Does Everything Reflect The Time You Spend?

I didn't need to look far for the inspiration for today's Talk Talk selection... I was wearing the T-shirt!

This ten-song compilation spans their early demos with Jimmy Miller in 1981, through to their final statement as a band, with Laughing Stock in 1991, but leans most on the 1984-1986 period and the albums It's My Life and The Colour Of Spring.

I've tried to navigate the incredible evolution of the band in just four albums without being a stickler for chronology. So the freeform jazz stylings of Ascension Day are sandwiched between the 'poppier' moments of Dum Dum Girl and ?, the B-side of Talk Talk's eponymous single.

Eden, the only song here from my favourite Talk Talk album, Spirit Of Eden, sits more comfortably between the opening and closing songs from The Colour Of Spring. The selection itself ends with one of their best known singles and one of their best B-sides.

The thing that binds them all together is the core of Mark Hollis, Paul Webb and Lee Harris. Much is written about Mark's lyrics and unique vocal performances, but it's Paul and Lee that provide the foundation, the feeling, the humanity through through their incredible musicianship. And that's not to dismiss the contributions of Simon Brenner and especially Tim Friese-Greene.

Talk Talk was an astonishing band, no matter which album or single you happen to be listening to, and one that rewards on each return visit.

1) Living In Another World (U.S. Remix By Gavin MacKillop) (1986)

2) Dum Dum Girl (Single Version By Tim Friese-Greene) (1984)

3) Ascension Day (Album Version By Tim Friese-Greene & Phill Brown) (Single Edit) (1991)

4) ? (Single Version By Colin Thurston) (1982)

5) Candy (Demo Version By Jimmy Miller) (1981)

6) Happiness Is Easy (Album Version By Tim Friese-Greene) (1986)

7) Eden (Album Version By Tim Friese-Greene) (1988)

8) Time It's Time (Album Version By Tim Friese-Greene) (1986)

9) Today (Album Version By Mike Robinson) (1982)

10) Again, A Game...Again (Single Version By Tim Friese-Greene) (1983)

1982: Talk Talk: 4

1982: The Party's Over: 9

1984: Dum Dum Girl EP: 2

1984: Such A Shame EP (limited edition 2x 7"): 5, 10

1986: Living In Another World EP: 1

1986: The Colour Of Spring: 6, 8

1988: Spirit Of Eden: 7

1991: Ascension Day EP: 3

Does Everything Reflect The Time You Spend? (56:05) (GD) (M)

Post script: 

I've reactivated links to a couple of Talk Talk selections I posted previously:

Inheritance (April 2022)

Take My Freedom When The Riot Comes (May 2023)

How Many More Days Can We Take In The Hope Of Seeing You?

Belated happy birthdays to Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man aka Paul Webb. 

 

Beth celebrated her 59th on 4th January, Paul his 62nd on 16th January. Both were key players in seminal albums by Portishead and Talk Talk respectively, but when they collaborated on the 2003 album Out Of Season...bloody hell, it was magic. Sends a shiver down my spine just thinking about it.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see them live in concert but TooYube has come to the rescue again, courtesy of the mighty Mike Armstrong, who has generously shared this gig from the Paléo Festival in Nyon, Switzerland on Saturday 26th July 2003.

 

Prepare to shed some tears at the sheer beauty of it all.

 

0:00:00 Mysteries

0:04:39 Romance

0:10:20 Drake

0:15:02 Resolve

0:18:40 Spider Monkey

0:24:22 Tom The Model

0:29:09 Sand River (Autumn Leaves)

0:34:24 Funny Time Of Year

0:45:15 Candy Says (Cover of The Velvet Underground)

0:50:36 Show

 

[bonus tracks]

0:59:31 Tom The Model (Later...With Jools Holland, 2nd October 2002) 

1:03:19 Mysteries (Later...With Jools Holland, 2nd October 2002)

Paul has released two further albums as Rustin Man, Drift Code (2019) and Clockdust (2020), both available via his website.

Beth returned with Krzysztof Penderecki and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2019. Their collaboration was a singular reading of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3 (Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs) Op. 36, again available via her website.

 

The impact of both on music and its possibilities is hugely, hugely underrated. I'll be coming back to both of them during 2024, I promise.

 

And Out Of Season wasn't the first time they'd worked together either: Beth appeared on the song Jalap in 1997. It was a track from Fields And Waves, the second album by .O.Rang aka Lee Harris and Paul Webb. Now .O.Rang is deserving of a post all by themselves....

Inheritance

Side 1 of a mixtape compiled for my friend Stuart in 1998, featuring Talk Talk and .O.Rang.

 

I've mixed feelings about posting a Talk Talk selection; I have this, plus another C90 collating songs from 1981 to 1988, and I've never been entirely happy with either. Little wonder, given the painstaking and shattering effect recording and honing the two albums in question - 1988's Spirit Of Eden and 1991's Laughing Stock - had on the band and the musicians involved.

 

The title is a song from the Spirit Of Eden album, which didn't actually make it onto this selection's final running order. Contrary? Moi?

