comments.

UPDATE: Immediately after writing this, I realized if I put the other two songs into a Google search, I’d come up with others. Sure enough, I found this site and this one which clued me into a few examples, some of which are so obvious that I am ashamed of myself. Only metal can top 80s music for self-referentiality. And I should have expected the inevitable Wikipedia entry, which lists so many examples that I’m actually ashamed of music.

This is the second in a series of musings on the first two volumes of the now out-of-print 80s music collection, Living in Oblivion, which will proceed in track order.

MP3 – “(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me” by Naked Eyes
Lyrics – “(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me” by Naked Eyes

While not the greatest song in the Naked Eyes canon (that honor goes to “Promises, Promises”), “(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me” still impresses thanks to quality source material courtesy of Mr. Burt Bacharach, who’s written some of the greatest pop standards of the last fifty years. It clocks in at 3:40, which is about the same length as “Too Shy” but unlike that opus, it somehow manages to leave the listener wanting more.

Bacharach said he preferred to write for female voices, so the duo of Naked Eyes is good enough in a pinch. Frankly, Sadie Shaw’s original version in 1964 did the song only rough justice. She sings as if she’s in a hurry, and her voice reminds me a bit too much of Michael Jackson’s early works. Plus, the background vocalists make Benny Hill’s Ladybirds* sound like classically-trained vocalists, by comparison.

Pete Byrne isn’t quite the crooner the song needs here, but what he lacks in phrasing, he makes up for in longing. It’s almost as if you can hear him creating the template for Colin Meloy’s timorous mewling about sailor’s wives crying about their husbands being eaten by sea monsters or whatever.

Wikipedia says Naked Eyes was “the very first band to make significant use of the Fairlight CMI on a pop recording,” before contradicting itself by saying Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel used it a couple years before. This is one of the things I love about Wikipedia: no fact is not fungible. If you didn’t know it was used primarily in the 80s, you’d have only to have heard the words “light pen interface” to get a clue. In any case, much like key parties, the Fairlight CMI’s time has come and gone though I bet it was secretly used on that one Andrew WK album that’s only available as a Japanese-import.

To capture the proper amount of bombast, the song sounds as if it was recorded in a studio on the same block as a Catholic church. Each verse after an instrumental break is preceded by more (synthesized) pealing bells than your average Easter celebration in Rome.

Oddly enough, that church must be on the industrial end of town. The sounds of those faux hammers in the second verse make me think of that one Simpsons episode where the steel mill turns into a gay disco called The Anvil, and I’m pretty sure this song breaks the record for “most drum fills.”

Outside of a few Elvis Costello songs, “Always” might be the best example of a song whose music is in direct conflict with its lyrics. Though what Fisher’s intoning is really depressing, heartbreak never sounded so happy. Everywhere he goes, he’s reminded of this woman he was “born to love,” as he pines for her while walking the streets. He “will never be free” from thoughts of her. All this over someone with whom he didn’t even get to first base (note the lack of kissing or holding tight at the cafe with the nighttime dancing). God, no wonder everyone I went to junior high with still loves this song.

So all that having been said, it rightly stands as the definitive version of the song, even if the drum intro always makes me picture Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer.

Naked Eyes would revisit parenthetical titles with its single “(What) In The Name of Love” off its second, and last, album though Byrne is apparently still making noise about a third, even though keyboardist Rob Fisher died in 1999. If he had a sense of humor, Fisher would bill himself as “Naked Eye” even though people might mistake him for a Luscious Jackson cover band.

* After writing this, I discovered via IMDB that The Ladybirds actually sang on one of Shaw’s later hits. So apparently, I’m not the only one to think this.

In an effort to get myself back on track with blogging, I’ve decided to create a few regularly occurring features here. This is the first: a series of musings on the first two volumes of the now out-of-print 80s music collection, Living in Oblivion, which will proceed in track order. Some will be short, serious and contemplative. Others, like the one below, will be overblown magnum opuses, befitting the pompous majesty of the songs themselves.

