Richard Spencer and Andrew Jensen review Depeche Mode’s eigth studio album, Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993).Sound referencesDepeche Mode, “I Feel You,” Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993) Run DMC, “Peter Piper,” Party Girl (1986) Nirvana, “In Bloom,” Nevermind (1991) DM, “Condemnation (live),” Devotional Tour (1994) DM, “Condemnation (live),” Exotic Tour (1994) DM, “Higher Love (live),” DTDM, “I Feel You (live),” DT DM, “Walking in My Shoes,” SFDDM, “Condemnation,” SFDDM, “Mercy in You,” SFDDM, “Mercy in You” (live),” DTDM, “Judas,” SFDDM, “Judas (live),” DTDM, “Get Right with Me,” SFD DM, “In Your Room,” SFDThe Bangles, “In Your Room,” Everything (1998)DM, “Rush,” SFDDM, “One Caress,” SFDDM, “It Doesn't Matter Two” (live),” Exciter TourDM, “One Caress (live),” ET DM, “Higher Love (live),” ET DM, “Rush (live),” ETDM, “Question of Time (live), ETRecoil, “Black Box,” Liquid (2000)DM, “Fly on the Windscreen (live)”, ETDM, “Everything Counts (live),” ETDM, “Death’s Door (live),” DT This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit radixjournal.substack.com/subscribe
You take me there, you take me where the kingdom comes.
You take me to, you lead me through Babylon.
This is the morning of our love.
This is the morning of our love.
I feel you.
Your heart, it sings.
I feel you, the child breaks.
We're heavyweights.
We're going engaged.
Back again.
I feel you, the child breaks.
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah, I have a hard time saying that opinion.
I feel like my claim that Black Celebration is their greatest album is my attempt to be edgy and contrarian.
And it's hard.
To justify that when you listen to this whole thing.
So, I mean, you came to Depeche Mode later than I did.
Yeah. So, you're listening to this all, like, over the past, say, five years or so.
Is that the first time you've heard these songs?
Yeah, probably about 2020 was the first time I actually sat down and listened to it, like, front to back.
And I was taken by it, definitely.
I think just the combination, you know, I think...
For me, what it is about this album is the combination of having this programmed electronic music, but also these live rock and roll grunge, bluesy aspects as well to the music.
And it's all blended into a coherent album.
I mean, that's another thing that I recognized listening to the vinyl.
I've listened to it a number of times actually now.
And I would say this.
As I was saying, listening to Exciter, Afraid to say, or I'm ashamed to say, felt a bit like homework.
And this one, it really draws you in.
You don't want to do anything else.
And it is an amazingly coherent album.
Probably their best.
I agree.
It's right at the midpoint of their career.
They've brought in Rock, grunge, a little bit of record scratching.
And they've somehow made it all work.
I remember the first time I heard the album.
I was a fan, as I've said many times, even when I was quite young.
And I was in high school.
I was a freshman in high school in 1994.
I remember hearing I Feel You on the radio, and I was taken aback by it, actually.
And, you know, when I hear it now, I think it's their best opening track, actually, because it just gets you...
Yeah, yeah.
Repetitive. Yeah, it is Debesh mode.
It's kind of funny because the record scratch at the time in the early to mid-90s, records had died.
There were tapes, eight-track.
I remember my grandparents had an eight-track player into the 90s, perhaps in an old car.
All these funny albums from the 70s.
The cassette tape had replaced it.
CDs had been the rage.
And so even the record scratch in that way, the only time you heard a record scratch was hip-hop or the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or something.
Yeah. And it's this gimmick.
It's this gimmick.
Like, this kind of thing.
And to bring it in as this dissonant, edgy, like, it's kind of like, you know, like a horror film where they'll have, like, the plucking the high strings.
It's almost like that.
It just gets your attention.
It puts you on edge.
It's not at a tone, or it's at multiple tones or whatever, and it just kind of...
This makes you disconcerted, actually.
So yeah, I think it's the best use of record scratching in all of popular music.
I'll give it that.
But when I remember hearing it, it was on the radio and it was announced because, I mean, this was at the peak of Depeche Mode's fame.
Violator had cemented their reputation in America.
Music for the Mass is the first kind of American album.
This went number one in the United States and the UK.
I mean, it was a remarkable thing.
So people were kind of waiting for it and expecting it.
And at the time, I was, I guess, a bit of a hipster even then.
I was listening to New Order, their album Substance, which is a compilation, great album.
I was almost expecting them to offer a kind of 80s synth-pop.
And for it to be...
I don't know what I wanted.
Maybe I wanted Speak and Spell or something.
Or maybe Enjoy the Silence as the kind of apotheosis of what synth-pop could be.
And it was quintessentially Debesh Mode, granted, but it was also something quite...
And it was 90s.
It was grunge.
I mean, you see all of these interviews with Dave and he had moved away from the band.
He was living in Los Angeles.
He wanted to make a Jane's Addiction album or something like that.
He was right in the midst of the Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Jane's Addiction, etc.
This kind of 90s music that had replaced top of the charts pop.
With synthesizers, etc., or a Madonna or something.
This had just wiped it away.
Alternative music was becoming the mainstream.
Next, ladies and gentlemen, we have three fine young men from Seattle.
They're coming.
Hold on, they're coming.
They're thoroughly all right and decent fellows with their hit single, In Bloom.
Here they are.
Nirvana! You know,
they are kind of doing a Me Too thing with that.
They're following a trend, etc.
But they make it their own.
And so, and I think they bring something to grunge, if we want to use that word, that I don't think would exist otherwise.
And that's not just synthesizers or string arrangements.
I think they bring something quintessentially Martin Gore.
And as I will discuss in this review, this is by far and away their most Christian album.
And you see it in the title Songs of Faith and Devotion.
He is...
Martin has gone there a few times with sacred, you know, an obvious example.
Personal Jesus may be an even more obvious.
It's about having faith or, you know, lifting up receiver and finding your savior.
This, I think, is Christian on an even deeper level and American on a deeper level.
And I think there's, you know, continuing with what we'll talk about with the Ultra Review, there's this way that Martin seems to be channeling Dave Gahan's mind space, and I think that is fascinating.
But as we'll go through, I think there's a Christian story in the album, and that the album is a kind of, I guess, concept album, if that's the right term, you know, like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
or... What I think of is Abba and Tim Rice created the concept album Chess, which is like a musical, but it's not really a musical.
It's a concept album where the whole thing tells a story and is coherent.
And it's not like a one-to-one thing.
It's not like a musical, say, where one track leads to the other exactly, but it kind of does do that in certain ways.
But I think it also tells a very...
Christian story.
There have been albums that really cohered well, Black Celebration certainly being one.
But I think this does it on a whole other level.
So, yeah, I mean, to sum up my opener here, yeah, you win.
This is their greatest.
Let's go.
All right.
I'm glad.
Yeah, so just to provide a little bit of background, I think after the World Violation Tour, which was 90 shows, 1990 to 91, I believe, the band is kind of, they want to take a different direction.
And Martin was in interviews at the time saying, people expect us to make a hard dance album.
And maybe that's what you were wanting from them around this time.
I think a lot of people were expecting a Violator 2. And they were definitely not going to do that.
Certainly not.
Dave did not want to do Violator 2. I think he's, at that point, he had really shown, like, he's a different person.
I mean, he's like Dark Dave.
Like, he's an augmented version of this ideal, like, rock star, you know?
He's obviously on heroin.
His behavior is clearly more erratic.
In interviews, I don't even know what he's talking about.
Very unfocused.
But yeah, I mean, a lot of them are all the band members are just changing and becoming like adults and in a way, like becoming like, you know, old and set in their ways.
Martin around this time, I believe, has his first child.
Fletch is almost like totally non-existent as far as giving musical input.
