(previously in release time: Novas 0.6, last module of Program Eleven/I)
(previously in story time: Novas 1)
Novas 0.x was complete. I wasn’t planning on any more in the Eleven series except that I stumbled on the 1984 Spoons film project Listen To The City. And the song Sundown called to me. I felt that it fitted perfectly for mood and tone in 1983, the gap between Novas 1 and 2.
BEGIN PROGRAM ELEVEN/II MODULE ONE.
Novas 1.1: A Silence Over Cities
01 The Monitors – Nobody Told Me (1981, Australia) JACK
I remember the day the world gave birth to me
(n-da-da, n-da-da, ah)
I remember waiting to be born
With the shades completely drawn
It all came as a terrible surprise to me
(n-da-da, n-da-da, ah)
As I fell from darkness into dawn
Oh how the memory lingers on
Nobody told me (nobody told me)
Nobody told me
Nobody told me (nobody told me)
Nobody told me
Nobody told me (nobody told me)
Nobody told me
Then I read all the books my teachers gave to me
(n-da-da, n-da-da, ah)
I read the writing on the wall
And I watched the flowers fall
I screamed out to the world that they were hurting me
(n-da-da, n-da-da, ah)
And you know as far as I recall
Nobody answered me at all
Nobody told me (nobody told me)
Nobody told me
Nobody told me (nobody told me)
Nobody told me
Nobody told me (nobody told me)
Nobody told me
Somebody show me what I'm gonna be
Somebody say they got a job for me
Still nobody says what lies in store for me
(n-da-da, n-da-da, ah)
Nobody knows what we're here for
So many questions they ignore
Nobody told me (nobody told me)
Nobody told me (nobody told me)
Nobody told me (nobody told me)
Nobody told me (nobody told me)
Jack is adjusting to life in the real world after escaping the Simulation in Novas 1.
I found another Monitors song! Since ‘Singing In The 80s’ started this whole project, it seemed the obvious candidate to start this mini-series.
02 Sue Saad – Radioactive Dreams (1986, USA) SUSAN
We run
against a sky of black and red
Premonitions of tomorrow
Is there a future there for me?
It's been
a long lonely wait
Now I can see your face
In everything I say and do today
in my life
Radioactive
I need a place to lie my head
I close my eyes but there's no rest
Get me out of this wasteland
Of radioactive dreams
I
I see the colours changing shape
Sometimes I fear the darkness
But I know in time there will be light
Break down
the walls that hold us in
My head is pounding stronger
Does anyone hear me when I call?
I'm calling
Radioactive
I need a place to lie my head
I close my eyes but there's no rest
Get me out of this wasteland
Of radioactive dreams
When I'm alone
And no-one's around
I can't tell is it me
Or the world that's upside down?
Radioactive
I need a place to lie my head
I close my eyes but there's no rest
Get me out of this wasteland
Of radioactive dreams
Radioactive
Radioactive dreams
Susan is troubled by nightmares of the Simulation and its many nuclear wars.
A film I’ve never seen, but a great theme song. I recall seeing the name ‘Sue Saad’ in the 1980s and wasn’t sure if it was a real surname or a fake one – it’s a very good punk stage name. But it’s also real.
Sue Saad joins the Novas honour roll of Susans after Susan Nozaki, Suzanne Ciani, Siouxie Sioux, and ZN102.
03 Strange Advance – Who Lives Next Door (Canada, 1988) JACK
Along the banks of twisted steel
In choking smoke black boundaries reel
The dirty river flows down to the sea
Past the warehouse waterfront
The vacant lots, the ? dumps
There's just an ugly scar where beauty used to be
Used to be
We walked the moon so reassured
But the common cold it can't be cured
Have we really come that far
When we look at where we are?
