“The Party’s Over” was of course the title of a famous Jules Styne song, first publicly sung by Judy Holliday in the 1956 musical The Bells Are Ringing, and later interpreted by Nat King Cole, Doris Day, Shirley Bassey, Dean Martin, Lesley Gore, and many others. It’s a staple of the resilience-through-melancholy genre, a not-quite-heartbroken torch song. “The candles flicker and dim… take off your make-up… it’s all over, my friend…” One can hypothesise about its appeal to Hollis.” – The Independent: October 8th 2012
It’s no stretch to figure that the original “The Party’s Over” played some part in inspiring the Talk Talk tune of the same name. Not only was Mark Hollis a serial song-title stealer (Caroline, No; The Gift; Laughing Stock; Talk Talk) but he was a big fan of old movie musicals – he once said he’d like to recreate the famous dance scene from Singing in the Rain. He was probably pulling our leg tho, huh? Or maybe not.
Whatever the inspiration for the title, the tune itself is truely epic – my favourite from the debut album. I love the live version captured in Florence in 1984. In the TV recording of this gig the lighting is so bad that Lee Harris is all but invisible and Mark Hollis spends much of the evening in the shadows destroying a tambourine.
Talk Talk began and ended their career playing in the dark, so I s’pose they prefer it.
Mark Hollis breathily introduces The Party’s Over: has he been dancing? Everybody is dancing. Jeep Hook is a dancing fool. But Mark Hollis dancing, surely that’s not a thing. Oh but it is. Earlier he’d introduced Dum Dum Girl with “this is a track I heard in a club last night”. This gig looks and sounds like he never left the club.
The Party’s Over, as played in Florence, is maybe half a beat faster than the album version and Hollis sings it with great gusto between enthusiastic head nods, like a Drinking Bird toy. You know the one. It’s not just his head that’s moving. He has a groove on. This song is for dancing, it’s so irresistible, even the singer can’t resist it. It’s a monster. It’s a banger. It’s all those things. Is it raining music? Mark Hollis and Talk Talk, just singin’, singin’ in the rain.