Might help out in the studio, but...
I was watching an interview with Paul Gambicini around this time, and he's basically saying like, yeah, I'm like the band's manager.
You know, I'm not singing on anything.
And it was very strange.
And he was saying that that's actually how modern bands should work.
Can't really disagree anymore.
I think if you want to be a manager, you should be a manager.
And I think Alan at this time is at his peak.
This album in particular is why I stand for him so hard, because Yeah, he's producing these soundscapes and these atmospheres, which are so unique, I think, to them.
And he's taking Martin's songs to another level.
Yeah, I've never disagreed with any of your standing for Alan.
Yeah, this is from Stripped.
I think it sums it up.
So it's Paul Lester, Melody Maker.
If you look at him, Dave Gahan, in 1980, 1981, he looks like the kind of kid that you'd see in Dulcey's, which is a shoe store in London, I guess.
I've never heard of it.
On a Saturday, getting you the right size hush puppies.
So I do know what hush puppies are.
Those are shoes.
You have this just nice kid with the poofy hair.
He looks younger than he is.
If that's possible.
And then Paul Morley, this is later on.
And then when you came back from LA, he was Jesus.
He was tattooed from head to toe.
He was skinny.
All the puppy fat had gone.
He was incredibly intense.
He was such a long way from the little beanie baby.
This is kind of funny.
But yeah, heroin had a lot to do with that weight loss.
I've heard he weighed 120 pounds.
I mean, Dave is...
Fairly short, but still, he was skin and bones.
He's a different persona.
I mean, I think it also shows how drugs, and not just drugs, but I think being a junkie, living on drugs, alter the personality.
I mean, I hate to even say this, but maybe for the best in a...
In a horrible way.
I mean, in the sense of like a sacrifice of Dave.
I mean, this was a great, this was, it's their best album.
Dave's vocal performance might be his best.
And I mean, he's always pointed out his performance in Condemnation is great.
I mean, I think all of it's great.
He's now in his 30s, so he's mature.
He... Is embracing the baritone in a way that other bands can't do that.
They can't have the low, dark sound in the way he does.
And his persona is pretty mesmerizing.
I mean, there's a video that's out there.
It's on YouTube.
I think it's a little bit hard to find on streaming of the devotional tour.
And there's a live album as well.
And the persona is pretty mesmerizing.
The concert that was, you know, I guess the first part of the tour, it's veiled, at least at the beginning.
You have all of these curtains kind of moving in different directions.
This is all Corbin, Anton Corbin's doing.
And so you don't know what's going on.
You see shadows.
You can kind of vaguely see the shadow of a keyboard player.
Then you see vaguely a shadow of Dave singing, and he comes out and he really is Jesus.
And I mean, this will have highs and lows.
You have that type of persona.
He also had to quasi-cancel a concert because he couldn't sing anymore, not due to loss of voice, but due to just exhaustion, dehydration, drug use, etc.
He dove into...
The crowd at one point and cracked his ribs.
I mean, that strikes me as just he's going mad, you know, in the conventional sense.
But it's not quite as he will be performing elsewhere.
And there was this moment in time, kind of early adulthood.
When he just became another character, it's like Dark Dave, if you want to say that.
It's just some other part of his psyche, and maybe one that's been skewed and transformed, but it is a different person on stage than you see in other concerts, where he's, you know, the 101 tour,
he's a bit Elvis-like, but kind of rocking, excited, boisterous, almost kind of like...
A little bit of, like, frat bro or something, like, you know, let's go type thing.
There's just someone totally different that you see on stage.
And I'm struggling.
It's waif.
I mean, I'm struggling to find a word for it, but other than just Jesus-like, it's like how you would imagine Jesus.
He became his own personal Jesus.
And it's remarkable.
I mean, again, all I've read and then heard in these interviews is that The recording session was hellish.
I mean, Alan left.
Blood left.
The band was not getting along.
And Martin and Alan, who are the kind of creative forces, are arguing vehemently.
They're living in a villa together in Madrid for a time.
And I think they go to Hamburg at some point.
And it's...
I don't know.
You'll sometimes hear these tales of, you know, like...
A movie set that was terrible and everyone hates each other, but the movie works.
We've heard more tales of when that leads to a disastrous result.
But this chaos and dysfunction birthed their best album.
And I think also Dave's downward spiral in some ways led him to his best performances.
Bizarre. Maybe that's not the right word.
It almost hurts me to say that.
But it's almost true.
It's like they had to walk on broken glass or be dragged over coals in order to produce this.
But then the result is their greatest effort.
It's remarkable stuff.
Yeah, from what I understand, Violator was a pretty happy album.
Everybody was getting along.
But then when it came to Songs of Faith and Devotion, it's just three different people with three different ideas for an album.
I think Martin wanted to remain more on the electronic side.
Dave definitely wanted to be, like you said, Jane's Addiction.
And I think Alan wanted to be electronic but have more atmospheric, basically reminiscent of the stuff that...
He would have done on Recoil.
Yeah, Dave is darker and he's tougher and he's raspier.
It's weird because he's got some of his best and worst performances on this tour.
I mean, it is like all or nothing.
He's going for it on every live performance.
He's going for it, screaming.
You can tell he's getting hoarse when he's singing a song like Condemnation, when he's singing it live.
Because my juice was always debuting.
That was my cry.
Mitilation. Hard to know I can trust this mixer.
In fact, on the second tour in 94, the exotic tour, Martin's actually singing Condemnation, which is really a totally different song.
When Martin sings it, it becomes something closer to one caress than the Condemnation that we know on the record.
Yeah. My overall impression of the album is that it's like a catharsis,
whether it's because of the tension in the studio and nobody can agree on anything.
I mean, as I've heard before, Flood was saying that if everybody agreed on one thing, well, then I didn't agree on something.
And if I didn't agree on something, then Martin disagreed and Alan disagreed.
It was...
There was never a consensus on anything, and every little detail was quibbled over, I guess.
But it also feels cathartic in the sense that they finally reached number one in America, which they had been trying to break really since 1984, I'd say.
It was about the closest they had been before Violator, well, before Music for the Masters.
Cathartic in the sense that...
They've done this work now in the studio, and they've sonically come up with this masterpiece, and it's just the biggest debauched party for 157 shows between the two tours.
I would agree, definitely, with the American characterization.
I definitely think this is their most American album because we have influences of blues, gospel, even hip-hop, I'll say, with those record scratches, like on a song, Get Right With Me, and then definitely grunge.
But I would still nonetheless categorize this as electronic.
Everything does cohere.
I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that they're sampling guitar feedback and they're sampling all this distortion and running it through sequencers and samplers.
But I will say this as well, that Martin has never had a better, more consistent batch of songs with which to work.
And Alan has never been more consistent with his production than this period, 91 to 94. This, I think, is where everything just absolutely comes together.
Everything came together on Violator, but everything really comes together on this album.
And it's just so much...
Violator, it's dark, but it's like danceable.
It's kind of...
What did you say about World In My Eyes?
It was kind of like a Michael Jackson song or something like that.
Yeah, a bit like that.
But this is just raw and kick-ass.
Dave's showing his soul and just putting it out on display for everybody.
And the instrumentation is...
I mean, Alan playing the drums gives it a fuller, heavier, rockier sound.
And like I said on our Ultra podcast, if Ultra is the hangover, then Songs of Faith and Devotion is the party.
And it's like 2 a.m. and nobody's innocent.
You know, it's just pure ecstasy.
Yeah. And it's interesting.
On tour, Alan was playing the drums.
I mean, you can see that in this Corbin-directed concert movie.
And it's interesting because I think they...
They've been using a lot of the same design for their concerts beginning here.
And so, as I mentioned earlier, the stage is veiled at the beginning.
