Month: December 2025

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Mirror Man

“Mark always very resistant to any idea that he would dress up, especially clothes that he didn’t really feel comfortable in. He was still a mod at heart; he used to look like Paul Weller – it was the slip-ons with a tassle, tight jeans and a shirt, that’s what he dressed in.” – from Mark Hollis:A Perfect Silence

Out in the street today
We’re parading around
We’re the height of the fashion
And she laughs ‘cos we look the same
And follow all of the rules

Before Google, what did people do when they wanted to know about something? They went to the library, got a book out. When I was 15 I got a life-changing book out from my local library. It was about Modernists (Mods) and I was instantly hooked. Mod dressing wasn’t just about style, it was about detail. Really obsessive detail that only other Mods would notice. How many buttons on your cuff? Side vents or centre? (Side is the correct answer, btw). What fabric is that shirt? I love that line in The Sea and The Sand (from Quadrophenia) about a “touch of seersucker”. So Mod. And I love the line in Mirror Man about following all of the rules. Also, so Mod. Mark Hollis was down with Mod. His general detail-obsessed vibe was Mod, and his shaggy hair tidy shirt tight jeans and loafers uniform was legitimately Mod.

The ReAction, who were lumped in with the whole “Mod Revival” thing, (and maybe the singers ‘look’ had a bit to do with that) had a tune called Out On The Streets Today, which, as you can probably tell from the title, was an embryonic version of Mirror Man. Lyrically, at least. Not to be confused with the Police-y version you may have heard that is often credited to The ReAction but turns out to be from that between-bands period where Mark Hollis was writing songs and making demos. So, by the time this was (rather oddly) chosen as Talk Talk’s (barely promoted, not even a video) debut single in 1982 he’d been singing that line about being the height of the fashion for four years already – and he was still singing it at his last live gigs in 1986, chambray shirt untucked, hair shaggier than ever, looking more like Kurt Cobain than Steve Marriott, but still a Mod underneath it all, I am quite certain.

 

The Who – The Sea and the Sand https://youtu.be/rObg-I4IWYA?si=_hPgSz6YTrptgnuc

Mirror Man https://youtu.be/BVz1w2qy3_M?si=03GfZue7wwMXDk96

 

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Caroline

“What made this bridge crossing even more memorable was when the driver of the limousine (courtesy of EMI records) asked us if we had visited New York before. Mark Hollis told him we hadn’t; the driver glanced into his rear view mirror at us and with a broad grin said, ‘It’s Like a Jungle sometimes’. Lee Harris and myself instinctively started punching the air and like two over excited rappers shouted back at him ‘It makes me wonder how I keep from going under’. “ – RustinMan, November 2019

You might think that the most synth-y, most time-locked music Talk Talk recorded is to be found on The Party’s Over, but you would be wrong. It’s not there. No, the most 1980’s-sounding thing they committed to tape (that we know of) is the demo track (rather confusingly) titled Caroline.

It bleeps and blinks and plinkity plonks for nearly six minutes, Mark Hollis intoning proto-lyrics that would eventually morph into Living in Another World, over the top of the minimal synth backing. I say intoning because the delivery is intense but not as melodic as you’d expect, he’s just about shouting in places. Those very particular synths and drum sounds put me in mind of the electro groove of The Message by Grandmaster Flash, released just a year previous to the recording of this demo. We know (from the above RustinMan post) that the Talk Talk rhythm section were big Flash fans, so was the Caroline demo inspired by New York hip-hop and is Mark Hollis rapping? Hah, of course not, but it is amusing to consider.

‘Caroline’ was released into the wild via YouTube upload in 2020. I remember what it felt like, hearing it for the first time at the end of that unusual year. I was listening through headphones, walking to work, and it literally stopped me in my tracks. I may have made a noise. Something like wow or omg. Or wtf. I didn’t believe I was listening to Talk Talk, and then the vocals kicked in and there was no doubt who it was. Five and three quarter minutes later it was my new favourite song. I think I even made a ‘best of the year’ list just so I could put ‘Caroline’ at number one. It was like some sort of Christmas Miracle. What will the 2025 Christmas Miracle be?

Caroline (demo 1983)https://youtu.be/snhNcd1GTfU?si=Ybrzoe8u4UV5J0ZL

The Message https://youtu.be/gYMkEMCHtJ4?si=mAe4SPa8tOJ39UnV Continue reading “Caroline”

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Does Caroline Know?

