Month: January 2026

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My Foolish Friend

“Could there exist a Totally Random Man? Could a single human so develop his capabilities that he might vary his soul from hour to hour at whim?” – The Dice Man, Luke Rhinehart

When Talk Talk started chatting to the music press about their second album, the title of that album was The Chameleon Hour. It was 1983 and Boy George loudly and persistently claimed the word Chameleon for himself, and so The Chameleon Hour necessarily became It’s My Life.

I don’t know if My Foolish Friend, released in the year between The Party’s Over and the (then) Chameleon Hour, was ever expected to be included on that second album. If it was, it never made it. I think of it as their John the Baptist single, because of the B-Side (that’s something for another day) and these lines:

“My foolish friend, don’t tell me if I’m right…when my chameleon hour…has already started”

If interviews at the time are to be believed (and TT interviews with the English music press should always be taken with a grain of salt), the Chameleon Hour is a concept Mark Hollis extrapolated from the book The Dice Man, a big influence on the general theme of It’s My Life (and most obviously Such A Shame). In an early version of My Foolish Friend, recorded for the BBC, after the line about the chameleon hour there’s another lyrical Easter egg: “Say the word! It’s not too late! Tomorrow’s started!”

By the time the single was produced, that line was gone, replaced by what sounds like a bugle sounding “Charge!” ahead of the last chorus. It’s a highlight of the song, which Talk Talk never seem to have bothered to try to reproduce live.

Despite that, My Foolish Friend, a Hollis/Brenner co-write, often featured in the live shows, right up until that last ever gig in Salamanca. The fact that Mark Hollis kept Simon’s song in the setlist – earning Simon performance credits – gives me heart that he wasn’t entirely mean-spirited towards his former band-mate. Or perhaps it’s just that Simon wrote an excellent song that they all enjoyed playing til the very last.

the official video:

https://youtu.be/nta13TQKDhI?si=qKBw0Mg9o0x3b8PU

the Salamanca 1986 performance

https://youtu.be/RqODsmEz0gM?si=ofJY7-Yfjjb6VAaA

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I Don’t Believe in You

“Despite having been involved from the early compositional stage, Curnow’s contributions only ended up on two tracks: ‘Give It Up’ and ‘I Don’t Believe in You’. “My main contributions on that album were playing recorder in the ensemble, some of the more major synth riffs … and most of what sounds like the guitar solos, which were played on a Jupiter-8 through guitar amps. I think Mark liked the irony of this, as well as it making for a particularly different kind of solo.”

As designated guitarist on the album, McIntosh would feel the pain of this: “One of the banes of my life has been ‘I love the solo you do on “I Don’t Believe in You”, which is, of course, a synthesizer! It’s Ian Curnow with a [Jupiter 8] and a fuzz pedal.“ – From ‘Mark Hollis – A Perfect Silence’

Robbie McIntosh shouldn’t feel too bad, really. The (acoustic) guitar that he does actually play on that track is extremely pretty. The ‘solo’ he is praised for is also wonderful. I am not at all a Pink Floyd fan, however, like every other kiwi teenager in the last 50 years, I spent a fair amount of my high school years listening to Dark Side of the Moon. Ian Curnow’s solo in “I Don’t Believe in You” sounds very Floyd-esque to me. I bet Mark Hollis just loved that.

Me, I just love this video.

https://youtu.be/R-W2m0bYTT4?si=CI7QRvq2oA0vZQPY

The first time I saw it I was struck by how timeless it is. Talk Talk, with their low-key denim-and-shaggy-hair styles look like for all the world like an early nineties indie band. I would even say they sound like an early nineties indie band. I Don’t Believe in You, even with a ‘synth solo’, doesn’t sound like any other pop tune released in 1986. It’s extraordinarily mellow, matching the somnambulant pace of its nearly-namesake, I Believe in You. Outside of the title, the two tracks mirror each other in other ways – they could be written to the same person, at different stages of an addiction. I Don’t Believe in You – never trust a junkie. In both there is that signature churchy organ, and guess-the-instrument trickery – the guitar is a synth, the synth is a choir. Allegedly Mark Hollis put Ian Curnow through all kinds of hell to get the synth sounds he wanted on TCOS, and it was worth it, Ian, so, thank you. 

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Pictures of Bernadette (dance mix)

Bernadette!
Bernadette!

(We shall overcome

We shall overcome

We shall overcome )

How can I accept
I’ve given everything I had and still you left

Change
I’m no closer
How can I reproach her?

Recollection sees the sun upon your hair
How I feel it, love we used to share

Recollection sees the sun upon your hair
How I feel it, love we used to share

Bernadette!

Bernadette!
Pictures of Bernadette
Pictures of Bernadette
Pictures of Bernadette
I’ve got a message from you to say you’ve left

Bernadette!
Pictures of Bernadette
I’ve got a message from you to say you’ve left

Pictures of Bernadette
I’ve got a message from you to say you’ve left

I’ve got a message from you to say you’ve left

Bernadette!
Bernadette!

Mark Hollis was probably a fan of B sides. The flipside of a single; either it was spare-album-track filler or it was an otherwise unavailable hidden gem, something you’d put on a mixtape to impress your mates. There is such a gem on the B side of a Love single, it’s called Laughing Stock, and that is pretty much all I am basing the above Hollis assumption on. Let’s just say it’s an educated guess tho. Talk Talk did love an exclusive B side. They certainly recorded a bunch of ‘em.

Pictures of Bernadette (the name Bernadette most likely nicked from mod faves The Four Tops) was first released as the B side of Give it Up. Unusually, it’s a B side with a dance mix. Who goes to the trouble of making a club mix of a B side?! TFG is who. Go on now and listen to it!

You’ll hear the sound of children playing, creepily distorted vocal samples, an irresistible afrobeat, and Hollis shouting “Bernadette!” like a voodoo priest casting spells (or like a member of the Four Tops). It is an absolute banger and it is mental. Between the bubbling percussion and the screeching guitars, it sounds like Fela Kuti dancing with Lou Reed. Or Tom Verlaine. Heck. I can’t really say who the (multiple) unhinged guitar breaks on the dance mix sound like, because they don’t sound like anyone. Then again, they may just sound like someone who might eventually record a one note solo on a malfunctioning Variophon and then realise that that solo is the end of the band.

The FourTops: Bernadette

https://youtu.be/G9KEycAFI3M?si=gGdRTvczFM4X7mwg

Pictures of Bernadette dance mix

https://youtu.be/taOaluUdyLU?si=SPp2T-Kx7dsS1w4x