“Was ‘Cars’ easy to write? Piece of piss, innit? I’d wanted to learn bass guitar better….The first four notes I played on that guitar, and I thought, That’s all right.”
For a month or two, Top of the Pops did a thing they called “Bubbling Under,” where they would take a song that wasn’t on the chart but showed some sort of movement. It was between me and Simple Minds—we both had songs out that got to number 80 or something like that. And they picked me because my band was called Tubeway Army. They thought that was a slightly more interesting name than Simple Minds. Just luck. Suddenly, I was seen by 12 million people, and “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” was number one.
After that, as far as I was concerned, Tubeway Army was finished. Tubeway Army was a punk band; this was a completely new thing. I wanted to be on my own. I wanted to be Gary Numan now. If I’d had my way, it would have been Gary Numan from the beginning, but Beggars Banquet said they’d invested money in the Tubeway Army name, and they didn’t want to drop it. They made me stick with it through the first two albums. It wasn’t until “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” and Replicas went to number one that I had enough clout to get what I wanted. I was eventually able to become Gary Numan when “Cars” came out.
Was “Cars” easy to write? Piece of piss, innit? I’d wanted to learn bass guitar better; I’d never written a song on the bass. So I went to Shaftesbury Avenue in London and bought myself a cheap bass called a Shergold Modulator. I’ve still got it—it hangs on a wall in my studio. I took it home, got it out of its case, and the very first thing I played was [sings the first four notes of “Cars”]. That was it. The first four notes I played on that guitar, and I thought, That’s all right.
Honest to God, “Cars” took me 10 minutes—all the parts, all the arrangements. Another 20, and the lyrics were done. The whole thing took about half an hour, from opening the case to having the finished bass line, arrangement, lyric, and vocal line sorted out. The keyboard line came a bit later when I got to the studio, because I didn’t have a synth; I had to rent one. It was the most productive 30 minutes of my life.
Out of all the songs I’ve written, “Cars” was by far the quickest. I’ve written 300 or 400 songs—that are available on CD; I’ve written a lot more than that—and only two on bass, one being “Cars,” the other completely forgettable. It’s become this electronic anthem, one of the most well-known electronic songs ever, but it was written on a bass.
One of the other things that’s weird about it is it’s almost an instrumental. It doesn’t have a vocal chorus. All the singing happens in the first 60 seconds, then there’s another three minutes of instrumental. I had a similar issue with “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?,” but that was the opposite: That was five and a quarter minutes long, you couldn’t dance to it, and it had a spoken-word chorus not a sing-along chorus. If you think of all the boxes you’re supposed to tick to have a radio-friendly song, “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” didn’t tick any of them, and “Cars” didn’t do that much better.
MIXTAPE: 5 More Synthetic Songs Filled with Paranoia and Alienation 1. “Airwaves,” Thomas Dolby 2. “Ghosts,” Japan 3. “Suburbia,” Pet Shop Boys 4. “Underpass,” John Foxx 5. “Private Plane,” Thomas Leer
“I used to think that the car was a tank for the civilian. You could sit inside your car, lock your doors, and it would keep you safe.”
The problem I’ve always had with “Cars” is when I play it live, and especially when I do it on TV, I just stand on the stage, and my bit is over pretty quickly, and then I’ve got to stand there and try to look interested. I used to think, What the fuck am I going to do? I can’t dance—I dance like an idiot. When I play it live, even now, I’ll often put another keyboard on stage just to give me something to do with my hands. For a few years I stood on the side and had a drink, or I’d go and sit down. I’ve always had an uncomfortable relationship with the last two or three minutes of the song.
Lyrically, “Cars” came from an incident that happened to me in London. I was in my car and in a bit of traffic, and there were a couple of men in front of me in a white van, and they got out. I’d obviously done something—I must have cut them off a while back. I don’t remember. But they were fucking furious, these blokes. They came back at me, shouting. I locked all my doors—I didn’t want any trouble. They were kicking my car, banging on the handles, and swearing at me, for fuck’s sake! I don’t know what I did, but it must have been pretty bad. Eventually, I thought, I’m gonna have to get away from this. There was enough room for me to get up on the pavement, so I drove up and I went along, with these people chasing me, scattering pedestrians in my wake, shitting my pants. I was really scared. I managed to get away up the high street. It was quite a shocking experience, and that’s where the idea for “Cars” came from. In modern society, I used to think that the car was a tank for the civilian. You could sit inside your car, lock your doors, and it would keep you safe. It puts you in a little protective bubble. You can maneuver through the world, but you don’t really have to engage. That’s how it felt to me, and that’s what the song’s about.