Their opening number is not, I feel you, but it's actually Higher Love, which is interesting because it's a bit of a, you know, I don't know, deep cut on the album.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I can almost lay my hands apart A warm glow that lingers up Moved, lifted
higher Moved, my soul's on fire Moved,
by a higher ground Moved, by a higher
ground
Martin is playing, you know, a big Elvis-era guitar.
And yeah, I mean, it's something that they'll continue to do later on.
It really started here.
And then also the iconography, like with Walking in My Shoes, of this masked figure, the giant nose.
I mean, I don't even know what it is.
It's like out of a kind of like the id or something archetypal image.
And that's walking, a big bird that's walking, that's here.
And then they're also doing, and I don't quite even know how they're doing it.
I mean, they might just be projecting like recorded video or I guess film even, probably video at that point.
But there are these shadows and these red squares.
It's, again, it's a really iconic concert where it's like a full production.
And all of the...
The atmosphere in every concert that I've been to is kind of created at that point by Corbin.
Why don't we start with I Feel You.
Why don't we start with
I Feel You.
Why don't we start with
I Feel You.
Why don't we start with I Feel You.
I mean, this is a hard-walking number, and I guess we've heard this before with Personal Jesus, but I think also this takes it to another level.
I mean, Personal Jesus is kind of about having faith or connecting with Savior or maybe connecting with a televangelist.
But I Feel You is about the experience of it.
I do also think that this is getting at what I've said a couple times in these podcasts where there's this conflation between religion and a particularly Christian experience and then loving a woman or sexiness or mystery.
She moves in mysterious ways, so to speak.
And it's interesting because if you look at these lyrics closely, Martin really is saying that.
I don't think he's using words like kingdom come and Babylon and angels and so on, just kind of like throwing them out there.
I think there's a deliberate use of these to express a kind of Christian experience, but it's one where you go through sin and lust and ecstasy, etc.
So, I mean, I'm sure many would find this blasphemous, but it is what he's trying to do.
So, I mean, I feel you.
Your sun, it shines.
I feel you within my mind.
You take me there.
You take me where the kingdom comes.
You take me to and lead me through Babylon.
So, I think the through is an important word.
So, it's...
It's not like you take me to Babylon.
It's you take me through Babylon.
So through full indulgence in lust, you're getting to a higher place.
And then, you know, in the final stanza, I feel you each move you make.
I feel you each breath you take.
Where angels sing and spread their wings, my love's on high.
You take me home to glory's throne by and by.
So he's gone from Babylon, which obviously in the biblical imagination is a, you know, tower of Babel, a place of sin and debauchery, a competitor to Jerusalem, all that kind of stuff.
And you take me through that.
And then you finally take me home to heaven.
So it's a song about lust and sex, of course, but it's a lust and sex, like, through a...
Christian imagination.
And, you know, I find this interesting with Martin because I've watched a lot of these documentaries.
I'm sure the same ones you have to prep for this.
I've definitely seen a lot of interviews with him.
And if you just hear him talk in a mundane fashion or answering interviews, you never get a sense of his...
Christianity, if that's the right way of saying it, at all.
And he's just kind of a goofy, sensitive rock star, you know, and very kind of childlike, even today.
And I don't know if anyone's ever probed him on this, in fact, because I think popular music rock criticism is so lacking.
That everyone just wants to get anecdotes about the tour or something.
They don't want to probe the song.
But again, if you listen to him interviewed, you'd never get this sense.
You just get the sense that he's just some kind of goofy, thoughtful, smart child who writes these songs.
But I don't think he's ever really expressed his Christianity, but he's only expressed it in his lyrics.
In his lyrics, and again, as we go through these, it's unmistakable and undeniable.
Yeah, I think that he's just kind of a dorky kind of band kid.
He's like the anti-Bano.
Bano's out there.
He's bold.
He's stating his message.
He's almost like a prophet in training.
But Martin's very timid and reserved.
Yeah, like you said, he's not...
He does not wear this on his sleeve whatsoever.
As far as I Feel You, obviously it's one of the highlights of the album.
I think the sound is interesting with the panning of the bass, which you see a lot, especially on a song like In Your Room.
I think it's a very American-sounding song because of the blues shuffle rhythm.
The usage of the phrase, I feel you, that you hear a lot of American blacks use, though he's not using it this way, but just like that kind of just, I understand you, that's not how he's using it, but just the fact that he is using it kind of caught my ear.
And I think the band is certainly, this is one of the tracks that I tagged as like very American because of that grungy, bluesy.
I think every single one of these songs, including this one, have this lord and lady dichotomy that we've talked about before, or maybe lord and lust dichotomy that Martin always uses,
where one doesn't know if Martin is talking about a woman or God.
I mean, take me to and lead me through.
Through oblivion.
Sort of like gave me, again, these kind of Armageddon or revelation type of sentiments.
Yeah. But I was curious what you thought about...
Death before heaven.
Yes. But I was curious what you thought about your rising sun.
Is that their most Apollonian lyric?
I say that in jest.
Yeah, I would take that in jest.
Yeah, I mean, it's...
I'm not sure he's really going for that, but yeah.
But yeah, I mean, the predominant theme is going through lust, Babylon, going through death, oblivion, and ending up in heaven.
And that's the primary motive, I would say.
But yeah, even the rising sun to describe a woman or Jesus?
I mean, Jesus has been connected with the rising sun quite a bit.
You know, winter solstice, the sun starts, the sun rises again, and all that kind of stuff.
Sun and sun is an interesting pun, S-U-N-S-O-N.
Kind of unintentional, I guess, but interesting.
And yeah, I think that's there.
But again, I don't think the song has the...
Hold on your imagination unless you understand its Christian quality.
Now, this might be an opportunity to talk about a subject which I think we probably addressed in the Spirit Review, which was Martin Gore's blackness.
Let me just read a couple of paragraphs from Stripped.
At his Harpenden house at the conclusion of the World Violation Tour with his pregnant Texas girlfriend, Suzanne Boisvert, or however you pronounce it, whom he had met in Paris,
of all places.
Around that time, Gore was understandably shocked at the revelation that the man he had always thought was his father was, in fact, his stepfather.
Martin rang me up one day in a fair old lava, an old school friend revealed.
But with Martin, you have to wait until you get to a point where you can say, so what happened?
And he said, Suzanne was carrying their first child, Viva Lee.
It's funny, this text is Viva Lee.
And then he said, "You're not going to believe this, but by old man's a black man." Basically, Martin's mom went out with this guy.
They weren't married, and Martin was the offshoot of it all.
But the strange thing about it was that his nickname at school was Curly because of his curly locks.
And he's got a big, long brown knob.
That's a penis.
We used to go swimming at school and getting change, you'd think, "Fucking
That ain't the same color as mine.
Anyway... The only reason Martin's mom told him about his biological father was that Suzanne, who's a white Texan, was having his baby and she didn't want them to have a little black baby and not know about it.
This is a bit politically incorrect, but I guess genetically accurate.
While Gore remained ostensibly Caucasian in appearance, there was the possibility of his parents' mixed race union having a profound physical effect on his own offspring.
Viva Lee Gore was born on June 6, 1991.
In the event, such concerns proved unfounded.
And I would underline that.
Gore's biological father had been an American GI stationed in the UK when he met Martin's mother with unplanned consequences.
The same unnamed source reveals that although Martin did eventually meet his father, reading between the lines, it was not under pleasant circumstances.
This is Gore.
He lived in a shotgun shack somewhere in the deep south.
He still lived with his own father, Grandpappy.
And I think there was an element of this guy having found his long lost son who was famous and very, very rich.
I remember the last drunken conversation we had and I said, did you ever get in touch with your dad again?
And Martin said, no, it didn't work out in the end.
