THE HUMAN LEAGUE – "Don't You Want Me"

The embittered honesty of the vocal, one baby-step from breaking down on the bridge, could also be due to Phil O being a “proper singer”, as Siouxsie said circa Travelogue. Perpetually tetchy is a little harsh; authoritative, maybe. He’s pretty touching on Love Action, and considerably more emotionally engaging than Le Bon, Hadley, or Gahan ever were.

It may be straight forward compared to Almost Medieval (possibly my favourite song title ever), but this is rare subject matter for pop. And I feel a little sorry for the guy. Faced with blankness and coldness, no gratitude, Phil is left to wither on the vine (or with a bottle of wine) like James Mason in A Star Is Born. “I can put you back down” is clearly a hollow threat that will just make her sigh on her way out of the door.

This jumped out as soon as Dare was released, and sounded like an instant classic. The only thing that stops this from being a 10 for me is the painful, triple-tracked Susanne Sulley vocal. I know she’s meant to sound like a shopgirl on the make, but it’s a little too verite for my poor ears.

the break-up this is really about is of course the band split which stripped them of much of the sci-fi cartoon-y stuff — susannne sulley is taking the BEF role

this is obviously great but has been serverely compromised by overplaying(not to mention that godawful car ad that used it a few years back- “woah woah woah woah”etc)- my fave League moment is “The Things That Dreams Are Made of” which is simultaneously euphoric and also threatening in a electro-germanic-futurist kinda way- as if you didnt concur with Phil that Norman Wisdom and the Ramones equalled “good times” he would some unleash some of the old ultraviolence on you..

Are the League the second act we’ve covered to have had a strip in Viz(“The Adventures of the Human League in Outer Space starring Phil and the Girls”)?

I’d love to hear you on Radio 2s “listen again” thingy, Tom-what day were u on?

a 10 from me then. though it’s just as overplayed as Tainted Love i never get tired of this one. unlike TL, it’s full of drama and moody menace. i’ve always likened their vocal delivery to those of two humanoids simulating the emotions of their breakup. he’s pleading and threatening but somehow i get the feeling he doesn’t truly care at all.

What’s all this about you and Chris Evans, Tom? When? How? Why? Talk to us!

Lino #3 – Surely Susanne Sulley was a cocktail waitress on the make rather than a shopgirl but I do see what you mean.

This was very much up my strasse. It had a very singalong chorus for us kiddies but retained an element of cool too. I thought that the threat of putting the girl “back down too” was ace. Soppy girls! Also, I always felt that the intro hit the spot and added to what I then considered the sophistication of the piece. I have revised my opinion of it as time moved on but I can not deny that it provided me with a lot of pleasure at the time and for that reason, I could never hate it.

Well, it may not be as good as Mouldy Old Dough (!…congrats on the Radio 2 interview Tom)…but, well, this is a pretty fantastic record all the same…

It’s one of those rare, alchemical moments when everything comes together for a group and they can’t put a foot wrong. “Dare” was such a sensational record, which probably cemented forever my love affair with this period in pop history.

“Don’t You Want Me”, brazen and larger than life, didn’t really fit in with the flow of the album. It was clever sequencing to leave it to last (I always felt the Stones messed up the running order of “Beggars Banquet” by placing “Sympathy For The Devil” as the opening track. Some tracks just grow so big that they can cast a shadow over several that follow).

Instead, “Dare” opened with the sublime “The Things That Dreams Are Made Of” – the perfect Human League manifesto, the Travelogue-era nerdy humour intact, but now encased in crystalline synths and purring electro bass pulses. And sumptuous choruses

Of course “Love Action” would have made a fabulous number one. But while I will never love DYWM in quite the same way, it served as the richest of toppings to “Dare” and cleverly brought to life the different strands of the group’s appeal – it’s (semi)autobiographical lyric was a big part of the record’s attraction – working as a waitress in a cocktail bar could just as easily have been dancing in the Crazy Daisy disco in Sheffield…

And as Lord Wotsit points out at #5, this can also be read as being about Phil’s break-up with the rest of the original Human League (although I believe he claims to have nicked the basic idea for the story from a cartoon-strip in a teenage girls’ magazine)…shortly after this made the top, Smash Hits decided to inform newer fans of the band’s history by summarising their career in the form of a comic strip showing Martyn and Ian of H17 chasing Phil down the road throwing a milk bottles and such like at him…

The record itself seemed to attain almost instantaneous classic status. It felt inevitable it would be a massive hit, so much so that it even won me a whole £1, after I’d bet my friend that it would get to Number 1 in the week it entered the chart at 9. He was not such an avid follower of the charts and perhaps underplayed the significance of it being such a high new entry. He also wasn’t really up with the New Pop thing, and was convinced either Cliff or Abba would keep it off the top…

Much though I had adored Abba as a kid and have to come to adore them again (and “One of Us” is one of my favourite Abba singles), it felt like a fantastic victory for ‘my music’ when DYWM beat the mighty Swedes’ comeback single and the evergreen Cliff to the coveted Christmas Number 1 position…it was also thrillingly appropriate given Phil Oakey’s oft-stated desire to be the electronic Abba.

