Sock Free Hideaway

BEATS OF LOVE

41. I Believe in You by Talk Talk

TALK TALK presented this single to EMI as the only one taken from their masterpiece, Spirit of Eden. The pinnacle of their many achievements was completely misunderstood by the label. Tim Friese-Greene's understated role in the group needs revising, as this song he co-wrote and produced amounts to nothing less than the deepest and saddest musical expression ever committed to wax. That somehow also manages to be one of the most soulful and addictive. 

The players all sound like they're in a brilliant trance and their blanker spaces create a real sense of subtle drama. I prefer this LP version, obviously, because it's nearly twice as long. Little wonder they ended their time together on the prestigious jazz label Verve.      

I tooted heroin a few times in a Rusholme squat on just the one occasion. It was exciting at first with all the paraphernalia, then became frightening as I began to feel a little too incredible. After the effects finally wore off, I luckily filed it under 'best tried once.' Mark Hollis's brother Ed wasn't so lucky and eventually died of his addiction, which makes this song so deeply emotive and personal. It apes heroin's comforting effects in both his fear-wracked vocals, and the haunting melody that smolders and snakes along magnificently, producing something both ethereal and truly pain-relieving in the process. 

However, Hollis states that 'within rock music, there’s so much glorification of it, and it’s a wicked, horrible thing, you know' asserting that the only real partial escape from suffering in his own life is through music. Preferring a sedated six-piece choral section to the twenty-five piece version that he erased. Preferring an amorphous structure to coherence and order. Preferring stark lyrical laments to metaphors. And, preferring life, with all its pain, to death. 

It sounds even more poignant, on this, the third anniversary of Mark Hollis's own death, and, the second day of Putin's evil act of defiance in the face of a divided world. 

Its brilliance will survive us all.