I have trouble believing this story.
And I'm not saying that.
Due to my own notorious convictions about things.
If Martin Gore were as black as night, or if he were Indian or Chinese, I would not care.
I am able to see something that transcends circumstance and race and all that kind of stuff.
I just simply don't believe this story because from the reporting that Martin gave about going somewhere in the deep south and like a shotgun shack and, you know, living with grandpappy and all that,
I just get the very strong sense that this man is not a mulatto or something like that.
I bet he was drafted into the service, spent some time in the UK, Or maybe not drafted, but joined up.
And I don't doubt that his mother might have had a sort of relationship with him, fleeting as it is.
And also, it's undeniable that Martin has curly hair.
That is, I guess, somewhat unusual, apparently, with regard to his mother.
And there's the penis thing.
I mean, I don't even know what to make of that.
He's such a kind of childlike person.
It's kind of funny to imagine he's got a big dick, but whatever.
It just doesn't matter.
The fact is, people who are half mixed race, who are half black, look like Barack Obama.
And it is possible that you could just have a seemingly white child with a black man.
It's certainly possible if he's of mixed race too.
It's a genetic lottery and just the genes line up and you produce more.
I remember some story a while back that was in one of those terrible British newspapers about this mixed-race couple, and they had fraternal twins.
Separate eggs that had both been fertilized and one was one baby was black and one was white or something.
And I think the man was mixed race and the woman is white.
And so it just kind of ended up looking that way.
But it's again, it's like thousands of hundreds of thousands of genes alighting.
It's not like there's one gene like you white, like you black.
You know, like on-off switch.
It's a, you know, varied combination.
And so you do have someone like Barack Obama, who looks definitely different than his father, but is unmistakably of African descent.
I don't believe this, and I also think it would have shown in Viva Lee's, you know, outward characteristics, physiognomy.
I think his mother probably was sleeping around, and she might have even genuinely believed this, or she might have been embarrassed about the man who actually is Martin's father,
and made up a story that by the 90s was actually politically correct, particularly now that Martin is rich and famous and nothing can really slow him down.
I think that is what is happening, and I think there is a different curly-haired man who had an encounter with Martin Gore's mother at some point, and that produced Martin.
Maybe she's embarrassed about that.
Maybe she's kind of fantasizing about Martin's father.
But I just have an exceedingly hard time believing that his father is an African-American guy and it would have shown up.
But that is just simply my opinion.
It's speculation.
Martin didn't bond with him.
I know he'd never met him before, but, you know, the call of blood, it's pretty strong.
You probably would have bonded with your father at some level.
I wonder if they had even the same, you know how twins separated, obviously they're not twins, but twins separated at birth will have similar mannerisms and stuff like that.
If one bites their nails, the other one will.
I wonder if they had anything like that.
But as far as I understand, though, you're saying in that passage, this was not substantiated, correct?
No, there's not been a DNA test or anything like that.
Interesting. I mean, maybe if the guy wanted money or something, he might do.
I don't know.
I don't think Martin owes him any money.
It would be the reverse.
Like, you would prove paternity for child support or something.
But maybe he just wanted...
Again, I don't want to bash the guy.
He seems like a perfectly nice character.
But I just...
Again, it's just a weird thing, and I just simply don't believe it.
And the other thing, it...
I think I'm not the only one who is highly skeptical of this because whenever I hear about Martin Gore or read something about him or it's never mentioned, I think basically most everyone comes to the same conclusion that I do, which is that Martin Gore's mother,
there's some story there that she's trying to avoid or something.
I don't know.
Yeah. Well, I mean, how many Irish people or maybe even some English people have curly hair?
I don't know.
Or a fucking big dick.
Like, it's not that impossible.
That's interesting.
He just doesn't match up.
Like, he's got a bridge in his nose.
He's got very pale skin.
Yeah. It's unbelievable, basically.
But, you know, it kind of adds to the legend.
And it does make...
I don't know.
It adds like a...
It adds a layer.
I mean, if you imagine that Martin might believe this, again, he doesn't talk about it, so I'm not even sure he believes in himself.
But it does add a little bit of a layer to the bluesy songs, the African-American songs, like all Soul Sisters and Soul Brothers.
I mean, it adds a little layer, but that's about...
All I would say about it.
As long as we're on the topic, though, real quick, I know that, I don't think I said this in our first podcast, but Dave's biological father was like a melee Indian or something, like an Indian from Malaysia, I believe.
And that I can actually see, Dave's kind of like, he's like the darkest in the band, and I was saying on Twitter how he kind of looks like, in his elder age, he kind of looks like Ben Kingsley playing Gandhi a little bit.
He just kind of looks like...
Ben Kingsley anyway.
But yeah, that is actually pretty interesting.
Yeah, that I can believe.
I think we talked a little bit about this with Ultra, but Dave is walking in his father's shoes, so to speak.
So he has three wives.
There's Joanne from Basildon.
There's Teresa and then Jennifer.
And they're kind of three stages of his life.
So there's the Basildon girl.
They were married for about six years.
They have a child.
Teresa just seems to be toxic.
And I mentioned her a little bit with Ultra.
She apparently had some sort of foreign career.
She was their American publicist.
And, you know, this was at the height of their fame.
And also, when they're still young, they're probably, you know, sleeping with everything that has a skirt or a pulse.
And she is part of that.
And as I mentioned with Ultra, I think she was actually really toxic.
And in some ways, she offers a little bit of defense for Dave.
For abandoning his child with Joanne.
So when he got out of rehab, I think it was the first time, she said, just because you have to stop drinking and drugging doesn't mean I have to.
I won't.
And that is, as I mentioned, quite possibly the worst thing you could do for someone who is on death's door.
And so she was almost expressed his descent into...
I mean, when they got married, it was in Vegas.
None of the other band members were there.
It was this Elvis-themed debacle.
Luckily, he got away from her.
And when he describes Jennifer from Arizona, he says she doesn't even care about her music.
She just cares about me.
She seems...
I don't know much about her at all, but she just seems stable and normal, someone who would never have any interest in heroin.
and that
Yeah, it's interesting because I've seen pictures of them on Instagram and stuff, and she looks like she could be his sister or something.
I mean, I'm not making fun of them.
It's just kind of funny how that worked.
But I guess it's a win for the ortho bros because she's Greek and I believe there's a photo around there, around the Internet somewhere of them getting married in a Orthodox church in New York
City.
Oh, interesting.
But this is, Dave, my dad left me and my young sister when we were very young, and I've done the same to Jack.
I was with Joanne for a long time and were great friends, but what happened was 90% my fault.
But I'm determined to see Jack as much as I can.
Thankfully, Joanne understands.
Well, I mean, she is quite understanding.
But, you know, it is what it is.
It's a common story.
And as we were talking about with Ultra, it's almost like he played the part of the rock star descending into drugs, suicide, and overdose.
It's almost like that archetype existed and he just stepped into it.
But it's certainly not something you would imagine with this bright, almost nerdy kid from Speak and Spell.
And it's definitely not even something you would imagine with Music for the Masses or something, a kind of rocking, gung-ho guy.
But it's definitely something you can imagine when you see the personal transformation with songs of faith and devotion.
say about the things that put me through, the pain I've been subjected to.
But the Lord himself overblushed.
The canvas piece laid at my feet, forbidden fruits for me to eat.
But I think your pulse would start to rush.
Now I'm not looking for absolution, forgiveness for the things I do.
But before you come to any conclusion, try walking in my shoes.
Try walking in my shoes.
You're stumbling my footsteps.
Keep the same of what I can't.
If you try walking in my shoes.
If you try walking in my shoes.
You're stumbling my footsteps.
Walking in My Shoes.
This is where I would suggest there's a little bit of a courtroom drama, so to speak, with three songs in a row, and maybe four.