9 for me (sorry Chris!).

Re 5: Lord Tarkus, that had never even occurred to me, and it’s so obvious! I just re-watched the Made In Sheffield doc (great, except for too much footage of gormless r&b act The Extras) which made me think that Phil is playing the BEF role. I mean, he kept the name even though he wasn’t a founder member. Martyn Ware was not happy with Phil’s Abbaesque, toppermost of the poppermost ambitions, and was thrown out of his own group.

Re 13: According to Wikipedia, Phil was the bad guy in the ‘milk bottle incident’.

Here in Detroit, the only place you could hear this song was on the Urban stations, and then only the 12″ mix, thanks to Electrifying Mojo and Marvelous Marv. I love how back in the early 80s Detroit’s Urban stations made B52S, Kraftwerk & this one “black” music.

Heard you on R2 live yesterday Tom – I nearly fell off my chair! Good work.

What makes DYWM stand out, for me, is that opening lyric. It’s one of the most recognisable opening lines that’s ever been written. Few songs are as clearly able to mark themselves out as telling a story as DYWM does in its opening 10 words.

#8, Geoff – with you on “Love And Dancing”. With “Dare” so familiar, there are more layers to enjoy listening to afresh on the remix versions, most of which work well. I always thought “Hard Times” should have been included on the album, so it’s good to hear it in this context.

Kudos to Martin Rushent who played such a big part in shaping the sound.

Here are the Human League comic strips as mentioned above. The Viz strip seems to be narratively out of order or missing a panel (and is a very basic joke). The Smash Hits Ones are beautiful.

http://www.humanleague.dk/gallery/cartoons.html

Cover version watch: Agggh! The Farm, 1992. I don’t care if it was for charity or not, it was witless karaoke hell.

Top Of The Pops Watch: The Human League performed ‘Don’t You Want Me’ on Top Of The Pops twice.

24 December 1981: Also in the studio that week were; Wizzard, Elvis Costello, Bucks Fizz and Altered Images, plus Zoo’s interpretations of ‘Get Down On It’ and ‘Yellow Pearl’. David ‘Kid’ Jensen was the host.

7 January 1982: Also in the studio that week were; Alton Edwards, The Mobiles, Shakatak and Jon & Vangelis, plus Zoo’sinterpretations of ‘Yellow Pearl’ and ‘It Must Be Love’. Peter Powell was the host.

I have to admit to being a pre-Dare snob when this came out. I loved Travelogue so much and this seemed less, shall we say, demanding. Gordon’s Gin was, by dint of its commission, as populist as they would ever get; WXJL Tonight’s technofear is head and shoulders above Video Killed The Radio Star for me – if I ever get to release my dream compilation The Technology Of Tears this will be the League’s contribution.

And yet… while I REALLY wanted Love Action to get to number one (impersonating the opening ‘”meeooooww” synth noises was a Shukman family favourite along with “Shee-ee-ee-eep” and “Whatsa matter you?”), I was so happy that one of MY groups had done it. Soft Cell had come out of nowhere, but I’d loved the Human League for, ooh, all of 18 months and it felt more special.

Has anyone else tried the A Star Is Born storyline in a song? For me, that alone is enough for me to love it. The backing is all gravy.

Re 28: The fuss… Can you think of a better opening line in a pop song?

Re 29 – It’s all down to personal tastes really, isn’t it?

As fas as I am concerned, “The dogs are letting postmen come and go” (last song I heard on my random playlist) is a better opening line, as are many, many others.

If you hadn’t gathered, the whole thing leaves me rather cold!

and…”Club Tropicana” where, of course, the drinks were free

Soft white sands, a blue lagoon
Cocktail time, a summer’s tune…

I am hoping those who were of drinking age in the 80s (or looked it) can enlighten me on the nuances of cocktail bars/wine bars etc.

I do remember it was a much talked about day when a wine bar opened in the new shopping centre in Leatherhead: there was a sense the town was now Going Places. The wine bar was called, naturally, Brahms and Litzt.

Ah ‘Louise’. “It’s not always true that time heals all wounds. There are some wounds that you don’t WANT to heal” How true, and how unhealthy! A spiritual sister to Hot Chocolate’s ‘It Started With A Kiss’, another great single that we sadly won’t be talking about.

It’s such a true portrait of male hubris, that as soon as he gets a generous reponse from the estranged lover the singer gives the overexcited impression that “I could be in again here!”

Will and Vinyl Scot I’m another one who completely agrees with you. I always thought this was pretty dire – I never actively disliked it but just thought it was pretty trite and generally unremarkable. Much preferred the earlier stuff like ‘Being Boiled’, ‘Empire State Human’ ‘The Sound of the Crowd’ (or if I’m being a bit pretentious even some of ‘The Dignity of Labour’) but also later stuff like ‘Mirror Man’ and ‘Keep Feeling Fascination’.

