The Flowers of Romance (album) - Track By Track Commentary By The Band

Track By Track Commentary By The Band

"Four Enclosed Walls":

• John Lydon (1981): “I don't like all that 'Looking to the East for religious guidance' crap.”
• Nick Launay (producer, 2003): “On 'Four Enclosed Walls' for instance we placed Martin's Mickey Mouse pocket watch on a floor tom, so it would resonate and have more tone. Then I added two harmonizers with a 15 second delay fed back on themselves, one paned left, one right. I recorded about seven minutes of it ticking away. Then Martin went out and played that amazing beat to it. The toms that come in at the very end were an overdub. I remember John came in and said 'Alright, let me hear what you two wankers have been up to!' He heard it and calmly said 'Ooh, I think I like that... let's hear it once more!' and sat down and scribbled on the inside of a cigarette packet. 'Alright, is there a mic up? I think I'll have a wail.' And one take later the vocal was done! We then added this strange instrument called a Violumpet, which looks like a violin with a large trumpet horn sticking out of it, like those old wind up 78 gramophones have. It sounded like an Arabian flute. I added backwards reverb to make it more snake-like. I think the whole thing took maybe five hours.”
• Martin Atkins (2007): “The drums, the Mickey Mouse watch sound effect, the backwards trumpets - that's all me.”

"Track 8":

• Nick Launay (producer, 2003): “We also had an AMS digital sampler, one of the first digital devices ever available. One day Martin played a drum groove and I pushed 'Loop Lock' and tried to make a perfect loop. The AMS was so primitive you couldn't actually edit it to get it in time, so I randomly kept locking in different beats as he played them, till I got one that sounded cool. That loop became the song 'Track 8'. It's actually out of time, but somehow it grooves.”

"Phenagen":

• John Lydon (1981): “It's not Moroccan, it's Renaissance, early English and French, 15th century. That's what I've been listening to a lot, that's real traditional English music.”
• Keith Levene (1981): “There's a bit of backwards guitar on a track called 'Phenagen' a banjo with three strings missing, and he was hitting it with something that was hanging off the banjo cos it made that noise - that was used on 'Phenagen' He was annoying me all the time making that noise, then he laid down a track making that noise, then the next thing I know is this fucking great track called 'Phenagen'. It's horrible really, but it's really good the way it comes out.”

"Flowers of Romance":

• Keith Levene (1981): “John bowed the bass on 'Flowers of Romance'.”
• John Lydon (1999): “The romance referred to is not being romantic, but alludes to people romanticising over past events with their memories What I'm on about is that I wanted to move on and carry on with trying to create new things.”
• Martin Atkins (2003): “I did the title track too but I didn't get credit for it. John admitted a few years ago that it was me drumming.”

"Under the House":

• John Lydon (1981/99): “'Under the House', I wrote that after I saw a ghost, it was at The Manor.” “I'd seen a few things I didn't like. I ended up sleeping in the coal shed, I couldn't bear it in the house any longer. When a place is haunted there's an intensity which is insufferable.”
• Nick Launay (engineer, 2003): “On 'Under the House' I had quite a lot of ideas that got through. Again Martin laid down the beat, then we overdubbed the toms and doubled them with harmonizers, a trick used a few times on this record. Having grown up in the south of Spain I was really influenced by Spanish Gypsy music, Flamenco, and I don't mean the tacky touristy type. I kept hearing that kind of clapping, so after explaining what I meant, we did it and added a simple delay to get that effect of two clappers playing off each other. The operatic wailing in the background is exactly that - there was an opera on TV while we were playing the song back in the control room. I thought the combination sounded so cool, I put a mic on to the TV speaker and recorded it to tape randomly till it made some sense. Once the track had some kind of shape, John went out and sang on it.”

"Hymie's Him":

• John Lydon (1981/99): “ offered us the chance to do a soundtrack. I mean, who wouldn't want an opportunity like that? The clips we saw were really excellent Originally Wadleigh wanted us to write music to suit the atmosphere, it's about wolves and killing people, and that suited us fine of course.” “I thought what Keith did with the music was so good there was no point in me singing over it. Leave it alone, I said. All I could do was insult Keith with the title.”
• Keith Levene (2001): “We were booked into The Manor for ten days, and it was like we knew we were doing a new album and we didn't do anything for days – we couldn't do anything. It was like this horrible mental block. After wasting seven days of being waited on hand and foot, just being real lazy cunts... we were really trying but nothing was happening. It was something to do with The Manor as well. We did get one track down – 'Hymie's Him' – that was the first definite solid thing we got laid down I think we could do a service to a film. Like with this Michael Wadleigh thing, we wanted to go right down to a bottle banging on the table - the whole lot, not just the music but sounds. But then Tom Waits and other people came into it, and it wasn't what we had in mind.” “There was this weird bamboo instrument that I used on 'Hymie's Him' - Richard Branson had gotten some in Bali and gave me one of these things I had been offered to make this film soundtrack for 'Wolfen'. Michael Wadleigh said 'This is how wolves feed in the dark, this is the plot of the movie - what I need is an urban jungle sound.' So I came up with 'Hymie's Him' as my pilot for the score for the movie I had it in the bag and Wadleigh loved it. I really wish I'd done the movie.”

"Banging the Door":

• John Lydon (1980/99): “It's much, much worse than it was in the days of the Sex Pistols. I've even had them pitching their tents on my front doorstep I just don't let any of them in anymore. I just don't answer the door.” “'Banging the Door' came about as a rant against the fans who found out my address in London and used to come around every night, banging away on the door and shouting 'Johnny! Johnny!' through the letter box. Nearly drove me mad!”
• Keith Levene (1981): “Martin played the drums and I played the bass. Then I added synth to that.” “Again it's a very strong drum track because of the way we were recording the drums. I did the synth with Martin, that was one we laid down together. I'm pumping out this low-end synth stuff while he's going dun-dun-dun-chhhhh. We sort of built the tune up, track by track, with overdubs. At some point, John put the vocals on.”
• Nick Launay (producer, 2003): “Keith was very into these synthesizer boxes that plugged into each other with little red cables, I think it was made by Roland. It was a bit like the giant Moog synth that Kraftwerk used, only in miniature. You can hear it on 'Banging the Door', it sounds like an evil giant frog!”

"Go Back":

• John Lydon (1981): “London's getting very, very fascist and I don't like it at all! 'Go Back' was written about that, about London and tedium and right-wing groups. It's pathetic, people wallow in misery and accept anything - 'Have a cup of tea, good days ahead.'” “That's just the way things are going in this country. You can't afford to pretend it's not happening.”
• Keith Levene (1981/2001): “I only use guitar on one track called 'Go Back', and it's a great little guitarline, it's turned out to be a funky track actually.” “One track I played guitar on is 'Go Back' on which I played drums also.”

"Francis Massacre":

• John Lydon (1981): “For me the song just sums up the way I felt when I was in - grating noises, 'Aaargh, let me out!'”