But it's interesting.
And again, you don't get this from interviews of Martin, but when I hear this song and read the lyrics, I almost imagine a...
Southern courtroom with the fan overhead moving and people fanning themselves on the jury.
Or maybe a scene from Dead Man Walking where the murderer is being put to death.
And that's the vibe I get from these three songs, Walking in My Shoes, Condemnation, and Mercy in You.
He wants to be understood.
But he doesn't want to be absolved.
No, I'm not looking for absolution, forgiveness for the things I do.
But before you come to any conclusions, try walking in my shoes.
You'll stumble in my footsteps.
Keep the same appointments I kept.
You're walking in my shoes.
So morality would frown upon, decency looked down upon, the scapegoat's fate made of me.
So he's kind of putting it off.
It's not necessarily his fault.
But I promise now my judge and jurors, my intentions couldn't have been pure.
My case is easy to see.
So I think that's kind of an underappreciated aspect of it.
He's a man on trial in a courtroom who's done something bad.
And he's basically saying, you don't really understand me.
You can't until you walk in my shoes.
You can't understand why I left my son, maybe, or why I've become a junkie until you keep the appointments that I kept.
Yeah, and with you saying that, him being on trial kind of reinforces the Christ-like image as well, with Christ being...
You know, on trial in some sense by the Romans.
The lyrics are kind of saying, like, pretty subversive because he's saying something like, I've been through more than the Lord has almost, like, that the Lord himself all would blush.
And I think Martin, in a way, is getting at a...
It's like with the, I'm not looking for absolution.
It's like reinforcing a Christian message or the original sin perspective of like, some don't want to be saved.
And this is like, I'm proving it to you because I don't want to be saved.
So it's almost like reinforcing that Christian understanding of human nature.
If you try walking in my shoes, you wouldn't last.
It's a rather resentful lyric.
And I do think the...
Scapegoat Fates Made of Me is perhaps one of his best lyrics of all time.
I think that's a really interesting lyric because it kind of illustrates how Martin feels as a victim, but by two different sort of cosmologies.
With faith, there's this idea of destiny and things are going to happen.
It's kind of like free will versus determinism sort of thing.
I think that's a really interesting yet simple way that he just put that together with the scapegoat that fate's made of me.
And he's kind of like having these sins placed on him, which also in a strange way invokes
I'm holding everybody's problems and it's all...
But I'd like to read a quote about the construction or the sound for this song because Alan was asked about it by a fan and he says it was constructed using an unusual method for us, i.e.
jamming together.
Martin played the guitar, I played the bass.
And we ran a rhythm machine.
This was just to get the basic feel for the track, and after much trial and error, the chorus, bassline, and guitar pattern fell into place.
From that point onwards, Flood and I began to construct the various drum loops, the string arrangements, the main riff, which combined a piano and harpsichord through a distorted guitar hand, and all the other bits and pieces.
By contrast, the bassline for the verses was much more problematic, and in fact didn't get written until the very last...
And that bass line actually is, I think, one of their more iconic bass lines or sounds on this album.
It sounds like Alan wrote this song.
Yeah. And it's one of their best.
I mean, it's a classic.
You can't do a concert without it, I would say.
No. I totally agree.
Yeah, I read that as well, about the jam session being very unusual, and they came up with this, but it almost sounds like Alan wrote it.
Yeah, I mean, that's sort of the thing.
Like I've said a dozen times now, it's like he is just that much better at realizing.
He might not be able to come up with the lyrics, which is like Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones was like that too.
He couldn't write a song, but he could kind of realize.
A song and figure out kind of what direction to take it in.
Yeah. Bono would do that as well.
They would get a riff or a rhythm section or some basic idea and he'd kind of in this like fury come up with the theme of the song.
like find it in the music which is pretty interesting i'm not looking for a clearer conscience Yes.
Peace of mind after what I feel true.
And before we talk of any repentance, try walking in my shoes.
Try walking in my shoes You're stumbling my footsteps Can't you say that you're the time that If you try walking in
my shoes Try walking in my shoes If you try walking in my shoes So...
So, Condemnation is next.
This seems to follow immediately after the trial, or he's still on trial?
Again, this is where I think there are these little, I guess, kind of like response songs, or like a little opera, you could say, within the album.
So, Condemnation tried.
Here on the stand with the book in my hand and truth on my side, accusations, lies.
Hand me my sentence, I'll show no repentance, I'll suffer with pride.
If you see purity as immaturity, well, it's no surprise.
If for kindness you substitute blindness, please open your eyes.
So it's basically the man, perhaps at the end of his trial, recognizing that he's going to be found guilty and saying, I'm not going to show.
So they just kind of follow right one from the other.
Really amazing blues quality to it.
As Dave said, this was his best vocal performance.
I mean, he's really letting it out, being a real singer and not just the front man of a synth pop outfit.
And yeah, I would say it's one of their...
Best songs on the album, maybe in general.
It's classic.
Come then.
Tried Book in my Truth on my side Accusations
Lies Hand me my sentence I'll show no repentance I'll suffer With pride If
for honesty You want apologies I Don't sympathise For kindness You substitute blindness Please open your eyes Condemnation
Why Condemnation Why Because my duty Was always to beauty Condemnation.
Why? Because my duty was always a duty.
That was my crime.
Feel elation.
I, to know I can do my love.
I kind of got my gears turning when you started to talk about these songs in succession.
And it kind of is starting to be like a mini little passion of the Christ, I think.
Yes. That will continue.
Yeah, that's interesting.
But again, though, with the American-ness and the blackness, I mean, this is their first gospel record.
Yeah. That's incredible to me.
What's even more incredible is that...
Martin and Alan are the ones singing these harmonies.
And they're doing it in their own way with the...
Yeah, and it's like...
The chords themselves aren't very unique.
It's C to E to F to G to F to A minor and E to C. There's a couple lifts in there with that E major, but none of this is really...
None of it's too crazy.
And they're still finding a way to make it sound like Depeche Mode with these dissonant harmonies.
And yeah, again, it's another, like I said earlier, lord and lady kind of positioning with the lyrics.
You know, if you want honesty, if for honesty you want apologies, I don't sympathize.
It's kind of like asking...
The court, I guess in this case, to open their eyes to his goodness.
At least that's the way that I'm taking it.
It's great.
I think one of the best lyrics is, for kindness you substitute blindness, please open your eyes.
It's kind of like the turning the other cheek, like form of cowardice, basically, or go along to get along in a relationship.
Yeah. And then this is followed by yet another perspective of the condemned man or prisoner.
Whatever his name was, like Johnny Lee Ray or whatever he's going to be executed in Dead Man Walking, which came out around this time, by the way.
Great film.
Mercy in you.
You know what I need when my heart bleeds.
I suffer from greed, a longing to feed on the mercy in you.
So he's begging for mercy.
And again, Martin's lyrics describe it in the most Martin Gore type way.
I'm begging to feed on the mercy in you.
And then there's this like...
Part of, I guess, self-deprecation or introspection.
I would do it all again.
Lose my way and fall again just so I could call again on the mercy in you.
So I'm losing my way.
I'm ending up in a LA hotel strung out on heroin just so I could call on you to save me.
It's a great lyric.
Definitely. There's
something about this track that's all major chords, but a lot of them don't have anything to do with each other.
There's these big lifts, for example, from A-flat to C. It's kind of a strange...
Lift, you know, and then...
Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely...
They do that chorus of like, I would do it all again.
So they're going from an A-flat minor to C major?
Is that what they're doing?
Or A-flat major to C major?
I think it's just A-flat major.
At least the chords that I have, they're not official, but the chords that I have, every single chord in the song is major.
Yeah, I guess that's right.
It is a major song.
It's interesting.
One of the very few.