And unlike ‘Tainted Love’ which at the time I thought was about as good as it gets (especially if I was in a club back then and that descending synth and the drums bit on the 12 inch where it goes into ‘Where Did Our Love Goes’ was playing) but which sheer repetition finally ruined for me my opinion of this has changed in no way over the past 27 years..I remain totally unmoved by it.

Tom and the wine bars;
Being suburban ‘New Romantics’ back then and a bit young to make it into the centre of town to where it was really happening I remember we definitely thought going into the one wine bar that had opened in our neck of the woods of a weekday evening and drinking shorts (maybe even cocktails!) was one step nearer to the world of Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran and ‘New Sounds New Styles’ than drinking lager in the local boozers.
Having said that we were only prepared to suffer for our art so much and were invariably in the pub by last orders…

As a boozer in the 80s I don’t remember any actual cocktails being drunk and I frequented some fairly tacky disco pub meat markets back then. Lager for the boys and Gin and Tonic/Pernod and Black for the girls is what I mostly remember. This was in London too, maybe things were different out in Spandau/Wham! land (ie: Essex)

This record is too familiar and assimilated in my brain for me to have anything interesting to say about it. I’ve been listening to ‘Dare’ a bit lately and when this comes on at the end it does feel like their coronation record, the other tracks are more “interesting” but this is the one that’s really grabbing the gold pop crown.

Lee’s right at #41. Brandy & Babycham was as exotic as it got. (And that was only bought by a bloke on the firmest of promises!) Martini still ploughed a ‘glamorous’ furrow down the sticky carpet to a dance floor of (irony of ironies) Sulley and Catherall wannabees.

Wine bars were ostensibly for twats. The Golden Hour of The Future for Yuppies. Ok ya, company car, and all that. Under 21s generally gave them a wide berth in search of the Hofmeister bear. The ‘Brahms n Lizst’ emporiums were often run by camp silk-shirted ‘Agadoo’ merchants in their 40s and 50s – smoking More cigarettes sans socks. For your average Brit, knowledge of wine was limited to Blue Nun and Mateus Rose – washing down the de-frosted Black Forest Gateaux.

Johnny Rotten called the Human League ‘trendy hippies’ by the way and it was odd (if true) that Oakey saw ‘Don’t You Want Me’ as a ‘Dare’ filler.

I recall it snowed and snowed at the end of 1981/start of ’82. (Not unlike the past month in the UK). As a spotty trainee in the Air Force, I was tasked one night with escorting the heroic mountain climber Chris Bonnington in his car to the Station Theatre at RAF Hereford, where he was to give a Presentation on his recent conquest of Mount Everest. En route from Main Gate to Theatre, ‘Don’t You Want me’ came on the radio.

“This ‘synthypop’ is the future of music” declared the bearded explorer Chris. Barely had the song finished, when we became stuck in an almighty snowdrift. The 2 of us had to be rescued by 8 men and a snow plough. His reputation as a pathfinder was shattered, but his opinion of new wave, avante-gard, electro-dance pop remained untarnished.

You’re right about the main clientele of wine bars not exactly tending towards the cutting edge. Part of vthe reason we didn’t make them a habit was they wee filled with 30 something, small businessman local playboy types making small talk with that evening’s date (think Paul Nicholas in ‘Just Good Friends’)with the bottom of the range bought on the never never sports car outside.

Yes pernod and black (or maybe something with bacardi in it)for ‘the ladies’ and Fosters for the lads were the drinks of choice for the majority in 1982 (including the oversized Fosters cans at parties)although Fosters was only briefly the unrivalled flavour of the month as there seemed to be procession of heavily promoted lagers in turn becoming the drink of the moment throughout the 80s (ie Castlemaine, Grolsch- the latter leading to the Grolsch tops on key rings thing). I’m pretty sure Hofmeister and Babycham were already pretty naff by 1982 though even in the outer suburbs.To be honest Babycham was something from a previous generation…

There was a definite push on cocktails in 1982/83 (beer mats with the ingredients on even in pubs etc)and most tacky clubs would make an effort at trying to sell them – this particularly dodgy club I used to frequent back then used to have one bar that it tried to market as ‘the cocktail bar’…I think I tried one there once! Overpriced and horrible.

Sigh. I saw the League do this live on teh dare! tour the same day it reached Number 1. Guildford Civic Hall. When we came out it was snowing and the next day school was cancelled because the boilers broke. Almost certainly it was the best 24 hours of my life.

Dickvandyke #43 – the beginning of 1982 saw one of the coldest snaps of the century. Dr Google tells me that on 9 January Newport in Shropshire recorded minus 26 degrees C, the lowest temperature ever recorded in England, and Braemar in Scotland was even colder.
My road story from that winter isn’t as good as getting stuck with Chris Bonington but anyway… I was hitching to London and an accident had blocked the motorway somewhere near Rugby, so my driver took a short cut – unlit except for the headlights, snow all around on a dead-straight Roman road. Then the intro to OMD’s “Maid of Orleans” came on the radio. Eerie – I could picture ghostly Roman legions and I hadn’t been drinking. A great, atmospheric track.