History
During the recording of this album, the producer Jimmy Miller was increasingly under the influence of heroin, at one point disappearing entirely from the studio, later being found asleep at the wheel of his car. Ironically the album features the band's first anti-heroin song - "Dead Men Tell No Tales".
This album caught Lemmy at his most ferocious, hitting hard at the police in "Lawman", marriage and how his father left him and his mother in "Poison", television in "Talking Head" and show business in "All the Aces". This album is the first to have a picture of the band on the cover, which all three members are inside a plane. The title track was inspired by Len Deighton's novel Bomber. On one track, "Step Down", "Fast" Eddie Clarke is featured on vocals.
The single "Bomber" was released on 1 December 1979, two months ahead of the album; the single's initial pressing of 20,000 on blue vinyl was soon sold out and was replaced by black vinyl. The album was released on 27 October 1979 and like the single, was initially pressed in blue vinyl. The Bomber Tour followed, for which a forty-foot aluminium-tube 'bomber' was made; this had four 'engines', whereas the plane depicted on the album sleeve (which bore a resemblance to the Heinkel He 111) had two. This lighting-rig could move backwards and forwards, and side-to-side - the first to be able to do so.
The album cover features art by English commercial artist, Adrian Chesterman who was also responsible for creating cover art for, amongst others, Chris Rea for his 1989 Road to Hell album.
A special double CD reissue of Bomber was released in June 2005 to coincide with Motörhead's 30th anniversary tour. The bonus tracks (bar one) on the second CD, however, have all previously been available.
Read more about this topic: Bomber (album)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)