“There are an awful lot of synthesizers on the second album, that’s true. But we use the synthesizer for organic sounds, not synthetic. I want to make that clear. In the string arrangements, we are guided by composers for the violin like Debussy. We can’t afford an orchestra, but we can use synthesizer in an economically responsible way, and move in that direction.”
Vogue Italy: July/August 1985

Does Caroline Know? kicks off with hand drums, burbling and skipping like water over rocks in a stream, and then the bassline enters, dancing and rumbling, a deep-voiced frog chorus; the synthesised strings sound like sunlight reflecting off the bubbling river of percussion, and then swoop and dip like birds diving for bugs off the surface, and to complete the bucolic picture the fade-out fills up with electronic tweets and chirps of insects and birds and other creatures inhabiting this vivid soundscape.

Floating above it all – because where else? – is the sad and dreamy vocal, made even more melancholy by its summery surrounds. ‘Every little accident takes time” drifts further into the ether on an angelic harmony worthy of the Beach Boys. You would expect a close-listener like Mark Hollis to know and appreciate the Beach Boys and particularly their magnum opus, Pet Sounds, home of Caroline, No. I guessed Hollis pilfered and edited that song title for himself, and was stoked when I finally found the quote where he said that he was a Beach Boys fan. Gotcha!

Does Caroline Know? wasn’t ever a single or a club favourite (despite being extremely danceable), but it’s a complex and glorious composition that was a live staple for as long as Talk Talk were a live act, where it was often extended, jammed out, truly wonderful – for sure one of their best album tracks.

Mark: “New wave. I like that, it’s just like being called contemporary. That’s fine, it dates you to a period rather than a type. ‘Pop band’ is such a horrible description. To me it means bland, disposable, instant, not very long lasting. We’re an albums band, I only worked it out today – it’s because we don’t release our best tracks as singles!” – Mark Hollis talking to Betty Page for Record Mirror 1984

 

Does Caroline Know?https://youtu.be/D78T-E7nXcc?si=e13X1IBOuPVcfs8d

 

Caroline, Nohttps://youtu.be/4OCja0WBWYA?si=78oG6nvr8JEMFCR7

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Another Word

In a song catalogue made up of tunes that feel like outliers, rarities and sidesteps, perhaps the greatest rarity of all is Another Word. Not because it is a particularly unusual piece of music or because it is a deep cut but because it is the only song in the entire Talk Talk catalogue not credited to a Hollis. Mark Hollis does sing it, of course, but they’re not his lyrics – they’re Paul Webb’s. With hindsight we can see how lucky – if not downright flukey – it was for Paul to get his tune, with its sole writing credit, onto the first album. I bet that, at the time, he was stoked but figured it would set the tone for contributions to following Talk Talk albums.

The Party’s Over was not any sort of template for what was to come.

Another Word may have remained just an album track, barely if ever in the live set, were it not for it being picked up (in 1984) to be used as the theme for the German TV show ‘Derrick’. Another Word was duly released as a single – just in Germany and, weirdly, the Philippines – with the also under-represented-on-stage Candy on the B-side.

The gift that Germany gave the world by choosing to release Another Word as a single are the pop show promotion performances, two of them surviving on You Tube for us to enjoy 40 odd years later

The WWF Club playback features not only a fan stage invasion – with flowers! – but also Mark Hollis deadpanning the lyrics direct to camera, slowly  hitting a huge tambourine. I say deadpanning but there’s a lot of smirking, especially when he sees Paul giving it beans on a – what is it, a xylophone? Lee is hiding behind his kit. For Formal Eins, no such luck – he and Paul share the xylophone this time, Paul singing and dancing – it’s his song! – Lee seems flummoxed: Mark can’t look at his bandmates without losing it, eventually giving into hysterics and failing to hide giggles behind his hand. Paul is all energy, working hard, resolutely not looking at Mark, who is the naughty kid in the back row, trying to put you off your game by laughing during Morning Talk.

Despite Mark Hollis’s best efforts to undermine the promotion, Another Word made it to 25 in the German singles charts. Congratulations Paul!

 

Another Word (Formel Eins)https://youtu.be/n_pPQMxmnmU?si=8NJaWkHpTRmzGWG9

 

Another Word (Cologne)https://youtu.be/lqQSqXjETz0?si=JUt1xuYqx88n1IOr