Authors: Wilson Neate
“The words came very quickly,” recalls Gilbert. “There were a couple of extra verses, but it seemed that I was overcomplicating it.” His lyrics are no less oblique than Lewis’s, but whereas Lewis tends towards ellipsis and discontinuity, juxtaposing jarring images and ideas, Gilbert achieves the odd and unexpected by different means. “Strange” contains a more substantive narrative, and the lyric is relatively seamless, albeit highly reduced. There’s the essence of a story, and the words make literal sense, but crucially, the ultimate referent is absent: it’s unclear what’s happening or has happened. It’s simply implied by the response of the song’s character, who doesn’t, or can’t, understand the mysterious events on a rational level. “There’s something strange going on tonight, something going on that’s not quite right, Joey’s nervous and the lights are bright, there’s something going on that’s not quite right. There’s something going down that wasn’t here before.” This embodies Gilbert’s pursuit of
otherness
, the words revisiting his childhood experience of narrative. In this case, it’s deeply menacing, with the threat of death itself present.
“Strange” is quintessential Wire: rather than mirror the world, it creates a world. We’re inside Joey’s head. (Gilbert chose
“Joey” as a universal name.) The song is an interior landscape, a psychodrama: the tension and uncanniness of the music and the paranoia of the lyrics all reflect Joey’s perceptions. Wire’s world is generally perceived by a fractured consciousness as its narrators aren’t reliable, omniscient or stable; unconscious processes are as significant as conscious processes, as Newman’s “Surgeon’s Girl” attests. “Strange” also privileges the unconscious—emphasising things
felt
to be awry by the protagonist, who can’t
rationally
articulate what these feelings mean. While punk’s consciousness was essentially Romantic, Wire’s aesthetic was already post-punk. Punk’s voices were fixed, recognisable selves, engaged in an antagonistic relationship with the world. Notwithstanding numbers like “Fragile,” Wire’s perspective is more complex and fragmented—a postmodern consciousness.
“Strange” also contains another instance of Newman improvising lyrics for structural purposes, interjecting “Be Brave! Be Brave!” at 1’42”. There’s a thematic logic: ‘“Joey’s nervous’ so he’s got to be brave,” Newman explains. At the same time, it’s functional. “It also counts as a
one-two-three-four
into the next section.”
Newman: It’s very Bob Dylan, very Ian Hunter
.
Lewis: I always thought it was a bit more like a Rod solo record
.
Newman: It’s not as good as “You Wear It Well.”
Lewis: But better than “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”
Wire’s decision-making process was often perverse. They tended to opt for courses of action that bucked expectations; paradoxically, the most expected options (and therefore the least expected for Wire) sometimes turned out to be what Wire pursued. The
sequencing of “Fragile” after “Strange” is a case in point. Placing the record’s most delicate, melodic, straightforward song after the weighty, riffcentric otherness of “Strange” would be an obvious thing for Wire to do. So they did. It works perfectly.
Newman remembers “Fragile” being a topic of conversation between Wire and the late Tony Wilson: “The first thing he ever said to the band was, ‘Can you play “Fragile” for an old hippie?’ To which there was only one answer, of course, which was
fuck off!”
Wilson’s backhanded compliment was on the mark: the track’s clean, jangly guitars gave it a retro flavour. Newman believes “it was the closest we came to a trad rock song.”
Musically, “Fragile” holds to rock orthodoxy, and its lyrics follow suit, as the title’s appropriation of a prominent word in the chorus suggests. On “Brazil,” Lewis twists a worn-out theme, but “Fragile” is an uncomplicated, standard expression of unrequited love and vulnerability. The language stays well within the tradition of nineteenth-century literary modes. This is evident in the modest example of synaesthesia as Lewis’s lyric blurs sensory perceptions, connecting feelings and colours (“Filter emotions of green, cowardice gives blue”). Beyond this specific trope, a broader Romantic tone dominates. The words address the senses and emotions rather than reason and intellect, and the lyrical voice is tormented by his/her muse. There’s a rather conventional opposition between “I” and “you,” the “you” inflicting pain and the “I” suffering. Alongside many of the other tracks, the lyrics are uncompelling because they’re rather maudlin and self-dramatising. Obviousness of this kind is unbecoming of Wire. Even so, this is an excellent pop song—one, like “Mannequin,” that anticipated a vein of ’80s melodic indie rock.