By necessity of space and song balance, I went for the single edits of I Believe In You and Eden and included only one older song, the incredible remix of Happiness Is Easy from 1986, as a nod to the original C90 B-side, Paul Webb and Lee Harris' subsequent .O.Rang project.

An imperfect selection, to say the least, but the songs themselves more than make up for it.

1) The Rainbow (1988)

2) Myrrhman (1991)

3) I Believe In You (Single Version By Tim Friese-Greene) (1988)

4) Ascension Day (1991)

5) Happiness Is Easy (12" Mix By Paul Webb & Lee Harris) (1986)

6) Desire (1988)

7) Eden (Edit By Tim Friese-Greene) (1988)

8) John Cope (1988)

1986: I Don't Believe In You EP: 5 

1988: I Believe In You EP: 3, 7, 8

1988: Spirit Of Eden: 1, 6

1991: Laughing Stock: 2, 4

Inheritance (46:21) (GD) (M)

Some Recall Is Not Enough

A standalone single by Talk Talk, My Foolish Friend reached #57 in the UK charts. It remains one of my favourite Talk Talk songs, albeit one that signalled their increasing steps away from the pop pigeonhole record label EMI tried to fit them into.

Although My Foolish Friend didn't make it onto second album It's My Life, it continued to feature in their live sets up to 1986.

I originally got the 12" version on a Canadian import of the mini-album, It's My Mix. Years later, I discovered a copy of the 12" single in a secondhand shop in Perth, Western Australia. I bought it, dubbed the tracks onto a mixtape, then shipped it home to the UK with a box of other stuff via sea mail, eventually reunited with it in late 1991. Worth it for the James Marsh cover painting alone, let alone the music.

The B-side featured an early version of a song that subsequently appeared on It's My Life, albeit dropping from plural to singular along the way. This stripped down version of Call In The Night Boys features Phil Ramacon on piano and is a portent of the musical direction to come.

Again, the more uptempo version of Call In The Night Boy was still featuring in Talk Talk sets years later, though the original, minimal version remains my favourite.

My Foolish Friend (7" Mix): Talk Talk (1983) 

My Foolish Friend (Live @ 'Veronica Rocknight', Ahoy, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 21 September 1984): Talk Talk (1984) 

My Foolish Friend (Extended Version): Talk Talk (1983) 

Call In The Night Boys (Piano Version): Talk Talk (1983) 

Call In The Night Boy (Live @ 'Veronica Rocknight', Ahoy, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 21 September 1984): Talk Talk (1984)

How Can I Learn If I Don't Understand What I See

Arguably the greatest band that I never saw live, Talk Talk's London 1986 live album is a taster of what I missed. 

I taped the BBC Live In Concert show off the radio when it was originally broadcast and I finally got an extract of the previous night's show when it was eventually released on CD in 1999. I'd also seen the Live At Montreux concert on TV and I snapped up the 2008 DVD version. 

All are arguably definitive documents of Talk Talk's final live performances, but Plaza Mayor, Salamanca, Spain on 13 September 1986 is another gig that I wish I'd made it to.

Unfortunately, as a 15 year old, I'd only just started going to gigs in my hometown and The Colour Of Spring tour didn't get anywhere near Bristol, but Jeez, wouldn't it have been something...?

 

1) Talk Talk

2) Dum Dum Girl

3) Call In The Night Boy

4) Tomorrow Started

5) My Foolish Friend

6) Life's What You Make It

7) Mirror Man / Does Caroline Know?

8) It's You

9) Chameleon Day

10) Living In Another World

11) Give It Up

12) It's My Life

Encore:

13) Such A Shame

14) Renée

 

Live @ Plaza Mayor, Salamanca, Spain (13 Sep 1986) (2:00:38)*

* The concert ends at 1:24:58 - the remaining half an hour is an edit/medley of songs from earlier in the show.

Your Life Will Surely Change

As a follow up to Sunday's post, more The The, this time a selection of their videos, which are all rather wonderful. I still have Infected "The Movie" on VHS tape, unfortunately our video player is long dead, so I haven't been able to watch it in years. I remember seeing the whole thing on Channel 4. I loved the album but the video experience just blew me away. It was a really powerful visual and aural statement in the midst of mid-80s MTV pap.

 

Side One


1) I've Been Waitin' for Tomorrow (All of My Life) (1983)


2) I Want 2 B U (2020)


3) Pillar Box Red (2002)


4) The Beat(en) Generation (1989)


5) Out Of The Blue (Into The Fire) (1986)


6) Kingdom Of Rain (1989)



 

Side Two


1) Infected
 (1986)

2) Dogs Of Lust
 (1993)

3) This Is The Day
 (1983)

4) Sweet Bird Of Truth
 (1986)

5) We Can't Stop What's Coming
 (2017)

6) Love Is Stronger Than Death
 (1993)

 

Kingdom Of Rain features vocals from Sinéad O'Connor, who unfortunately doesn't appear in the video itself. All of the videos are taken from The The's official YouTube page, with the exception of This Is The Day.

Again, A Game...Again

A very fine 'pop' period Talk Talk song, tucked away as the B-side of the Such A Shame single in 1984 (or It's My Life in the USA & Canada) and dusted off for the 1998 compilation Asides Besides.