The greatest cultural event in the history of humanity happened on 18th November 1991. I remember the day as if it were yesterday. I was working as an Assistant Manager at Lloyds Bank in Catford at the time. The branch is not there anymore, and I played a big part in that as I was running the project to close it down. The early 90s, on the back of the Lawson bubble, was not kind to the fortunes of financial institutions, and we were busy closing branches all over the country.
In a way it was a bit of a metaphor for my life at the time. After the heady days of my Graduate training scheme in the West End of a London buoyant with credit, I’d headed over to the fringes of the City of London and my first proper job selling Asset Finance to big organisations. My personal life was going well too and I’d bought my first flat, and thought I had life sussed.
Then the economy went pop, and I was lucky to survive a raft of redundancies, and found myself running this project in Catford. My flat, down in the South London suburbs, was now the proud owner of lots of negative equity, and meanwhile my girlfriend decided I was not the one for her after all. In the space of a few short months, the heady optimism of excess of the 80s had turned into the cold, hard reality of 1990s Britain. Think of it as a warm-up act for the 2020s.
Just in case you are wondering, I have nothing against Catford specifically. A combination of circumstances had placed it slap-bang on the route of the South Circular road, which was always congested, and meant it was hard for a real vibrant community to form. It tended to be overshadowed by Lewisham to the North, and Bromley to the South, and the wealth of Dulwich to the West. It was in decline already and judging by the news reports I’ve just looked at, not a lot has improved in the last 30 years. But the people I worked with were great, hard-working, sparky, and I kept in contact with many of them for a long time after I left London.
November 18th was a very drizzly, nondescript kind of a day. Damp, a bit cold, with nothing special about it. Like Catford, like my life, and especially like the way that Britain was shaping up in the early 90s. At lunchtime I plodded over the road to the Catford Shopping centre, which imaginatively had a huge statue of a cat perching over its entrance.
There being no record shops in the centre I wandered into WH Smith’s and bought it. It was one of the very first CDs that I ever owned, as being a late-adopter (generally) I had only recently acquired my first CD player. I had been worried about artwork, sleeve notes and the like, but I needn’t have been, for it was replete with a 32-page booklet. Images galore, lyrics, and all the amazing, confusing and diametrically-opposed direction of something quite revolutionary.
Of course, my Fiat Uno 1.3 only had the ability to play tapes, so I had to wait till the evening when I got back to my flat to listen to it. What came out of the speakers figuratively blew me away. What was that sound? It sounded like a cross between someone tapping on a metal pipe and an industrial drill rhythmically blasting out a melody. Then came the distorted guitars, the pounding bass, and finally the voice.
“Time is a train, Makes the future the past, Leaves you standing in the station, Your face pressed up against the glass”
Out in the wider world of course, beyond Catford, beyond Britain and beyond me, seismic shifts were happening. Two years before the Berlin Wall had finally tumbled. It seems strange to think of, but back then I thought it would never happen. I thought Apartheid would never end, and I thought the “Troubles” would go on for ever. That aside, this opening salvo of a track was the harbinger of a new sound, as well as of a new age. Unification was in the air, not just Germany, but the whole of Europe seemed to be optimistically heading for fresh horizons.
“Well my heart is where it’s always been, My head is somewhere in between”
Not content with blowing away the sound, now all that earnestness of celebrity was being mocked too, the very essence of consumerism - “the real thing” - placed at the heart of the song, celebrity is a job. With slide guitars and slide-on-downs, they were making a statement. The Joshua tree was being chopped down.
“Did I ask too much? More than a lot, You gave me nothing now it’s all I got, We’re one, but we’re not the same, Well we hurt each other then we do it again”
The thing I actually like best about this song is that it is actually about breaking up, or conflict, or grudging acceptance. It is not about being in doe-eyed love, or pulling together for some corporate purpose, and no amount of playing it at your conference will make it so. A song that kindled their re-birth none the same, but with warts and all, it will be played at my funeral, mixing as it does equal amounts of misery and joy, struggle and success. But don’t feel guilty.
“In my dream I was drowning my sorrows, But my sorrows they learned to swim”
The tour that followed the album, was all glitz and pastiche, irony and glitter. The earnestness of yesteryear, and the seriousness of their cause had been abandoned hadn’t it? Look carefully under the surface and you’ll see the faith, coated in a layer of coruscating guitar and clothed in shiny leather, the ego may be at the wheel but his God is always around. But of course the story of betrayal and redemption is broader than one narrow religion isn’t it?
“Took a drive in the dirty rain, To palace where the wind knows your name, Under the trees, the river laughing at you and me.”
Another break-up song? Perhaps. For a few years I had this on wrap-around, misery on misery, all spun out in an operatic yet incisive melody. A tale of regret, bitterness, and longing. A bit like “The winner takes it all” only with real anguish and guitars.
What was next? In the old days it would have been “Side two”, and on my 30th commemorative vinyl it will be. Is it better? Who cares. This track, the opening single, announced the revolution in advance of the album, so I’d heard it before. I’m listening to it as I type, and it stills feels new. Lyrically outstanding, visually, when performed live, it has no peer in the history or future of music. The solo is the best minute of guitar work ever. Fact.
It’s no secret.
Into the dancing one, the one that brought joy to the man whose break-up inspired so much of this album. Of course it’s great, but less of a favourite, there’s too much optimism in it for me. It’s great live though, for obvious and spiritual reasons.
To touch is to heal, to hurt is to steal, If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel.