THAT WAS THEN
BUT THIS IS NOW
Gary Numan continues to tour and record and has released 15 albums since 1980’s Telekon. His influence has been hailed by musicians like Damon Albarn and the Sugababes and comedians like Noel Fielding. His 1980 Top 10 chart showing with “Cars” marks the beginning and end of his American success, but if fate deigns to allow you only a solitary hit, “Cars” isn’t a bad one to have. It singlehandedly prepared the United States for the British-led electronic onslaught that was lurking just around the corner. In the ensuing decades, it has been sampled, covered, remixed, and reissued countless times. Long after there are cars, there will be “Cars.”
NUMAN: I’ve got a huge amount of credibility now, strangely enough. I never had it when I was selling number-one albums. It’s been a slowly building thing for me. Marilyn Manson did one of my songs. I started to hear interviews with people like Trent Reznor talking about me being an influence on them—people I admired and had no idea they even knew who I was. It’s given me a huge boost of confidence, and it’s helped a lot of people to reevaluate me, the music press in particular. When my Pleasure Principle album came out in ’79, it got fucking crucified. It got pretty much slammed into the ground by everyone who reviewed it. Yet, a little while ago, the NME—who’ve been unbelievably hostile toward me over the years—called it one of the groundbreaking electronic records of the last few decades.
There’s been a fundamental shift in the way people see me and think of me, but the undeniable fact in the middle of all this is that I only ever had one single that was successful in America. Just the one. Better than none. But I never did better in America when I had that initial opportunity, and I live on in the vague thread of a hope that I might have something there again in the future.
“GIRLS ON FILM”
When MTV reluctantly opened the door to British and European acts, the ones that came stumbling through were by and large an odd lot. Some seemed provincial, others awkward; a few were just plain carnival acts (not to speak ill of the dead, but Falco). Duran Duran were none of these things. They were the MTV generation’s Rolling Stones. This wasn’t a band evolving away from its grubby, indie beginnings—Duran were born to be big. The so-called Fab Five (singer Simon Le Bon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, bassist John Taylor, and two other unrelated Taylors, drummer Roger and guitarist Andy) broke out of Birmingham, England, then promptly conquered the world. They saw it as their duty to live out the lifestyle they depicted in their wildly overproduced videos. The supermodels they squired, the luxury yachts and private jets, the rock-god decadence and debauchery—they bathed in it, and yet we didn’t hate them for it. No band so synonymous with the overindulgent eighties transcended the decade better. They survived the vagaries of fashion, lineup changes, the passing of the years, and the profitable lure of the package-tour nostalgia circuit to become the era’s distinguished
elder statesmen. And their hair still looks immaculate.
LM: Duran Duran chose me—I had no choice in the matter. I still remember, clear as day, the first time I saw the “Hungry Like the Wolf” video. It was like I was being possessed. From then on, everything was different: Everything I thought and felt was in the name of Duran Duran. I traveled to their concerts and waited outside their hotels and recording studios. I ran an internationally known Duranzine before pursuing a career in entertainment journalism just so I could be paid to be near them. I married a man named Simon, only to divorce him for an even hotter guy named John. I have lived for them, lied for them, and questioned my own sanity over them. And I’d do it all again. Don’t say a prayer for me now—save it ’til the morning after!
JB: My Five Stages Of Duran Duran:
1. Denial. “Haven’t heard them. Not going to waste my time. They’ll be gone in five minutes. I don’t like their puffy shirts.”
2. Anger. “This is shit. It’s shit! Why are people so hysterical about them? They’re a one-hit, all right, two-hit wonder—at best. In a few years, you’re all going to be embarrassed about liking them.”
