Modern Times
No Ordinary Return
Radio Africa
Toulouse
America For Beginners
Eddie
No Rope As Long As Time
Seaport September
New Millionaires
Truth About John
Cora
Modern Times 12" version - New on CD
Thin White Duke - New on CD
This Side Of Midnight - New on CD
Sandinista
Voices Inside - New on CD

Reviews | Album Credits

By the end of the 1940s and at the beginning of the 1950s America had resumed its cold war with the Soviet Union ("Big Bear"). Gone was the friendship with Josef Stalin ("Uncle Joe") that had helped the Allied forces defeat Hitler. Sensing an opportunity to make a name for himself US Republican Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy ("Big Mac") hit on the idea of an anti-communism campaign. His portrayal of Communism as the supreme evil allowed his accusations of "disloyalty" to be incredibly effective.

During the early 1950s McCarthy, a master of the art of playing on people's fears, set about ridding America of the supposed red menace at home. Blacklists, deportations, imprisonment, ruined careers and marriages were the order of the day, especially for non-Americans. Actors, writers, musicians, radio and television entertainers were targeted because of their prominence in society. The authorities took Hollywood's ("Tinsel Town") actors, directors and film script authors under special scrutiny. Many artists were taken to the chairman of the "House of Un-American Activities Committee", there they looked for any ambiguities in their statements or liberal or left wing beliefs. To defend an accused was perceived as sharing the accused's views.

Charlie Chaplin was never a member of the Communist Party and was never anti-American. He did however stand up for many different peoples with a good cause, including America's allies the Russians during war. He did have an affinity for some Communist ideas on a humanitarian level. His 1936 film "Modern Times "was seen by some critics as an attack on capitalism. Life for Chaplin became unbearable in the States during the McCarthy witch hunts, in the atmosphere of paranoia McCarthy instigated Chaplin became a hate figure. He was eventually forced to leave America and spent the rest of his life living in Switzerland, returning to the US only once.

The song begins with an original speech clip from one of the sessions of the committee. The chairman calls for order and makes a swearing-in. An accused says: "You have spent one week vilifying me before the American public and you refuse to allow me to make a statement on my rights as an American citizen."
 

A young man sits at the roadside and prays that a police car will pass by. There's blood on his expensive Burberry jacket, which as a football fan he just had to wear. He should have taken one of the special trains for away games rather than a normal train. But on the "football specials" the police ride along. The fans who want to go out on the rampage therefore prefer the "ordinary return", the normal train. Before the match they like to spend t heir time stealing expensive cars and setting fire to them when the tank is empty. A seat on the platform is for them a status symbol. On the way to the ground opposing fans clashed and the young man in the fashionable leisure clothes lies and waits in vain for rescue. Because the police don't patrol in this area.
 

There's only bad news from Radio Africa. In 1985 South Africa was still governed by the monster apartheid. The West complains about the foreign aid, but in the trade with the industrial nations, it's the African countries who are at a disadvantage: They exchange cheap raw materials for expensive finished products. With the war in the Ogaden 1977/78 Moscow first supported the socialist government of Somalia, but then supplied weapons to the Ethiopian dictatorship. There is still hope for Mozambique and Zimbabwe, but for Tanzania progress has had to stop -- the oil imports devoured too much foreign exchange. " Exchange ", "Credit", " Interest ": technical terms that all add up to only one thing: Everything gets even harder. Independence is an expensive commodity when the finances lie in white hands.
 

It is a long way from the markets (bazaars) in North Africa, in which leather goods and Berber (member of Muslim group in North Africa) carpets are sold, to the car factories in which each movement is measured in units of time. One does not earn much here, but the work doesn't leave any visible scars. They give you the impression that France is like in the pictures of Monet and Braque. But they don't use the colours of the painters here. Every filter, which you insert, leaves an invisible crack in you. You came all the way to Toulouse, in order to lose (wordplay: Toulouse / to lose). As you clock in, he walks in right behind you and you both pick up your rivets; he thinks he's different because of the colour of his skin . You've already had their O.A.S., the French mercenary troop in the Algeria war and you've had the communist trade union federation C.G.T. If C N. C (computer-controlled robots) are introduced everyone will lose their jobs.
 