Recognising the heartfelt nature of Lewis’s words, Newman was unusually hands-off: “I sometimes took liberties with Graham’s texts, but it was absolutely important on ‘Fragile’ that I didn’t. He’s laying himself bare, and you don’t trample on that.”
I was never very keen on “Mannequin” and “Fragile,” although I could appreciate the prettiness of them, their attractiveness
.
Bruce Gilbert
“Mannequin”—which Newman feels owes something to the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Shake Some Action”—forms a diptych with “Fragile.” Aside from their melodic and rhythmic likeness, their similarity derives from what they conspicuously lack: Gilbert’s dense guitar sound. “I’m sure I played the guitar on ‘Fragile’ and probably ‘Mannequin,’” says Newman. “Bruce likes the heavier kind of thing. He likes to get a big, belting tone. ‘Fragile’ and ‘Mannequin’ had to have a more conventional quality, a lighter tone. If it had been all distorted guitars, it would’ve sounded a bit stupid.” Gilbert agrees: “I ended up doing the big, loud songs, with what you might call
powerchords
—just enforcing the chord without strumming.”
There’s no definitive answer to who played what on these numbers since recollections are uncertain. However, comparing the demos and the completed tracks supports the notion that Gilbert was involved at first but ceded primary guitar duties to Newman. The May and August recordings of these numbers bear Gilbert’s fingerprints: the tone is thicker and heavier, and they lack the lightness-of-touch characterising the final versions.
Whereas “Fragile” and “Mannequin” called for Newman’s sound, proficiency was also an issue. Gilbert acknowledges, “We rarely played ‘Fragile.’ I don’t think we could do it justice, or I couldn’t play it. I think I had several attempts, but I just couldn’t do it justice—that’s probably more like it. Colin had to play both of them in the end because I just couldn’t get my head around it, or at least not efficiently enough for it to be convincing. I might
have put some crash chords on ‘Mannequin’ or done a very basic rhythm track, but that’s another one with too many minor chords.”
Gilbert’s lesser role on these numbers also hinted at some early creative differences. “Bruce thought they were too wet,” says Newman, and the guitarist agrees: “With my hard hat on, I suppose I’d think that.” He accepts the songs’ merits but is ironic in his appraisal: “I think they’re—dare I use the word—
beautiful
, in comparison to the other tracks on the album? I can appreciate them on that level, but I always felt like it was another band.” Although these numbers didn’t fit with Gilbert’s idea of Wire, Robert Poss, a subsequent Gilbert collaborator and someone not averse to noisy experimentation, rates them amongst his
Pink Flag
favourites: “The ‘Fragile’-’Mannequin’ sequence always moves me, a bit the way certain Tom Verlaine songs do.”
Gilbert had reservations regarding “Mannequin” because it was slated to be a single. If it were successful, he felt it would radically change how he saw the band developing. “I remember being vaguely embarrassed and nervous about it—thinking, ‘If this is a hit, the company will be pressuring us to do more.’ I certainly had no intention of being in a band for the rest of my life. Yes, you’ll get the house in the country. You’ll get this, that and the other, but, actually, if you want to do something else, people will always go, ‘You’re that bloke we saw on
Top of the Pops!
’ It sounds a bit pretentious and silly, but that’s the way I thought about it.”
“Mannequin” is the clearest example on
Pink Flag
of Wire’s penchant for pitting the tone of the lyrics against the sound of the music. The words are aggressively negative. ‘“Mannequin’ was a very direct put-down of a friend’s boyfriend, somebody quite vicious,” explains Lewis: “You’re a waste of space, no natural grace, you’re so bloody thin.” And it doesn’t get any better: “You’re an energy void, a black hole to avoid, no style, no heart.” Despite expending this vitriol, the speaker amusingly assures his subject
that the motivation for this depiction is “not animosity.” Lewis remembers the target of his spleen: “The person wouldn’t possibly have dreamt it could have been about him. That’s the kind of individual you’re dealing with here.”