But yeah, that is a major shift, going up a third.
And you can feel it.
He does that a couple of times in this kind of dramatic key change in the chorus.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
So Judas is next, and it's interesting that it's called Judas, but I think the song is from the perspective of Jesus.
And, you know, mercy in you, it's the sinner or the condemned man almost calling for mercy and loving mercy, feeding on mercy, needing this, I don't know, I'm just imagining a woman, maybe Lady Justice, who knows.
But Judas...
I think it's a fascinating song, and it has this kind of stripped-down quality to it.
And it just sounds like something.
It's Martin Gore's Jesus, or maybe Dave.
Is simplicity best or simply the easiest?
The narrowest path is always the holiest.
So walk unbarefoot for me.
Suffer some misery if you want my love.
It's not...
Not necessarily the Jesus that you meet in the Gospels, but it's definitely someone who's asking these rhetorical questions to try to reframe things in your mind, like Jesus.
And he's calling on his disciples to suffer for him.
A man will survive the harshest conditions and stay alive through difficult decisions.
So make up your mind for me.
Walk the line for me if you want my love.
And then this idle talk and it's a key change for the chorus.
And hollow promises cheating Judas's doubting Thomas's.
I think this is a place where again he's not just Martin is not just writing about say something that's sacred.
He's putting himself in the position of Jesus in a way that the song is Sung from the mouth of Jesus.
again it's not something he would have tried earlier and I think it's remarkable music
Is simplicity best?
Or simply the easiest?
The narrowest path Is always the holiest To walk on barefoot for me Suffer some misery If you want my love If you want my love Man will survive Judas...
I think it's a fascinating song, and it has this kind of stripped-down quality to it.
And it just sounds like something.
It's Martin Gore's Jesus, or maybe Dave.
Is simplicity best or simply the easiest?
The narrowest path is always the holiest.
So walk unbarefoot for me.
Suffer some misery if you want my love.
It's not...
Necessarily, the Jesus that you meet in the gospel is someone who's asking these rhetorical questions to try to reframe things in your mind, like Jesus.
And he's calling on his disciples to suffer for him.
A man will survive the harshest conditions and stay alive through difficult decisions.
So make up your mind for me.
Walk the line for me if you want my love.
And then this idle talk and it's a key change for the chorus.
And hollow promises, cheating Judas's, doubting Thomas's.
I think this is a place where, again, Martin is not just writing about, say, something that's sacred.
He's putting himself in the position of Jesus in a way that the song is...
Sung from the mouth of Jesus.
And again, it's not something he would have tried earlier, and I think it's remarkable.
Yeah, the narrowest path is always the holiest.
I think that sums up a lot of what he's saying.
That's a big theme for Martin, because a lot of the lyrical themes are about...
Not deferring your gratification.
I think with that lyric, that is about deferring your gratification.
The narrowest path is always the holiest.
A lot of the tunes are like the track prior.
I would do it all again, lose my way and fall again.
In other words, I would not defer my gratification.
I would go for the present joy and take the pain later.
I think with the idle talk and...
It's kind of like a criticism of cheating Judases and doubting Thomases.
It's almost like an atheist critique or something.
Don't just stand there and shout it.
Do something about it.
Don't talk about your goodness or whatever.
Just be about it if you believe.
Well, I don't think it's an atheist critique.
It's Jesus' critique.
Right. You've got to do that.
Because one of the ironies of the Gospels is that the...
I mean, this shows up in John.
Like, no one knows what's happened.
They haven't read the scripture.
They don't believe it.
They're hiding away.
And Jesus has to show them his wounds.
And he is challenging them in a way.
It's like, I know you're going to cheat.
I know you're going to doubt.
But you've got to do something about it.
You've got to walk this path to be with me.
That will survive.
That will survive.
The harshest conditions And stay alive Through difficult decisions So make up your mind for me Walk the line for me If you want my love If you want my love We're
Jesus Doubts what Thomas says Don't just stand there and shout it Do something about it You
can fulfill
Just skip ahead real quick.
I'll skip in your room just for a little bit.
So we're now on the B side of the record.
I think the B side is even greater than the A side, if that's possible.
I think Get Right With Me, it's a companion song to Judas, and it's again sung from the perspective of Jesus.
It's kind of interesting because you have some of the sentiment from People Are People or even People Are Good from Memento Mori.
I will have faith in man that is hard to understand.
Show some humility.
You have the ability.
Get right with me.
Friends, if you've lost your way, you will find it again someday.
Come down from your pedestals and open your mouth.
That's all.
Get right with me.
Now, open your mouth is interesting.
Is it singing a gospel song or is it taking in the wafer of the Eucharist?
I think it's kind of both.
People, take my advice.
I already told you once or twice, don't waste your energy making apologies.
Get right with me.
Get right with Jesus and you'll go to heaven.
I mean, I think that is what is happening in this song as well.
I will have faith in the man
That is hard to understand Show some humility You have the ability Get right
with me Friends, if you lost your way You will find
it Again someday Come down from your pedestals Open your mouth That's all Get right with me
Life Life is such a sure thing That I cannot comprehend
But if this life were a boy of pain There are ways I know it may be
People Take my advice Already told you all
Yeah, this song is, yeah, it's, I love it.
I love the sound of it.
I don't think it's just a filler.
I mean, it is not, it's not a single, but yeah, it's a great, it's a great song.
Very gospel-y, very, yeah, hip-hop-y with the record scratches.
Yeah. They did it in the best way because you don't, like, if you listen to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or something, it's really obvious and just very, like, early 90s.
But then this includes that.
But it's just done so well.
It's integrated into the whole song.
It's cool.
Yeah, definitely.
Another thing I'll say about this record is I don't think any of this sounds really dated whatsoever.
I think you could play this in 2023, 1993, 2003.
Definitely. Exciter sounds dated, actually.
Yeah. It sounds like it.
George W. Bush album.
Okay, In Your Room might be my favorite song on here, and I think this is amazing.
So there's an In Your Room song, also called that, by the Bengals, and it's about kind of what you think it would be about, you know, meeting a guy in his room.
I love it in your room at night.
You're the only one who gets through to me.
In the warm glow of the candlelight, oh, I wonder what you're going to do to me.
Here comes the room from a light.
I think this is much deeper.
And I think this song is actually about hell.
Yeah. And it is one of the best poetic expressions of hell that I've ever heard.
And I think it's one of their greatest songs in their entire body of work because of this.
If you just listen to it in your room where time stands still.
Now, time standing still, that's a common trope of, you know, you're in love or lovemaking or something like that.
I think in For Whom the Bell Tolls, there's like the earth stood still scene or love scene or something like that.
Anyway, where time stands still, that could also mean you're never leaving or moves at your will.
Will you let the morning come soon as the rise of the sun?
Will you leave me lying here in your favorite darkness, your favorite half-life, your favorite consciousness, your favorite
I mean, if you're anything in hell, you're Satan's slave.
In your room where souls disappear, only you exist here.
In a way, you're separated from Jesus, but you're with the devil.
Will you lead me to your armchair?
It's kind of curious.
Will you leave me lying here?
Your favorite innocence?
Your favorite prize?
Your favorite smile?
Your favorite slave?
Again, a lot of this could be read as, you know, it's a drug song or it's maybe a little bit of master and servant thrown in there.
Yeah, I think that's true, but I think those are like the outer layer of what this is really about.
I'm hanging on your words, living on your breath, feeling with your skin.
Will I always be here?
In your room, your burning eyes cause flames to arise.
All right, now it's getting maybe obvious.
Now, again, you could read that as like lustful, I'm here drugged out, you're my favorite lover.
I don't think that's what it's about.
Will you let the fire die down soon, or will I always be here?
Your favorite passion, your favorite game, your favorite mirror.