3. Bargaining. “Let me never have to hear their songs or see their videos again, and I swear I’ll be a better, less selfish, more thoughtful, and caring person.”
4. Depression. “Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m wrong about everything and everyone else is right. Is that possible?”
5. Acceptance. “Fine. They wrote a few good songs. They had staying power. They turned out to be way more consistent than groups I liked a lot better at the time. I have grudging respect for them. Okay?”
JOHN TAYLOR: We were perfect, and very few bands come out of the bag perfectly formed. Whether you liked us or not, that was a question of taste, but we were fully developed. And the moment Simon stepped in, we became the band that made “Girls on Film.” The serious press had such a hard time with Duran in the beginning, and one of the reasons is because there was nothing for them to do. A lot of other bands—and I hesitate to say Radiohead, U2, or even the Rolling Stones—it took them three albums to find their thing, and along the way, their journalist friends had become their champions. The press fueled a part of their story, so they could own them. With Duran, they were like, What are we going to do?
NICK RHODES: “Girls on Film” originated in 1979 in Birmingham. We had a rehearsal room in a squat where Andy Wickett, our singer at the time, was living. We’d recently parted company with Stephen Duffy. Andy had this phrase “girls in films”: “Girls in films look better.” John and I decided to change it to “girls on film.” It just sounded better. There is a reason why it’s been used so often as a phrase since. If you could hit on one of those every day, you would.
TAYLOR: After Andy Wickett left, we said to the next singer [Jeff Thomas], “We’ve got this chorus, write the verse as you see fit,” and he wrote his own. Then we fell out with Jeff. The thing about “Girls on Film” is Nick and I trusted our instincts. We could have cast it away when we fell out with Andy, but Nick and I held on to it. With Simon, again we said, “We’ve got this chorus—write whatever you want for the verse.” And his opening line was absolutely fantastic: “See them walking hand in hand across the bridge at midnight.” There are so many little hooks—every line of the verse is a hook, you know? I know, because we play it every night, and I’m singing along, “Lipstick cherry all over the lens as she’s falling.” It’s one long hook, which it needs to be, because the chorus is so simple. Simon had never even listened to the previous singers’ versions. I guess that’s testament to the crazy, evocative simplicity of the phrase “girls on film.” It’s actually mind-racing. It’s that suburban view upwards to the catwalk, to the silver screen—to unattainable beauty on that level—that the suburbanite always dreams of.
RHODES: Girls have always been a thing, thankfully, for our species. Simon really did write the master lyric, which was much funnier, more clever, and more ironic than it had been previously. It was about girls in films; it was about exploitation. It was about the old Hollywood clichés of the casting couch but the excitement and the glamour of it, too.
SIMON LE BON: I wanted something that was a bit edgy, because I wanted the band to be edgy—not too soft. So an homage to girls in the movies was not what I was after. I wrote the song as a fantasy. It’s a guy watching these models, and they’re being exploited for the camera, for the producer, and for the guy who’s at home watching them on telly while he’s sitting in the bath. He feels that he’s got his own special relationship with them, and he realizes that the girls can take him all the way. At the end of the third verse, when it goes, “Give me shudders in a whisper take me up till I’m shooting a star”—that, to me, was an orgasm. That is the guy actually coming, and whenever I sing it, I think about that. And the line “There’s a camera rolling on her back, on her back”? He’s repeating that line as sexual innuendo—because “on her back” definitely means she’s having sex, right? But the song is also about the fact that women have to go through so much to make good photographs. And they’re selling a product. “Wider baby smiling, you just made a million”—not a million for her, a million for the guy who’s making it! So I wanted the song to be fun but have some substance as well.
RHODES: Simon’s got a way of finding words that sound beautiful together. But the songs have always had a meaning—even the more abstract songs like “Union of the Snake” or “The Reflex.” That period we certainly got more abstract than the first couple of albums, but they always had a story behind them. I’m all for surrealism in lyrics, but at the same time, if you can find something that truly touches somebody emotionally, that’s when you’re on the track to writing a good lyric, which often leads to a good song.
