“The opening notes of Call In The Night Boy(s) are in no key at all…you see what [Hollis] allowed me to do: the piano starts with atonal intervals; then I go into some tonal stuff in five, six, seven keys; then I hit the chord bang and then he’s in. If you want to know how good a musician he was; listen to that; nobody else I know could have followed what I played because I don’t stay in the same key, I go into all kinds of stuff and all kinds of tempos…”
Unlike the album version, the ‘Piano Version’ of ‘Call in the Night Boy’ has not dated at all. […] the stark Ramocon arrangement is timeless and glacial, contains no chorus, and allows the listener to roam around the space of the track in the same way Talk Talk’s later work would do. “ Phil Ramocon and Ben Wardle discussing Call in the Night Boys (Piano version) in Mark Hollis: A Perfect Silence.
To compose even just a few sentences about a Talk Talk song generally requires listening to it on repeat for a few days. I’m not complaining, it’s no trouble; in fact it is always a pleasure. The fing is tho, Nigel, the fing is…
…close and repeated listening to a different Talk Talk song every week does tend to lead me to a similar conclusion each time: “This is incredible! It could be the best song they ever recorded!”
And I find myself in that place again today, listening to what is certainly the best thing they ever recorded before TFG arrived on the scene.
Fight me.
Call in the Night Boys – the “Piano Version” of Call in the Night Boy, released as the B side to My Foolish Friend – is simply an exceptional piece of music. Hidden away on the flip side of a between-albums-non-hit single. Did anyone even hear it, in the day? Truely a lost classic. I just can’t recall another ‘pop’ act releasing anything like this in 1983. Maybe Japan, if they still existed in 1983, which they didn’t. Maybe Kate Bush, although she seemed to be taking a bit of a Gap Year at that point.
Only Phil and Mark could have pulled this astonishingly singular and timeless track out of Hackney breakfasts, raw talent, and a bin bag of cassettes. I could listen to it over and over. I HAVE listened to it over and over. I may never stop.
Call in the Night Boys (Piano Version)
https://youtu.be/m2iBetfqoBo?si=G05Ityr60iaCZyX7
Indent: Cecil Taylor