The election of Ronald Reagan to President of the USA and subsequent swing to the political right horrified many people. "Bed-Time for Bonzo": One of Reagan's last movies in which his co-star, a chimpanzee named Bonzo, was the better actor. Great Britain under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher became little more than just another State of America. The paranoia of the McCarthy era surfaced again with the administration's determination to rid the world of the red menace aboard. The origins of crack cocaine in California was traced back to the Contras, a guerrilla force backed by the Reagan administration that attacked Nicaragua's Sandinista government during the 1980s. Payment were made to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department from funds authorised by the Congress for "humanitarian assistance" to the Contras. In some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies. These activities were carried out in connection with Contra activities in both Costa Rica and Honduras. Even the swingers of the permissive 60's are suddenly swerving to the right. At prime time the vigilantes are appearing in programmes about the "good fight", while the day begins with a triple "K". (The Klu Klux Klan.) There's no sponsored programme for the sinners, instead they're bringing back the electric chair. (The "hot seat".)
 

Between the spaces of an iron-ore train I see how the water of the lake ripples. With me at home is Eddie, insane. In the distance he heard the sea noise. It sounded like the crackle of a CB-Rig. Eddie had cracked and they had now completely broken him. His thoughts are still on the battleground of Goose Green and he waits until late into the night for the helicopters to pick him up.

"Rejoice!" Margaret Thatcher said, when the message of victory came from the Falklands. When the soldiers returned the port was swarming with reporters. Small boats go bobbing, like a 1940 repeat of Dunkirk, when the stranded British army was picked up and saved by an enormous quantity of civilian ships. After a train ride home to a heroes reception, a banner proclaims "Well done, Eddie". We could ride the big wheel on the fairground by the sea forever, but we still wouldn't know how Eddie feels.
 

An old Afrikaner, a descendant of the Dutchmen who colonialised the country, sits on his farm and swears that nothing will change. The compatriots of his black servant live in the Townships, ghettos of dense populations , such as Cape City or Johannesburg, or in the Homelands, pseudo-independent vassal states, which serve as reservoirs of cheap labour. In order to be able to live in the Townships, they need a residence permit, so say the "pass laws". In 1960 a peaceful protest against the pass laws in Sharpeville ended in a massacre, 67 black people were killed. Nelson Mandela, leader of the liberation movement ANC (African National Congress), sat in prison for over 20 years. When in 1976 Afrikaans was introduced as compulsory in the schools, the pupils of Soweto started an uprising, that turned into a mass strike. In 1983 the President, Pieter Botho gave the Blacks and Indians some more rights, but the prospect of real reform was unmentionable. The student leader Steve Biko was arrested in 1977 and murdered by the police.

"No Rope As Long As Time" was written after reading the biography of one of the founders of the South African Communist Party: a white guy whose name escapes me as does the name of the book. Sorry to be so vague but it is 16 years ago! The phrase 'No Rope as Long as Time' is/was a saying of black South Africans meaning that no amount of oppression could ever halt their eventual freedom. Musically the song was inspired by Bruce Springsteen. After composing so much at that time on keyboards, often using pop-type riffs ("Modern Times", "Seaport September", "No Ordinary Return", "America for Beginners", "Eddie", "Truth About John"...) I was listening to Springsteen and thought Jesus! why don't I get back to strumming a guitar. Actually you don't hear the acoustic guitar too much on the record, but that's how it started. Steve Skaith
 

A sailor sits on the wet concrete, wishing he had cab fare. Last night someone cried their eyes out on his shoulder, then picked his pockets. Don't stare at the man in the white suit like that! He might wipe the sweat from his brow, but this isn't a scene from a film with Peter Lorre. He's got it in for you and he's not joking. He's going to teach you what the word "angst" in gangster means. Sometimes you forget where you are. Yesterday you were in Marseilles, today it's Singapore. You ask someone if he knows of a better job, but you draw a blank. You end up on a slow boat to China and you head is spinning. Did you really become a sailor to end up in this shit?
 