I mean, I love that line.
Your favorite...
I don't even know quite what it means.
It's just highly visual and evocative.
Your favorite slave.
I'm hanging on your words, living on your breath, feeling with your skin.
Will I always be here?
And yeah, it's a question.
The answer is yes.
In your room Your burning
eyes Cause flames to arise We let the fire die down soon Oh, I'll always
be here Your favorite passion Your favorite moon Your favorite mirror
I'm hanging on your words Living on your breath Feeling with your skin Will I always be here Hanging on your words Living on your breath Feeling with your skin
Will I always be here Hanging on your words Living on your breath Feeling with your skin Will I always be here Hanging on your words Living on your breath Feeling with your skin Will I always be here I'm hanging on your words
Living on your breath Feeling with your skin Will I always be here Hey
Even the favorite slave.
I mean, again, you could write that off as like, you know, once again, Martin Gore is interested in SM or something.
I think it's so much deeper than that.
Yes, I agree.
It's creepy.
I have a quote here that Martin actually, I thought was pretty interesting, that Martin was talking about.
He recalls filming the...
The worst memory about In Your Room is the making of the video.
We spent a whole day in the studio filming, and I probably had lunch at some point, but it was just something really small, like half a sandwich.
We finished filming at about 8 o'clock and went back to the hotel, and I forgot to eat.
We went to the bar, and I didn't eat.
We went out to a club, met some guy who gave me some stuff, so I was up all night until probably 9 or 10 in the morning.
We had a band meeting at 12 o'clock, and I managed to sleep for about an hour.
Then I got up and I've never felt so dreadful in my life.
I managed to literally crawl to this meeting.
I had to lay on the floor just saying yes or no.
That was all I could muster.
And that was when I went into a seizure.
So whenever I think of this video, I just think, oh God, it brings back terrible memories.
Yeah, he was in hell while doing it.
yeah interesting walk with me open your
sensitive mouth talk to me hold out your delicate hands and feel me couldn't make any plans to conceal me open your sensitive mouth around
your delicate hands with such a sensitive mouth I'm reason to see you through when I come up when I rush I rush for you
What do you think Rush is about?
Is it a drug song?
I mean, is that obvious?
Yeah, I think so.
I like it, but it doesn't quite fit in my interpretation of the album as this, like, little passion play of...
No, I agree.
I think it's about, like, a, you know, when I come up, I rush for you.
Like, I get high, or I get high for you, or I get high with you, or, like, you know, a head rush, something like that.
But I think it's kind of intentionally confusing a drug experience for a religious experience.
And it's definitely a banger of a song.
Like, that is such a great song to listen to them play live.
I mean, it's a great song in the studio version as well, but to hear them play this live is like, oh, man.
Cloud 9. Cloud 9.
Well, I'm down on my knees again, and I pray to the only one who has the strength to bear the pain, to forgive all the things that I've done.
Oh, girl, lead me into your darkness when this world is trying its hardest to leave me unimpressed.
Just one caress.
You and I am blessed guitar solo
One caress.
It's interesting.
This reminds me quite a bit of Little 15. In terms of the orchestration, the strings.
But I think it, I remember you mentioned a couple podcasts back of this, this almost like dark female figure who's taking you away to death, like kind of almost like a female Grim Reaper or something.
Yeah. I think that is in here because, you know, well, I'm down on my knees again, so he's praying.
So, you know, kind of think of the mercy in you and things like that.
And I pray to the only one who has the strength to bear the pain, to forgive all the things that I've done.
So, very similar sentiment to mercy in you.
There's almost these, like, companion aspects to it.
But I think it's a little bit different.
Oh, girl, lead me into your darkness.
When the world is trying its hardest to leave me unimpressed, just one caress from you and I'm blessed.
It almost strikes me as, like, the...
It's a depressive song.
The world is nothing.
It leaves me unimpressed.
And there's almost like this dark female figure, maybe death, that will take you out of it.
That's the feeling I got.
Yeah, would that be Dressed in Black, right?
I'm dressed in black again.
Yeah. Yeah, from Black Celebration.
There's definitely an aspect to that.
But you know, a different song on Black Celebration that this reminded me of.
Is It Doesn't Matter 2. They're both very stripped-down ballads, but they both do this tritone jump from A minor to E flat.
Well, in the case of It Doesn't Matter 2, it's E flat to A minor, but yeah, I mean, this kind of jump that...
pretty big lift, you know, in songs that you can tell that A minor and E flat don't belong together.
here with you The shame lies with us
We talk of love and trust that doesn't matter.
Though we may be...
Also, when essentially Martin Gore lyric, I have to believe that sin can make a better man.
Yeah, that's what I was going to mention, yeah.
It's almost like he's saying sometimes things have to get ugly before they can get better.
Like you have to sin, you have to get weak in order to get strong.
I always loved the night, and now you are for me, eternal darkness.
You are for me, eternal darkness.
I have to believe that sin can make a better man.
It's the mood that I am in.
It's left us back where we began Oh girl Lead me into your darkness When this world is trying its hardest To leave me unimpressed Just one prayer Higher
Love is the final song, and it...
You know, what is it about exactly?
I do think that it is questing for some kind of religion.
And it's interesting that they close the album with that and open the concert on the devotional tour.
I can taste more than feel.
This burning inside is so real.
I can almost lay my hands upon the warm glow that lingers on.
Moved, lift me higher.
My soul's on fire.
It does seem to express the charismatic religious experience in these lyrics.
And so it kind of ends the album with...
Going to God or going to a religious community to find him, etc.
I mean, again, I think all of these songs can kind of be read as drug songs, I guess.
I mean, this is kind of the period we're in.
But I don't think that's all there is, or at the very least, it's a drug song that all of the metaphors are Christian.
Heaven bound on the wings of love, there's so much that you can rise above.
Heaven bound on the wings of love, there's so much that you
can rise above.
Move, move, I'm higher.
Move, move, I'm higher.
I surrender heart and soul, sacrifice to a higher
love. No, no, no, no, no.
Come on!
Come on!
Thank you.
You know, it's like we've moved from, what is it, light switch?
Light switch, man switch?
Yeah, it's even worse than I remember.
You've moved from those, like, objective, inscrutable lyrics to this very sincere Christian music.
They get older, they've grown, but they're willing to do that.
They're not just singing love songs.
Martin can write good love songs like Somebody or Something, but it's a Christian song, and it's about trying to get in touch with God as a force of universal love.
You know, it sounds a little bit clunky maybe when I say it, but it's a very sincere song, and they have the confidence to do that.
Yeah, it's definitely, you know, like this song just kind of speaks devotional, sounds like Gregorian chants.
Like, I mean, it kind of takes you back to like the 9th century or 11th century.
Something like, you know, it's Middle Ages, Dark Ages kind of vibes.
From it for sure.
I think actually this is my favorite song on the album.
I love that long intro and it just builds up to this and it's got a little bit of a key change there from A minor to C minor.
Yeah, I think it's a beautiful song.
And like I said before, I'm not sure which podcast, when I was in Chicago watching Depeche Mode.
The guy next to me was like, oh man, I hope they play Hi or Love.
I was like, yeah, me too, but they're definitely not going to play that song.
And this actually was contested as a single, but obviously it was outvoted.
What were the singles?
I Feel You, Walking in My Shoes, and Condemnation?
Yeah. And then Rushed and In Your Room?
Wow. No, so it would have been Condemnation, I Feel You, Walking in My Shoes, it's three, there's a four.
In your room.
In your room, yeah.
But even One Caress, like I said, it's a B-side, but it still gets a music video.
I mean, again, Martin is just so on as far as songwriting during this time period.
back. Talk to me.
Hold out your delicate hands.
Feel me.
Couldn't make any plans to conceal me.
