Nightshift, Sunday night into Monday morning. I’m doing a late one, one I normally avoid at all costs. I have a long prep session, and it’s very quiet so I lie on the sofa in the studio and start reading the book Jon lent me. It’s good.
I’ve turned most of the lights off. I can hear the rush of the air con, a red light glows by the door into the studio next door, and I too could be on a plane, hurtling Lord knows where, trying to get some sleep. I never can sleep on planes.
I drift off. Thoughts hurtle skywards. I can see the office block across the car park, geometrically perfect, orange light spilling from the stairwells. It looks like a Chris Ware drawing.
The tannoy barks news of an incoming audio feed. For a moment I’m not sure where I am, wake or asleep, at work or at home. I go to our office and look at a flourescent light in a lab in the college across the road that’s been flashing madly for at least 24 hours now. It’s Monday morning but there is no-one anywhere.
I had a slightly weird experience the other evening, listening to Tom Robinson on BBC 6music. They were talking about how comedy and music (well, arty pop and rock music) don’t normally mix too well, and as part of their discussion they played ‘The Black Hit of Space’ by The Human League. I think they played it because they felt it was unintentionally hilarious.
It starts something like this:
Been out all night, I needed a bite
I thought I’d put a record on
I reached for the one with the ultra-modern label
And wondered where the light had gone
It had a futuristic cover
Lifted straight from Buck Rogers
The record was so black it had to be a con
The auto-changer switched as I filled my sandwich
And futuristic sounds warbled off and on
Regardless of the artistic merits of this song (or lack of them), I felt really queasy hearing them mocking a song I used to listen to rather a lot at the time (early 1980s). It was like hearing someone saying your ex-girlfriend was really ugly - okay, she may have turned out to have been an unfaithful, neurotic nightmare, but I did fancy her at the time, and you’re saying I have no taste… also this is early Human League we’re talking about here. Reproduction is still one of my Desert Island Albums.
Back to 6music. They were giving it a pasting in the chat-room as well, apparently, but I couldn’t bear to look. Someone wrote ‘please stop it now!’ so they faded it early. Which was a shame, because they stopped it just before this amazing pair of couplets:
The Black Hit Of Space
Get James Burke on the case
It’s the hit that’s never gone
Time stops when you put it…
You see, I think it was a joke. I’m not sure I thought that at the time, but that’s my defence now and I’m sticking to it. And if they wanted to take the piss out of a track that really does sound like a bad Human league parody, there’s one right there on the same album…
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