The new millionaires are the unemployed. Every Thursday they cash the cheques they receive from the labour office, but the money mightn't even last until the next day. Sometimes the only quarters between you and a rainstorm are the quarters of the moon (wordplay: quarter = accommodation: quarter of the moon = quarter moon; 1 quarter = 25 cents). If a new situation arises, it only brings disaster - like Arbogast, the private detective in Alfred Hitchcocks "Psycho". He is stabbed by Anthony Perkins, as he's going up the stairs. "Enjoy your leisure time!" A member of the aristocracy said. If he had shared some of his wealth it would have sounded more convincing.
 

A journalist sits at his smeared desk, eats cheap beans from the can and writes the "Truth about John Lennon". His client is a national tabloid daily paper. Its source a young woman, who wants to cash in on a long forgotten affair. But she is unable to write her story alone and needs a ghost-writer, who's now killing Lennon for the second time.
 

For 60 years or more, an icy wind has blown Cora in the face. When she was young, she worked as a housemaid in a rich county Surrey house, south of London. Then she moved back to the north, in order to marry a coal miner. The general strike of 1926 was broken after short time, only the miners continued to strike. The employers prevented them from receiving the coal ration they were entitled to, so in order not to freeze in the winter, they dug in the hills for coal themselves. Like with the last strike in 1984/85, Cora and the other Methodist sisters stood by the coal miners. But now they are fewer of them and the songs from the hymnbook don't sound the same anymore, with only a few voices left to sing them.
 

I wasn't happy with it at the time although I now have a sneaking liking for it. Basically we were a victim of the move to Arista. Rockin' Horse was too small and inexperienced to make 'Radio Africa' and 'Modern Times' a hit but Arista were so conservative. 'Modern Times' was the most 'rock' track on the album so we get the whole video/re-mix treatment on it, and really the track wasn't up to it. I think the real problem is that the 'sound' of Latin Quarter doesn't exist in one track - it only works when you hear it altogether - the three vocalists, the widely varied styles, and the lyrics. Basically a handful of people 'got it' which is why we have such loyal fans to this day, and most other people didn't get it at all. So, consequently, there is nothing a 12" re-mix can add to Latin Quarter, in fact, all it can do is to give a misleading impression....
 

Even though I vividly remember writing this lyric (more so than many others) I still find it hard to describe why I wrote the song, or what the intention was. Simply, I sat down at my desk to begin some other work and said "right, lets start taking these arguments apart" - and I got the next line immediately (because, really, it was about me) and I stopped working (or never began) and wrote 'Thin White Duke' instead. Partly the lyric was a message to myself. I never understood why Bowie was so highly-rated and then, somehow, the song 'Scary Monsters' just triggered a realisation that here was a great pop songwriter (who is also very narcissistic and turned up at a London station saluting like a Nazi) so even after realising how talented he was I still had mixed feelings about him - and the song reflects some of these paradoxes....
 

Not a great song. It comes out of the often demoralising, always challenging, business of 'canvassing' - basically knocking on people's doors during elections and trying to persuade people to vote for your candidate. I did a hell of a lot of this between 1977 and 1987 and the lyric is just letting out the frustration.
 

The Sandinistas were so inspiring - they seemed determined to avoid the mistakes made by so many progressive movements (for example, I'm still horrified at the way so many left-wing people flock to Cuba for some kind of PC holiday - just because they are the last of the 'revolutionary' states doesn't make one-party systems any more attractive). Maybe Ortega needed to take a leaf out of Fidel's book, or Stalin's come to that, but instead they attempted to make democracy 'deliver' but once people are tired and ill-fed and nervous they can lose their resolve - which is what many Nicaraguans did. Who can blame them? The defeat of the Sandinistas is still of huge political-historical significance. How are we ever to confront and overthrow capitalism and replace it with a system that generates and distributes wealth justly? That organises life in ways that value individuals, respects difference, encourages creativity, discourages cruelty, and so on? But that begins this in the 'here and now' and grows the future by winning hearts and minds to new ways of being (while enduring and surviving the Bush-Rumsfelt-Corporate America commandos?)
 

Again, I have a vivid memory of this. I was buying all of Tom Waits's albums at the time and I loved that languid feel he conjures around himself through his songs. It was a languid morning and I looked around the room and came up with this. I think it's one of Steve's best compositions and yet it never made it to the live set and it never made it beyond a B-side.