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SFE 075T CD 1
MANAGE THE DAMAGE
01. HERE I AM 04:15
02. LAY DOWN 04:01
03. DARK SKY 03:16
04. MY LIFE 04:33
05. SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR 03:52
06. THIS MUST BE LOVE 05:05
07. GIRL FALLING DOWN 03:55
08. SOMEDAY SOON 03:35
09. EVE 03:49
10. STONE 04:22
11. ROLLING 02:59
12. BLAME 04:28
13. I BELIEVE 3:59
14. TEAR FOOL 05:41
15. MOVING ON 03:13
16. LAY DOWN (Almighty Radio Edit) 03:45
17. SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR (Sounds Of Life Full Vocal Radio Mix) 04:14
18. SAFE (Todd Terry 7”) 03:47
19. DARK SKY ’98 03:24
CD 2
"CLUB ROOT BEER"
THE DANCE REMIXES
01. SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR (Sounds Of Life Full Vocal Club Mix) 5:55
02. SAFE (Todd Terry Long Session) 06:47
03. DARK SKY (S&H Mix) 05:35
04. LAY DOWN (Sounds Of Life Remix) 05:54
05. SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR (WayneG’s Heaven Mix) 06:56
06. SAFE (DJ Tonka 12”) 08:04
07. DARK SKY (J&S 12” Peg’s Study Mix) 06:59
08. LAY DOWN (Almighty Vocal Club Mix) 06:37
09. SAFE (DJ Dovzki Extended Mix) 07:19
10. DARK SKY (Tony De Vit Mix) 08:07
11. SAFE (Todd Terry Dub) 06:16
CD 3
"CLUB ROOT BEER"
FURTHER REMIXES PLUS
01. LAY DOWN (Hoop Laid Up Mix) 05:40
02. SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR (Extended Mix) 05:01
03. DARK SKY (Dillon & Dickins Mix) 06:49
04. SAFE (Get Far Mix) 06:36
05. LAY DOWN (Bonus Disco Mix) 08:12
06. SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR (Radio Mix) 03:33
07. DARK SKY (Only Child Mix) 05:43
08. SAFE (Todd Terry 12”) 06:24
09. LAY DOWN (Video Edit) 03:08
10. SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR (Sounds Of Life Dub Mix) 06:37
11. DARK SKY (Sure Is Pure Mix) 06:24
12. SAFE (DJ Tonka Instrumental) 08:02
13. SOMETHING TO LIVEFOR (with the Melbourne Gay & Lesbian Chorus)
04:08
MANAGE THE DAMAGE 1x 180gm Heavyweight white LP (Demon Music)
Side 1
01. HERE I AM 04:15
02. LAY DOWN 04:01
03. DARK SKY 03:16
04. MY LIFE 04:33
05. SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR 03:52
Side 1
01. THIS MUST BE LOVE 05:05
02. GIRL FALLING DOWN 03:55
03. SOMEDAY SOON 03:35
04. EVE 03:49
05. STONE 04:22
06. ROLLING 02:59 |
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Title:
Label:
Released:
Catalognr.:
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Manage The Damage
Cherry Red / Demon Music
25.01.2019 / 20.09.2019
CD
SFE 075T
/ Vinyl
DEMREC494
CD
5013929848528 / Vinyl 5014797900424 |
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"Here I Am" ,"My Life" ,"This Must Be Love"
,"Girl Falling Down" ,"Someday Soon" ,"Eve" ,"Stone" ,"Rolling" written by Somerville / Herbert , Produced by Howes / Somerville
/ Herbert , Nothing Hill Music / Monument Music "Lay
Down" written by
Somerville / Herbert , Produced by Howes / Somerville / Herbert , Nothing
Hill Music / Monument Music / Warner Chappell Music "Dark Sky" written by
Somerville / Herbert , Produced by Somerville / Herbert , Mixed by Weathley
, Nothing Hill Music / Monument Music "Something
Fo Live For"
written by Somerville / Herbert / Monaghan , Produced by Howes / Somerville
/ Herbert , Nothing Hill Music / Monument Music / Gut Music ( "Something
To
Live For - Radio Mix" ) Remix and Production by Flepps at Electro Island -
Germany Recorded in London at Peg's
Study / Mayfair / Battery / Townhouse and RAK |
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It wasn’t, perhaps, the most amicable split with London Records
after the promotional cycle for Jimmy Somerville’s second bona fide
solo album "Dare To Love" in 1995.