Send all the rockets into space
I wanna live in a different place
Money for another war
when we don't even know
Who lives next door
The brave new world keeps marching on
Til all the ignorance is gone
But each giant step is just a footprint in the sand
Benath the towers of glass and steel
We forgot how to think, we forgot how to feel
We're barely crawling
but now we try to stand
We try to stand
We walked the moon so reassured
But the common cold it can't be cured
Have we really come that far
When we look at who we are?
Send all the rockets into space
I wanna live in a different place
Money for another war
when we don't even know
Who lives next door
Who lives next door
We're barely crawling
We were on the way
Now I'm shattered
Jack doesn’t like the state of the real world of 1983.
Strange Advance again! The Distance Between is a pretty good concept album.
04 Phobia – Pretend You’re Not Crazy (1979, USA) SUSAN
Hey you
Stop looking for the answers
You don't have all the questions
Can't seem to find what you're after
Cause you're looking from the wrong direction
Look around
Take a look inside yourself
I know it ain't easy
But if you don't
Soon they'll put you in a rubber room
C'mon baby won't you please
Pretend you're not crazy
Pretend you're not crazy
Pretend you're not crazy
Oh yeah
Hey you
You gotta stop seeing things
That aren't really there
Dumbified with that look in your eye
That says you just don't care
You gotta
Look around
Take a look inside yourself
I know it ain't easy
Do you see what I mean
They're gonna give you thorazine
C'mon baby won't you please
Pretend you're not crazy
Pretend you're not crazy
Pretend you're not crazy
Oh yeah
You look like a lunatic
You sound like a lunatic
You act like a lunatic
Are you really a lunatic?
Hey you
When you're a lunatic
You can't stop pretending
You better change your ways
Before they put you away
Does that look like a happy ending?
Susan is worried about Jack’s deepening obsession with fighting the Company.
One of those little gems I could only find on Youtube.
05 Instructions – So You Learn From Computers (1980, Canada) JACK
So you learn from computers
So you learn to play
There's a green light shining
It must be time to go
I met a strange emotion
And God it changed my face
I had a brand new story
But I lost my paragraph
So you learn from computers
Learn from computers
Emotions wash the day
In puddles of devotions
Come from clouds
Stay away
They've given me a number
They gave her one too
They were pretty close
By a million or three
So you learn from computers
Learn from computers
No-one has a name
Too much confusion
Show some concern?
Not today
It's not as if I'm apathetic
Or suicidal
No not me
But it's best to accept failings
Like that new highway through you
So you learn from computers
Learn from computers
Emotions hurt
And it's best to remain complacent
Don't give yourself away
It wasn't that long ago
Someone said, Love
Again
it was strange
it was expensive
it was sweet
it was bitter
But you learn from computers
Learn from computers
Heart, re-heart, replace
Mastered foundation
Lost my way
That way
Jack and Susan’s relationship problems come to a head as Jack remotely hacks back into the mind-altering Company mainframe in search of answers, a dangerous move that Susan strongly disagrees with.
I have a memory of this one from somewhere way ages back. I think it holds up quite well. Canadian, of course.
06 Jurriaan Andriessen – Jack (1978, Netherlands) JACK and SYSTEM
Jack, Jack, Jack
Jack, Jack, Jack
Jack, Jack, Jack
Jack explores cyberspace.
That album cover image. That’s all of Neuromancer basically, isn’t it? In 1978.
Once again I seem to remember this one. I don’t know how. Mix tape?
07 Listen To The City – Then As Now (1984, Canada) JACK
The projections are so clear.
Why can't they see them?
Many will compare it with the Great Depression.
Bank failures. Rampant inflation. Fortunes lost overnight.
It came suddenly. Everyone suffered.
Then, as now, no-one heeded the danger.
Then, as now, we were sleepwalking.
Then, neighbourhoods shut down.
Now, cities are dying.
Then, factories closed.
Now, industries relocate to countries with cheap labour.
Then, farmers were forced to become migrants.
Now, farms are run by agribusiness.
Then, people could help one another.
Now, we are nations of strangers.
