I can’t say that at all about the tremendous instrumental that came next! It’s not an exaggeration to say that “The Chieftain” was the one that slayed us all at 50 paces when we first heard the album. The instrumental was a lightweight ethnic piece. In the end, he might as well have used the DX7. So I never heard the sound of the fingers on the strings that Ure discussed in that informative SoundOnSound article. The fact that this had never been a favorite album of mine meant that I had never listened very carefully to it. Named after the pre-modern name for Tokyo, I thought for decades that the famous DX7 koto was at play here, but the shocking truth was that Ure played a real koto on it, according to the comment left by Gareth on day one of this thread. Ure finally unleashed the vocal kraken here, as well.Īnother instrumental, “Edo,” followed.

The instrumentation was reliant on sampled strings achieving an Ennio Morricone vibe with the sampled cellos that were nicely underscored by the pizzicato highlight on top. The melodrama was laid on thickly throughout. This one had the familiar Ultravox heft to it. On “The Gift” it was the powerhouse single after two fairly light pop tracks filtering out first. To his credit, Ure transformed the thin sounding cut which had a Buggles feel to it with rhythm box percussion and heavily filtered vocals. But the song had been written five years earlier by Mitchell alone, when fronting the band Modern Man, whose “Concrete Scheme” album had been produced by Ure in 1980. Split everything 50/50 no matter who did what. When writing this album with Danny Mitchell of Messengers, Ure proposed that they “Lennon/McCartney” the credits. “Wastelands” was credited to Ure/Mitchell but the truth was more nuanced. It was after I finally bought the third single from “The Gift” that I could entertain the notion of buying a copy of the CD. As it stood, listening to it makes me eager for the next song a little too much.įortunately, the next song was among the best on offer here. A little editing would have made this one just right. Rather, it is a celebration, almost, of the lengths of his devotion, yes, but also the contingency of his being on the lover's desire for him.The second side of the album began with a breezy instrumental called “Antilles.” The melodically simple song made certain to vary the instrumental attack between the “verses” and the “chorus” structure with a variety of instrumental leads on the verse and guitar leading in the chorus, but the tracks overstayed its welcome by about one of its four minutes, by my reckoning. The song is not seeking affirmation or an answer, such as in the similarly structured song 'If It Be Your Will', where Leonard Cohen sings 'If it be your will / That I speak no more / And my voice be still / As it was before / I will speak no more' with great emphasis on the phrase 'If it be your will' to invite an answer from the lover. So whereas previously the saying went: I love you so much, I would even die for you, now the saying goes: Your desire (for me) matters more to me than my own life. This is an interesting twist on the previous interpretations, because the sacrifice he speaks of is at the lover's mere desire, not for his or her being. He is willing to be destroyed at the lover's whim. Rather, he says that the desire of his lover is the most important thing in the world. He does not say he is willing to die to save the lover, or that his devotion is so total that there is no limit he would not cross. He says 'I would die for you / darling if you want me to'. Prince's usage brings something else to the table. It can say, 'You matter so much to me that I would put the sanctity of your life and well-being before my own.' It can also say, 'I don't have any words to express my love for you, and my imagination can only take me to the furthest line to cross, that limit of my own life.' As a metaphor, the saying testifies to the lengths of their devotion. When lovers say 'I would die for you', they are generally not meaning to risk their lives, but using life and death metaphorically. I'm your messiah and you're the reason why I am something that you'll never comprehend I am something that you'll never understandĪnd if you're evil I'll forgive you by and by

Color me shocked album