Until then, Jimmy had been with London Records throughout his recording
career with both of his former bands Bronski Beat and the Communards and for
the first two albums of his solo career. At the time, he mentioned in
the music press that the label seemed to have, of late, little idea as to
how to market him as a now older gay singer; Jimmy stated, “It was once
easier to market me, but times have changed. Now I am an older gay man, I am
more difficult.
The final straw came when they accused me of being too gay”. In theory,
Jimmy could have shopped around for a new label,but he was well aware that
times had indeed changed. It had become possible, with the aid of new
music production computer software, to produce and record his own songs in a
home studio. In Jimmy’s case, this was his guest room furnished with a
Mac, ‘Pro Tools’ software and Sally Herbert! No longer the pressure of
running up studio time, producer fees, technicians and engineers wages! All
eliminated by investing in his own equipment,in turn freeing up the creative
possibilities and affording himself the time to experiment and learn new
skills. Experiment, produce and songwrite he did in collaboration with
his dear friend and flat-mate, Sally Herbert. Sally had collaborated with
the Communards previously as one of the violinists in their four strong
string section for both the ‘Red’ album and tour. Furthermore, she was also
in her own right onehalf of the band The Banderas who had two UK chart
singles, ‘This IsYour Life’ (#16) and ‘She Sells’ (#41) in 1991, both
taken from their one and only album ‘Ripe’ (#40).
It is a truism that we are the sum total of all of our life’s experience.
The idea behind the album’s title ‘Manage The Damage’ is that maturity
affords a degree of reflection to grapple with and confront the emotional
and psychological scars that define one’s fears. Self-awareness allows us to
liberate ourselves from,
or at least achieve a greater understanding of, the personal battlefields of
life that we’ve survived; through such knowledge, festering hurt can be ‘managed’.
Aspects of Jimmy’s life had been problematic and he dealt with themin a
revealing and thought provoking fusion
of tragic and optimistic lyrics on ‘Manage The Damage’.
Jimmy’s first independent release after his London Records era had been the
remake and remixes of
"Safe", a favourite song of Jimmy’s from his previous album ‘Dare To Love’
that he had originally recorded or London Records as the album track
"Safe In These Arms". There is a sense that his re-appropriation of the song
was a statement that there had been unfinished business from and, creatively,
a closure needed to the ‘Dare To Love’ era in that he chose to re-record the
song of his choice and preference from an album that, perhaps,
didn’t get the promotional attention it deserved at the time. Released in
1997 in selected European territories (though excluding the UK),
it functioned discographically as the bridge to his first album of entirely
new material, ‘Manage The Damage’.
The build up to his first all new single ‘Dark Sky’, also released in 1997,
and its eventual parent album "Manage The Damage" aligned with the
aforementioned wider accessibility of music technology. The creation of new
material was now much more possible for an independent artist, as Jimmy had
found himself, outside the strictures of, the conditional and recoupable
financing from, and theoften unrealistic expectations of the major labels.
"Dark Sky" is a song, almost an atmospheric pop mantra, that is redolent of
the aftermath of a crushingly thwarted love in both its artistic repetition
of musical structure and in its heartfelt lyrical content. It is arguably
the first display of the ‘Damage’ to be ‘Managed’, the first discernible
hint of one of the themes that would run through the album; a coming to
terms with past hurts and the methods of coping with and transcending them.
This would, on
the broader canvas of the whole album, be balanced by shards of optimism for
a brighter new future. To me, the dynamic tension between these two themes
reflects perfectly this historic point of transition in Jimmy’s career.