When Simon first came to meet us, he had this fabulous little notepad with the words “Rov Ostrov” [the name of his previous band] written on the front. That book, those lyrics, the name Simon Le Bon—we were thinking, If only he can sing, it’ll be perfect! Everything from the first album was written in that book, and probably the Rio album too. How he never lost it, I don’t know. We ought to make a facsimile.
TAYLOR: We were incredibly single-minded: We just wanted to be the best that we could be. I was there to craft the very best bass lines, Simon to craft the very best lyrics. The best bands are the ones where the members hold down their own corners. It’s like, you take care of your shit, I’ll take care of mine. You can’t have any slackers.
LE BON: I spent a whole day and a half trying to come up with a new melody because our managers didn’t think it was good enough. Finally I said, “That is the melody, guys.” And John, Nick, Roger, and Andy backed me up. Because they understood—we were very natural musicians. We had an instinctive feel for what worked and what didn’t. They trusted me and my instincts that much to say, “If he says it’s right, it’s right.”
TAYLOR: It took us a long time to get “Girls on Film” right. We were learning to play at that time. There’s a CD box set that has the Air Studios demo, on which we hadn’t quite refined it yet. If you listen to what Roger and I are doing on that compared to the version that made the first album, we’re playing much more cleverly on the album version. There’s more playing—we’d really found our thing. If I had to encapsulate the best of the first few years of the band, I’d take three tracks: “Rio,” “The Chauffeur,” and the “Girls on Film” 12-inch.
RHODES: The camera clicking at the beginning was something I wanted to add. It was a 35mm Nikon that was put on motor drive. It was something that identified the song immediately. I’ve always felt that intros are incredibly important. Some of our songs have pretty elaborate intros, like “A View to a Kill” and “Wild Boys.” I’m always taken by the thing that catches my ear that I haven’t heard before, and that’s what “Girls on Film” has—between the camera, that very distinctive drum beat, and one of John’s greatest bass lines.
TAYLOR: I had been listening to a lot of Bowie’s band of that period: Sta
tion to Station and Low. Side one of Low, which is the “Sound and Vision” side, was Roger’s and my fantasy. If you listen to “Stay” off Station to Station, that would give you an idea of what Roger and I were trying to emulate—the tightness of that rhythm section. Everybody says, “Bowie and Eno, the genius of their ideas!” But underneath you have George Murray and Dennis Davis, the greatest rhythm section of that time. You have Stevie Wonder’s rhythm section basically slumming it, but everything that Murray and Davis did was incredibly funky. Chic was the other really important one. Chic turned me on to bass.
LE BON: I was brought up on T. Rex and Bowie, and moved on into Lou Reed, a little bit of Genesis on the way, and I was most definitely deep into punk. Look at the Damned—there’s great poetry in some of those lyrics. Leonard Cohen, who is a poet—I was into his lyrics very much. I was a big fan of the Doors and Jim Morrison’s lyrics. Then there was the humor of the Kinks. And Patti Smith must be mentioned. She was probably, at that time, the single most influential person upon my lyric writing. Now, you might not see any of Patti Smith in my lyrics, but I do. Actually, Patti could almost have written “Girls on Film,” because she had that thing about money and sex and youthfulness, and also that whole sexual climax thing. That’s straight out of Patti Smith, that is. If you listen to “Birdland” and “Horses,” that sexual dynamic curve to climax is definitely there.
MIXTAPE: 5 More Sexy Songs About Sex 1. “Into You Like a Train,” Psychedelic Furs 2. “Total Control,” The Motels 3. “Kiss Me,” Tin Tin 4. “So Alive,” Love and Rockets 5. “Master and Servant,” Depeche Mode
TAYLOR: We knew “Girls on Film” was the strongest track on the album, and we fought with EMI. We said, “This has got to be the second single,” and they were like, “No, no, no: ‘Careless Memories’ is the right second single.” I look back now, and I feel like the guy who was doing that, Rob Warr—he used to run Fast Product with Bob Last, who had the Human League before—I was thinking he was trying to sabotage us. So we released “Careless Memories,” and that was the last song we’d put out in a long time that wasn’t a Top 30 hit. We forced their hand and put out “Girls on Film” when the album came out.
Mad World Page 4