Open your sensitive mouth.
We're such a sensitive mouth.
I'm easy to see you.
When I come up.
When I'm lost.
I'm lost.
It's worth mentioning, this is Alan's last hurrah with the band, and he said a few times, there are these quotes from Stripped,
just saying when he was recording this, this is not enjoyable, and I don't want this to ever occur again.
I don't know if he has regrets about that.
I have regrets.
I wish you would have stayed.
He doesn't express regrets in an interview, but I wonder if he really has them.
Maybe. Yeah.
Issued a statement at the press regarding the decision to leave Depeche Mode.
Due to increasing dissatisfaction with the internal relations and working practices of the group, it is with some sadness that I have decided to part company from Depeche Mode.
My decision to leave the group was not an easy one, particularly as our last few albums were an indication of the full potential that Depeche Mode was realizing.
Since joining in 1982, I've continually striven to give total energy, enthusiasm, and commitment to the furthering of the group's success.
And in spite of a consistent imbalance in the distribution of the workload, willingly offered this.
While I believe that the caliber of our musical output has improved, the quality of our association has deteriorated to the point where I no longer feel that the end justifies the means.
I have no wish to cast aspersions on any individual.
Suffice it to say that relations have become seriously strained, increasingly frustrating, and ultimately in certain situations intolerable.
And I do think that they've suffered post-Allen.
And even Dave said, you know, personally, I mean, he...
Obviously, Alan left while Dave was in, you know, utter downward spiral.
But he kind of appreciates him after the fact and wish he could have said that to him.
I mean, what was it?
I mean, do you think it was Fletch also getting a quarter of the profits and doing nothing?
Totally. I mean, was it that simple?
This is kind of a basic resentment.
I don't think it's that simple, but yeah, that's definitely part of it.
And if he's the one spending time in the studio working, I mean, there's interviews where they're laughing.
They're like, yeah, we'll just have Al do it.
And Alan said before, I was the only one who attended the mixes.
I was in the studio to the bitter end with Flood.
And I guess things had gotten so bad with Alan and Fletch that Fletch said, this isn't one of those documentaries, that Fletch said, I told him I wasn't going to make another album with him.
Again, who the fuck are you, dude?
You don't contribute anything, you know?
Yeah, I would be pretty upset.
I mean, who was the one when Fletch on the Exotic tour took a break because he was clinically depressed?
And I'm not making fun of him for that.
I'm just saying, who was the one that took...
Daryl Bomonte, one of their tour managers or roadies, and taught him Fletch's parts.
That was Alan.
And then that was during a vacation in Hawaii for two weeks.
He was doing that.
Who was remixing all these songs?
I mean, he didn't have to, but he wanted a better show for the exotic tour.
That was Alan, mostly.
I mean, definitely Steve Lyon was helping him, from what I understand.
I think Dave and Alan had probably the closest relationship, but I think they were definitely two different people.
And it is a shame that Dave never reached out for him.
But as far as I understand, at a certain point, each album, Alan started to exert more and more control, which I don't think is controversial because he's the one in the studio.
And so...
That became, I guess, I remember in one of those documentaries, Dave was saying that Martin was saying that, oh, he's trying to take over.
And Dave was saying, like, no, he's just really just trying to get his ideas across.
But yeah, I mean, this era, 91 to 94, is where I think Alan shines, you know, he's at his peak.
Because I don't know if you've listened to those live shows of the Exotic Tour.
He was the one that rearranged, for example, Rush, Everything Counts, did a remix to I Want You Now, A Question of Time, and even A Question of Lust.
It's a little bit more stripped down, but he's going and staying in the studio hours on end and really remaking a lot of these songs and making them his own.
And I think it's actually their peak, and it's a shame that none of these remixes...
It's a shame that the exotic tour, the 94 tour, It does not have a live album or something like that because you have to get these YouTube bootlegs that have been processed.
Yeah, you sent me some of these bootlegs.
They're really fascinating.
The songs sound different.
Yeah. I would agree.
Darker. Yeah, darker.
Even kind of rocking as well, like playing a question of time on a guitar.
Things like that.
It's amazing.
It also does feel like bootleg.
I mean, Martin kind of sings out of tune in a couple of places as well.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
And he's about to collapse on all these, on the devotional tour and the exotic tour.
And you can see it in the devotional tour when he's singing Judas.
It's like, at any moment, he looks like he could just keel over and have another seizure or whatever.
But... Yeah, I guess the Exotic Tour, Fletch and Martin didn't want to do it, and Dave and Alan were all about it, and so they ended up doing it.
But I think, like Daniel Miller said, there was a huge disaster of a tour.
I have a little bit of a quote I want to read about that tour, because I think the devotional tour gets a lot of press, and rightfully so.
They have a devotional live album, but the Exotic Tour, for me, is...
So Dave says we had a fully paid psychiatrist on the road as well.
Pretty funny.
I never went to see him.
I didn't have any of those problems.
Ha ha ha.
Not psychological anyway.
I even took it so far as to be desperate to get Primal Scream to come on the road with us.
They were perfect.
Absolutely perfect.
I loved that last album.
Everything about them was what I wanted us to be.
That was my fantasy.
We had a lot of fun actually.
A lot of good times.
They'd always be in my dressing room.
Yeah. Primal Scream, they're almost to blame for killing Davon.
Yeah. We're falling in and out for you.
They'll make you just like the rest.
I've got to get to you first.
It's just a question of time We're down to 150
You love God
I wish there were better recordings of that.
You sent me some of these bootlegs on YouTube and it is an amazing thing.
Very rough around the edges as well, like clearly, but really good and really interesting.
Did they use the same Corbin set or was that different?
I mean, the concert you sent me was from San Francisco, I guess, in 1994.
Yeah, as far as I understand, they used that same set on the Exotic Tour, but I just know that the Exotic Tour had a lot more outdoor venues.
I mean, they were going to a lot hotter places, too, like Hawaii, Australia, South America, and South Africa.
Man, that is just a hidden gem for any Tepeche Mode fanatic, I'd say, is that tour.
The last thing I want to say about Alan is that I wish at least he and Dave would work together on something, because I think that could be really interesting, and they seem to have had a decent enough relationship.
But it's hard to tell.
I mean, as far as I understand, Alan's quit the music industry altogether.
I don't think he's released anything since Liquid in 2010 on Recoil.
That's sad.
*music*
When we got closer, the pilot said there was something on the radar that he hadn't seen the day before.
The pilot was a very good one.
And we saw for the first time what had happened in the crater.
We saw nothing but Eyes covered with ash and water with floating icebergs and ash at the bottom.
I think there was a struggle session between Martin and Alan.
I mean, Fletch was kind of like the more obvious antagonist.
But, you know, it is interesting because, you know, with Construction Time again, Alan is contributing songs.
He's credited as a songwriter.
I think none of them are maybe as good as Martin's best, but I think actually a lot of them are kind of like hidden gems and things like that.
But he gave that up.
And so Black Celebration is a Martin Gore album.
Music for the Mass is a Martin Gore album.
He is the sole songwriting credit.
But it's almost like Alan put his ego aside a little bit, gave up on being the songwriter, but then became more influential as the producer and remixer and arranger, etc.
Yeah. And never mind the fact that he could play anything, two different things with both hands.
I mean, classically trained, like he had, yeah, he had it all.
And it's a standard comment, but yeah, they haven't been the same since he left.
There's just no question.
They're silent, I'm saying.
Yeah. So,
I guess, are we both putting this as number one?
Yeah. It's gotta be number one.
This is, like, just as important as, you know, Sgt. Pepper's or Dark Side of the Moon, Rio by Duran Duran.
Like, this is a knockout album.
I think everybody talks about Violator, and I love that album, you know, but this is their peak.