For example, the song "My Life" is also something of a statement of intent,
an openness to new beginnings in that we are told;
It’s so violent
When you are silent
I’m so easily frightened
I can smell the changing
Stinks of something rotting
Not so pretty now, my dear
We can discern that a transformation is in motion in that the indifference
and fear that had been endemic in the unsatisfactory relationship being sung
about was coming to an end. We learn in a following chorus, that this could
herald a new beginning by the redemptive defiance implied in;
My life
More than it ever was.
Positive personal transformation also seems evident in the song "Someday
Soon"; there’s a kind of a ‘change-is-gonna-come’ vibe lyrically; art
reflecting real life, perhaps, in terms of the personal demons Jimmy
was battling and exorcising just as he was taking control of his artistic
destiny;
More than this
I want something more than this
I want more than this
Someday soon -
I’m gonna be somebody
Someday soon -
I’m gonna show somebody
Someday soon -
I’m gonna be the lucky one
Someday soon - oh, yeah!
The song "Stone" seems to be immensely soul searching; a depiction of a man
in emotional stasis;
Heavy like stone,
Heavy like stone
I’m going nowhere
‘Cos I’m heavy like stone
And, yet, the sentiment finds its proactive opposite in the following track
"Rolling";
I’m taking chances, no regrets
and holding on
Because I know what to do
I’ve got to keep on pushing
through
Got to keep on rolling
Keep on rolling
Perhaps, to be human is to employ coping strategies, to do the best we can
in moments of adversity. The women depicted in Jimmy’s songs "Eve" and
"Girl Falling Down" can be seen as souls trapped in an oppressive patriarchy,
the same patriarchy that often discredits gay men. "Eve" seems to inhabit a
false paradise as a means of denying her impoverished situation; Jimmy
stated of this song, “Eve" is more about prostitution. It is also the case,
as with many unhappy women, that it ends up in a tragedy. The spiral
revolves around drugs and exploitation. And there are men behind the abuse
of these women prostituting themselves”.
The desperation is dramatically most palpable in ‘Girl Falling Down’, the
woman protagonist in which is seemingly giving up on her dead end life which
Jimmy, with the empathy of the great social activist he is, depicts as a
nihilistic vision of battered hell;
Her life is coloured black and blue
She lives in fear of him
That next time he might go too far
This isn’t how she thought that it
would be Her only love in life
The child he said he’d take away
The thought of losing her was
just too much
So she took her life
Intending she would do the
same
They found her trying in the
pouring rain
Whereas an earlier lyric of Jimmy’s that dealt with domestic assault and
battery, the Communards’ hit single "Tomorrow", held out hope in its refrain,
“I’m leaving tomorrow, I’ve had all I can take”, in "Girl Falling Down", we
are not dealing with a battered woman who is blessed by such a eureka
moment of resolve and awareness. Here she is mentally broken and has neither
the emotional wherewithal left nor, perhaps, the financial means to
extricate herself from a cycle of abuse. Jimmy stated in an interview on the
German fan-site that, “The song is about a girl whose story I read in the
newspaper. The girl was arrested by the police when she tried to commit
suicide after killing
er baby… Her life was constant abuse… She did not want the baby to be
taken away from her and she thought, in her head, that by killing
her and her own death, they would be together forever. For me, it was a very
sad story. The saddest thing I’ve ever read, so I wrote a song about it. It
also made me angry that nobody saw it. In the refrain is ‘girl who falls,
but no one sees it’. I do not understand that something can go that far
without anyone seeing it or everyone ignoring it. It just makes me angry”.
The anger of such injustice has its corollary in Jimmy’s challenge to the
ideal of a virtuous and caring god. In "Here I Am", Jimmy sings;
“If I should die before I wake,
I pray from god my soul escapes”.