MP3 – “Too Shy” by Kajagoogoo
Lyrics – “Too Shy” by Kajagoogoo

Somehow, “Too Shy” manages to wring three minutes and forty-five seconds out of what amounts to no more than six lines of lyrics, two lines of non-ad-libbed ad libs, a chorus of five words that’s really only four since one of them is a homonym, and a series of come-hither “doo doo doos” stolen from Lou Reed, who promptly told them he could keep them, don’t bother giving them back, consider them a gift. How exactly did such a thing get composed. I have a few ideas.

This was Kajagoogoo’s debut single off their debut album. Already hampered with a name that sounds like the first words most infants hear from an elderly aunt, this was its chance to make its mark on a world that already had a Brit synth-pop band that it liked very much, thank you, so it could just take its flouncy hair and rude manners elsewhere.

But oh no, Kajagoogoo would not be denied. No, the world’s initial coyness only increased its desire to make the world its own. And so, Kajagoogoo began to seduce the world.

To do so, they’d need someone special, who personified style, charm, and sophistication, but with a playful insouciance. Limahl – whose looks suggested that genetic scientists in the early 1990s were attempting to recombine the DNA of John Cusack, Richard Grieco, and Billy Ray Cyrus’ old haircut when suddenly a rabid cockatiel burst in through the window and perched upon the large beaker in the center of the room for just a split second before lightning struck, bringing about disastrous results, as the scientists felt their hearts seize with fear at what they had done, and agreed amongst themselves that they would send the resultant man – dressed only in a denim boilermaker’s outfit – back in time to 1982 where he might be given a chance to live in peace – was that man.

Yes, “Too Shy” is a song of seduction, but it’s subtle in its intent. In fact, it’s so damn subtle that it’s limp, suggesting that any woman with earshot of the song has as much chance of being seduced by the singer as she did by the art teacher she had in junior high, who was often joined in the classroom by his “teacher’s assistant,” a strapping Cuban with shoulder-length curly hair named Estanislo.

The song begins with some synth noodling and bass work that together approximates the underwater sounds of whales communicating after swallowing Wookies. Limahl, already nervous over the immense responsibility resting on his narrow shoulders, starts singing Culture Club’s “Time (Clock of the Heart)” at 0:39 seconds in, before realizing his mistake after getting the stink-eye from bassist Nick Beggs, who lets him know that he’s still doing the whale/Wookie bass thing for six more seconds before drummer Stuart Neale stops ripping off Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust,” and presses the button for the fill. Then and only then is he supposed to start singing.

Chastened, Limahl experiences a brief moment of schizophrenia, and turns the carefully constructed lyrical bedroom sonnet into a fractured dialogue between hunter and prey.

At about 0:54, keyboardist Stuart Crawford lets his niece practice the scales on an electic piano in the corner, and the song begins to build toward its climax. Shortly after, Limahl immediately regrets purchasing cut-rate synthesizers from a notoriously sketchy outdoor market in Lancashire, when they begin to malfunction at 1:07, causing him to completely forget the rest of the lyrics, which he had assured everyone else he had committed to memory, and are now impotently lying next to the producer’s console.

Barreling into the chorus several measures early, Limahl attempts to buy himself some time by repeating each word twice. Failing this, he skips over the instrumental bridge, earning another stink-eye from Beggs, and begins to recite highlights of his sister’s recent trip to the gynecologist, which had been told to him in excruciating detail the day before, and had obstinately lodged in his brain.

At 1:51, the synth begins malfunctioning again and Limahl muscles his way back into the chorus, but the rest of the group has had enough. Guitarist Steve Askew, the group instructs the recording engineer to remove Limahl from the room and the musicians begin a 35-second free-jazz interlude complete with scatting around 2:35.

Shortly after, Limahl bursts back into the room, seeking to save the song’s pop potential. He begins belting out the limited chorus, over the efforts of Crawford’s niece who has begun playing a slide whistle at 3:05, which she continues to play until the song ends.

It’s at this moment that bassist Beggs realizes that his instrument, which – despite its whale/Wookie tendencies – has, until now, kept the song from completely going off the rails, is completely turned down in the mix, thanks to a quick bribe by Limahl to the recording engineer. Throwing the stink-eye himself, Limahl mocks Beggs by continuing to repeat the five word chorus before the disturbed bassist leaves the studio in disgust, as the rest of the musicians turn up the treble on their respective instruments, and play their parts in-the-round style (the way they used to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”) with each playing two measures behind the other until the fade-out.