Then, fascism sprouted.
Now, a new fascism moves.
We remain locked in a prison we have built for ourselves.
How desperately we need new visions!
Jack discovers some files on the Company mainframe that worry him.
Not a song, but a great little spoken word clip from Listen To The City.
08 Red Rider – Lunatic Fringe (1981, Canada) JACK
Lunatic fringe
I know you're out there
You're in hiding
and you hold your meetings
I can hear you coming
I know what you're after
We're wise to you this time
We won't let you kill the laughter
Uh-huh
Uh-huh
Lunatic fringe
at the twilight's last gleaming
This is open season
but you won't get too far
Cause you gotta blame someone
for your own confusion
But we're on guard this time
against your final solution
Uh-huh
Uh-huh
Uh-huh
We can hear you coming
No, you're not gonna win this time
You're not gonna win
We can hear the footsteps
Out along the walkway
Out along the walkway
Lunatic fringe
We all know you're out there
Can you feel the resistance?
Can you feel the thunder?
Jack becomes aware of a spreading neo-fascist movement at the heart of the Company’s plans.
I have loved this song for a long time.
09 Spoons – Sundown (1984, Canada) SUSAN
There's a sundown on the harbour There's a sundown on the water There's a darkness over mountains Like the darkness in my soul This is where the loose ends tie together All of our lives like so much feathers I, I I hope my house stands in the weather There's a silence over cities Like the silence in my dreams This is sundown, this is evening But this moment all is calm This is where the loose ends tie together All of our lives like so much feathers I, I I hope my house stands in the weather I, I I hope this house stands in the weather
Susan learns what what Jack has discovered.
Sandy Horne (and Gordon Deppe) being luminous, two years after ‘Nova Heart’
10 Planet P Project – Where Does it Go (2004, USA) JACK and SYSTEM
If you're watching it, you become part of it
If you're close enough to see it, you're in it
There's no line drawn dividing the two
And if you don't know where you come from
You don't know where you're going
Do you?
And things that might have happened
Back in the dark recesses of history
Can't happen again
Can they?
They're showing the colours, black white and red
They wanna play baseball on your head
And if you sit at home with the shades drawn
They'll never go away, they'll never be gone
There's a hundred thousand people on the street tonight
There's a million more who wait behind the scenes
I see a house divided hanging by a thread tonight
And a people who remember where they've been
But where does it go?
Yeah where does this all go?
I saw a crowd of skins push a kid around
One over the head, left him on the ground
There was a crowd of people stood and cheered
Then they melted away, just disappeared
There's a hundred thousand people on the street tonight
There's a million more who wait behind the scenes
I see a house divided hanging by a thread tonight
And a people who remember where they've been
But where does it go?
And they don't like him and they don't like you
Don't like the Muslim, don't like the Jew
Don't like the people from over there
And they don't like me at all
Look at all that hair
Where does it go?
Where does it go?
Where will it lead?
What have we learned?
What does it take?
How long will we bleed?
How many will burn?
Yeah where does this all go?
Where does it go?
Where will it lead?
What have we learned?
What does it take?
How long will we bleed?
How many will burn?
Jack goes undercover to infiltrate the fascist movement, increasing Susan’s concern for him.
Tony Carey’s 1980s incarnation of Planet P Project has a very strong place in my memory (though it only gets, I think, one song in Novas) but this one is from his 2004 revival, ‘1931: Go Out Dancing Part I’.
11 Pleasure Dome – Heaven’s Daughter (1982, UK) SUSAN
Heaven's daughter
sure you oughtta
get it all together now
we can really live together
we can really work it out
we can really love forever
that's what life is all about
all about
everybody become brothers
sisters, all of race and blood
You made the world by being clever -
go one better, make it good
As Susan and Jack take separate paths, Susan resolves to fight the Company in the way its own Simulation taught her: music.
Another wonderful 1980s punk/postpunk one-off.