This bright and bold statement is infused with a sense of a rejection of the
imposition of the morality, judgement and oppression from organised
religions and their, arguably, fictional yet dictatorial pick ’n’ mix of sky
gods. Religion and the morality it deftly peddles has, historically, so
often been experienced by gay people as a means of justifying, even
motivating, prejudice against them. Again, Jimmy does not shy away from
tackling this bigotry and touches on this again in the song "Rolling" in the
line, “I don’t believe in the mystery of destiny”; an implicit rejection of
such ‘faith’ and its fictional edicts of determination and damnation.
Jimmy does believe in love though! His album track "This Must Be Love"
celebrates the ideal of it while acknowledging its elusive nature;
You know that I know that
I want you
To know that I know that
I want you too
This must be love
Jimmy has stated, “Yes, I believe in something called love. It is a word
that is used internationally, and it is also used in the sense that we try
to express how we feel. It can be something strange. I firmly believe
in the chemistry between people, and if that is called love, then yes!”
Again, harking back to the refutation of religious diktats that proscribe
gay love as ‘sinful’, the definition of such ‘love’ does not always fit with
the heteronormative, romanticised, monogamous ideal. From whose perspective
‘love’ is defined can, therefore, be used as a weapon of morality against
gay men who largely aren’t monogamous. It’s not so much that ‘love’ is an
undefinable ideal than the case that, as a term, it can be co-opted in a
battle of
‘morality’ against gay men who in their often multi-partnered lives have it
levelled against them that they are not capable of ‘romantic love’.
The persistence of the stereotype that ‘love’ evades gay men who don’t
readily identify with a monogamous ideal is, perhaps,
'why Jimmy proceeds with caution in not unequivocally embracing the term. He
has stated;
“I’m not suitable for love. I’m
too selfish, too greedy for it.
Monogamy? No! But, for others it
works and if they want to spend
their time like that, that’s a good
thing! But, for me, it is a foreign
word.”
And what of the appropriation of football imagery for the album and singles
sleeves? Perhaps there’s more here than merely blurring the lines of macho
masculinity and the homoerotic. Drawing on the hyper masculine iconography
of football and elucidating its arguably tenderest moments of care for the
injured, team celebrations or a depiction of the comradeship of fans, the
images create a deft dynamic tension on many fronts. Is it homoerotic
fetishism? But, equally, is it homophobic to think that gay men don’t like
football? Or, is the comradeship alluded to
in the shots suggestive of the ideal of socialism in a game that itself is
adored by the masses. Jimmy stated at the time that, “Since I’m gay, people
think first, it has something to do with homosexuality. That may be the case,
but if you’re heterosexual and a football fan, it has nothing to do with
it.” It certainly could be seen as provocative artwork for a gay artist to
have co-opted such symbolism in 1999, albeit with the genius that the
comeback to that assertion is that it really, really shouldn’t be seen
as provocative! Even the thought that it is off-limits for a gay artist to
celebrate football,
is itself reductively homophobic!
Hailing from Glasgow, Jimmy would have been well aware of the religiously
motivated tribal rivalries between Celtic and Rangers. Rivalries that often
become godlessly violent. The provocation, therefore, in the use of
football imagery is that it punctures the idea of this hypocrisy of religion
and violence and tribal hatred. Football being elevated to an arguably
false God status by sections of the teams’ respective fanbases. Supporting a
rival team itself is considered a knuckle-dustable sacrilege! There is, I
feel, an enlightened motivation in using the universality of football to
explore the conflicted nature of such fraternity, and deliciously with
interventionist intent when done so from a queer perspective. I remember,
when I bought the album in 1999, looking at the imagery andthinking, “What
the fuck is that?” as, of course, was the artist’s intention!
