Fact #160460
When:
Short story:
Blue Monday by New Order enters the UK singles chart where it will peak at No12.
Full article:
Neil Tennant (vocalist, Pet Shop Boys) : In 1983, Chris and I thought that we had hit on this kind of music that nobody else was doing, which was a mixture of high energy gay music and hip-hop. And New Order’s single came into the Smash Hits office (where he worked) and I couldn’t believe it. It was exactly what we were doing.
Peter Hook (bassist, New Order) : It seems to be one of those tracks that’s timeless, which is amazing. We were using technology which could have dated like other ‘80s stuff but somehow we managed to swerve it. Was that deliberate? No. Everything we do is by accident. We Don’t Know Our Arses From Our Elbows is what we should have been called. The fact that, for two years, no one spotted that the sleeves cost more to make than the records confirms that.
I honestly thought Thieves Like Us, the single after Blue Monday, was far superuior. Blue Monday’s not a song. It’s a feeling, but once people hear that drum riff, they’re off. People used to go mad when we didn’t play it. We had a fight onstage with a DJ in Nottingham once because we wouldn’t play it – which was a very New Order thing to do. As you get older and mellower you appreciate what got you where you are. We play it now because people love it.
I love the myths around the song. There was the one about Dave Stewart, who’d spent ages recording a Eurythmics albumj, then heard Blue Monday and started all over again. The story of how the song was inspired by a suicide pact of Swedish students who’d been listening to Fats Domino’s Bolue Monday? I like that one.
I go through stages of intense dislike for Blue Monday which I’m sure every group does when they get one song they’re synonymous with, but the way it keeps getting re-invented is wonderful. Watching Kylie sampling it on the BRITs, it sounded fantastic, it really made me very proud.
(Source : Q Special Edition – 1001 Best Songs Ever, 2004)
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Peter Hook (bassist, New Order) : It seems to be one of those tracks that’s timeless, which is amazing. We were using technology which could have dated like other ‘80s stuff but somehow we managed to swerve it. Was that deliberate? No. Everything we do is by accident. We Don’t Know Our Arses From Our Elbows is what we should have been called. The fact that, for two years, no one spotted that the sleeves cost more to make than the records confirms that.
I honestly thought Thieves Like Us, the single after Blue Monday, was far superuior. Blue Monday’s not a song. It’s a feeling, but once people hear that drum riff, they’re off. People used to go mad when we didn’t play it. We had a fight onstage with a DJ in Nottingham once because we wouldn’t play it – which was a very New Order thing to do. As you get older and mellower you appreciate what got you where you are. We play it now because people love it.
I love the myths around the song. There was the one about Dave Stewart, who’d spent ages recording a Eurythmics albumj, then heard Blue Monday and started all over again. The story of how the song was inspired by a suicide pact of Swedish students who’d been listening to Fats Domino’s Bolue Monday? I like that one.
I go through stages of intense dislike for Blue Monday which I’m sure every group does when they get one song they’re synonymous with, but the way it keeps getting re-invented is wonderful. Watching Kylie sampling it on the BRITs, it sounded fantastic, it really made me very proud.
(Source : Q Special Edition – 1001 Best Songs Ever, 2004)