“Mannequin” is vocally inventive, with its arresting harmonies and interwoven melodic lines. Nonetheless, Newman is again unhappy with the handling of his voice. Above all, he disagrees with Thorne’s decision to enlist Gryphon’s Dave Oberlé to provide the train-whistle backing vocals. “I really don’t like Dave Oberlé’s
ooohs
. I would have preferred not to have that higher harmony. It just sounds a bit weird. I felt strange about having another person in to sing on it. Mike wouldn’t allow Graham and I to do the
ooohs
, because we weren’t good-enough singers.” Lewis differs: “Mike was absolutely right: I remember us trying!” The May 25 demo supports Lewis’s assertion since their attempted harmonies are dodgy. As elsewhere, Thorne doesn’t recall making decisions based on his judgement of their vocal skills: “I don’t remember competence being an issue. Dave, a very accurate singer, created a character in contrast to Colin and Graham’s earthy delivery. (They don’t play flute, either.)”
Regardless of Newman’s belief that Thorne had reservations about his and Lewis’s abilities, the producer often gave priority to performances that
felt
right but weren’t expertly executed, over technically perfect performances. There’s an instance of this on “Fragile,” in Grey’s contribution, which Thorne values precisely because it was unorthodox: “There are examples in ‘Fragile’ of what technicians might deem a mistake, or a wrong direction. A conventional drummer might have been a little upset to play the patterns Robert was doing, but he was consistent. They really work, and they throw you off balance in a constructive way. It didn’t have to be ‘right,’ it just had to feel good.
The best musicians take mistakes in their stride and incorporate them in what they do next.”
It’s like the trombone syndrome: certain words just don’t sound right
.
Graham Lewis
“Different to Me” is unique in being the only original Wire song with lyrics entirely by a non-bandmember—in this case, Annette Green.
Just as most punk bands had a song about TV, they usually had one about the urban experience. Punk was, at the outset, a metropolitan phenomenon and city life a popular topic. “Different to Me” is part of that dystopian tradition. While the phrase “the cancer in this city, has got to be terminal” sounds overdone, a rare instance of Wire emulating a punk style, elsewhere the tone is noticeably more introspective. Although the song revives the punk chestnuts of boredom and alienation, it doesn’t present an objectively observed social-realist landscape; instead, it projects feelings and obsessions onto the surroundings.
“Different to Me” displays what would become a Wire signature, the inclusion of words uncommon in rock. Examples abound on Wire’s first three albums alone: “correspondent,” “relegation,” “becalmed,” “Plimsoll Line,” “prehensile,” “servile,” “gentile,” “inference,” “anaesthetised,” “denuded,” “silverfish,” “serpentine,” “filament,” “amphibious,” “calibrate,” “anatomical,”
Nouvel Observateur
, “precipitous,”
noblesse oblige
and “cartologist.” “Different to Me” contributes “sprat” and “mackerel,” hardly staples of the rock lexicon.
These words, however, weren’t easy to incorporate. Newman sings, “I’d rather be a sprat than a mackerel,” with Lewis repeating the second fish’s name sotto voce. “I remember the
mackerel
taking a long time. It turned into an epic,” says Newman drily,
referring to Lewis’s difficulties performing the word. “It generated amusement, and after a while it became totally ridiculous, trying to get the right mackerel,” recalls Lewis. “The longer it went on, the funnier it got. Once the hysteria breaks out, recording takes a lot longer than it needs to. It took an hour-and-a-half, spending a pound a minute doing take after take. In the end, we got the right one.” He blames Thorne: “When Mike would get the giggles, it was impossible; after that, everyone just cracked up every time.” Newman notes that despite all that effort, “You have to strain to hear it.” Lewis counters, “That’s why it was so difficult to do.” (On the May 25 demo, Wire land the mackerel in one take.)
The mackerel line might have been a source of near-endless amusement for Wire, but others consider it one of the band’s most profound statements. Roger Miller, for instance:
“‘I’d rather be a sprat than a mackerel, you can slip through the net
’—to me, that’s a great line. It’s like something from Chuang Tzu: there’s different ways to avoid the traps and pitfalls that society has set up for you. Couple that with ‘no-no-no-no-no-no Mr Suit’ and it gave me something to hang on to.”
Everybody felt that it was about the punk time, but the actual inspiration was an interview with James Hunt
.
Graham Lewis
The handclaps on “Champs” join other elements of
Pink Flag
highlighting Wire’s departure from 1977’s generic punk sound: the fire escape and the flute on “Strange”; the maracas on “Lowdown”; the
güiro
on “Three Girl Rhumba”; Oberlé’s harmonies and even a tambourine on “Mannequin.”