In the case of the image used for the German only "Something To Live For"
single of the cheering and,simultaneously, commiserating football fans in
the pub, Jimmy’s idea was to emblazon the football shirts with a list of the
names of drugs that were used for the emergent ‘combination therapy’
treatment for HIV / AIDS. Replacing the usual commercial sponsorship of
shirts, this list takes on the appearance of a team-sheet, furthering the
metaphor that victory
is achievable through co-operation, both between individuals on the sporting
field in securing their team’s victory and between drugs and victims in
defeating the spectre of HIV / AIDS. Football fans’ passion for their
respective teams give them ‘something to live for’ and, in parallel,
new drug regimens now gave HIV / AIDS victims ‘something to live for’. In
this sense, "Something To Live For" is a eulogy to the dawn of combination
therapies that enabled a cautious optimism for a future that many victims
really thought would not come to pass. Such drugs provided the chink of
light that bookended an era of absolute
emotional desolation and physical dereliction. With the benefit of hindsight,
we can see that the lyric is very specific to the precise historical moment
in which it was written.
Musically, the song itself was perhaps the track that was most fully imbued
with the character and style of Jimmy’s hitherto repertoire. In short, it
sounded the most likely contender for a hit and the German licensee
certainly thought so releasing it there on CD single and Maxi single formats
in the June of 1999. That the song sustained a single week at #100 in the
‘Offizielle Deutsche Charts’ provides one of the only two chart positions
for anything related to the whole "Manage The Damage" era.
But, interestingly, the choice of single for the UK market didn’t chart at
all. ’Lay Down’ was, from a radio play perspective, a provocative
choice for a single with its implicit lyrical sexual suggestiveness. But,
what a deliciously political act to deftly throw that single out there
knowing full well that there existed a complete lack of parity between the
acceptability of straight as opposed to queer desire. That deliberate choice
of single, then, can be seen to have confirmed that the gatekeepers of such
radio playlist decisions were still sat full square in their usual
heteronormative stew of prejudice! Many of them furiously wanking under the
frothy waterline no doubt!! Insisting on its release could clearly be seen
as a politically motivated act of defiance
- throwing into sharp focus the inequity of the decision making process of
what radio stations play. Confrontin the prejudiced playlist
committees with the bigotry of their skewed reasoning, the release of the
single made explicit the graded valuations of human worth of gay as opposed
to straight sensibilities that informed their repertoire choices! To them
all, the presence of such a single being released by a household name
was a wonderfully challenging ‘fuck y’all’! he songwords, joyously,
leave little to the imagination;
I can’t help but emphasise
Heaven lies
Between your thighs
I prefer to be on my knees
It’s the only way to receive
To my lips you come liquified
And although there was a less blowjob suggestive alternative lyric, most
subversively of all, it wasn’t used;
I do all I can just to please
You in every way
Guaranteed
Just one look brings me to
my knees
In being so candid about the nature of sexual desire, Jimmy’s intent is to
normalise gay sexuality. Such lyrical openness takes it out of the margins,
humanises it, challenges the listener in the sense that if it does shock,
tough shit, it shouldn’t!
This expanded three disc celebration of Jimmy’s first flush of artistic
independence includes the B-sides to the associated singles as well as the
very best of the wide diversity ofpromotional dance remixes. Jimmy’smore
overt political activism and campaigning zeal was alive and kicking in the
included B-side "I Believe" in its critical lyrical swipes at both corporate
drug companies and the fake nature of democracy. But, it is, perhaps, "Moving
On" of all the included B-sides that is especially emotive. 'It’s a
resigned electro-lullaby that has echoes of the seminal Bronski Beat B-side
"Memories", the timeless appeal
of which was employed to such stunning effect as the soundtrack to designer
Christopher Bailey’s final fashion show as the chief creative office for the
Burberry fashion house in early 2018. "Moving On" betrays a lyrical fatalism
in that it is a hymn to the possibility of a brighter future. Looking
back from the stand point of the time of writing this essay in 2019, "Moving
On", seems an understated yet powerful track that was, perhaps,
prophetic of the very much brighter future that did come to pass or Jimmy on
many a personal and creative level in a career that has endured, thus far,
for very nearly four decades!
Barney Ashton, 2019.
SFE Label Curator and
‘Andy Bell is Torsten’ playwright.
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