"Empire State Human" is a song by the British Synthesizer group The Human League. The song was written by Philip Oakey, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh. It was produced by Colin Thurston, and recorded at Monumental Studios in Sheffield. It was used in the 2012 video game Lollipop Chainsaw in a minigame for the retro stage, and also featured on the game's original soundtrack.
The song was the third single to be released by the original line-up of the Human League, and the first and only single from the band's 1979 debut album Reproduction. Upon its first release in October 1979, the single failed to chart. However, it was re-released in June 1980 and fared slightly better, reaching number 62. For the re-release, Virgin Records included a free copy of the single "Only After Dark" with the first 15,000 copies as a sweetener.
Lyrically, "Empire State Human" is a song about becoming powerful using the analogy of size, with Oakey declaring that he wants to be "tall" a total of 60 times in 3 minutes. Uncut magazine drew a comparison with Oakey's own personal ambition:
| “ | "I wanna be tall, tall, tall, as big as a wall, wall, wall". Oakey's Nietzschian pop fantasy reflected his own burgeoning full-on pop ambitions... | ” |
The B-side, "Introducing", is an instrumental. Oakey sang on the original recording but the vocals were not used on the released version.
The open shirted man on the cover artwork is in fact Ian Craig Marsh's father.
Famous quotes containing the words empire, state and/or human:
“So farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear,
Farewell remorse! All good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my Good: by thee at least
Divided empire with Heaven’s King I hold,
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;
As Man ere long, and this new World, shall know.””
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“The Indian attitude toward the land was expressed by a Crow named Curly: “The soil you see is not ordinary soil—it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and the bones of our ancestors. You will have to dig down to find Nature’s earth, for the upper portion is Crow, my blood and my dead. I do not want to give it up.””
—For the State of Montana, U.S. public relief program. Montana: A State Guide Book (The WPA Guide to Montana)
“Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)