"O Superman" is quite definitely one of the most
brilliant songs ever recorded. You can find it on Laurie Anderson's 1981 album Big Science which is a more digestible collection of tracks from the 4 hour performance piece United States. Brilliantly, it was also released as a single, despite being resolutely non-commercial and it hit number 2 in the UK charts.
I've loved this song since I first heard it one evening in 1981 on wonderful Radio 1. What a shock; the eight and half minutes of hypnotic electronica really stood out amongst the fluffy new wave synth pop of the time.
Utterly unique. Weirdly soothing but unsettling, terribly sad and melancholy too. The only recognisably musical sounds are the glorious synths that buzz in towards the end, and the occasional use of flute and saxophone. The softly repeated, compulsively insistent "ha ha ha ha " is so odd, so unlike anything else, but instead of being off-putting, it becomes comforting and familiar by the end, so that when the song finally stops, the listener is left bereft.
It's an astounding achievement. How on earth did Laurie come up with this? The song was written in late 1979 not long after the Americans had initiated a disastrous attempt to rescue the hostages held in the US embassy in Tehran. Helicopter blades whipped up the desert sands into the engines and the end result was some downed planes and no sign of the hostages. Laurie was in the middle of writing her mammoth United States, a series of monologues and songs that took a sideways look at the state of the USA at the start of the new decade, and she decided to write a song about the utter failure of the avowedly superior US technology.
Lyrically she was initially inspired by an aria written by Jules Massenet for his 1885 opera Le Cid. The aria begins "O souverain, o juge, o père" which Laurie appropriated and altered slightly, changing the Sovereign to a Superman and adding in a Mom to join the Dad. Right from the start it's clear that this song is about Force, Justice and Love.
Laurie envisaged the lyrics as a conversation with a higher power, but unlike Massenet's glorious prayer to Heaven, this would be via the way more mundane channel of a telephone answer machine. This juxtaposition of the powerful and the ordinary crops up throughout the song. Laurie was struck by how the USA is always portrayed as the great defender of fairness and goodness and Mom's home-made apple pie, but that the country was also capable of terrible acts of aggression and violence.
The softly repeated "ha ha ha ha" which carries on throughout the song was intended to be a sort of electronic version of a Greek chorus. It's likely that Phillip Glass's groundbreaking opera Einstein On The Beach (1976) may have influenced this - the Glass work had repeated examples of softly chanted numbers, insistent and compelling in just the same way as Laurie's "ha ha ha ha". Laurie fed the voices through a vocoder, a voice synth originally developed by the US military, which she felt seemed very fitting. The unanswered answer machine messages pile on the feeling of disconnection, of isolation, but then suddenly the machine appears to reply, "Well, you don't know me, but I know you..." which only ramps up the spooky and spooked mood. And it's message is a simple phrase, delivered plainly but it still somehow creates a real sense of foreboding and deepening catastrophe.... "Here come the planes..."
In the summer of 2001, Laurie had brought "O Superman" back into her live set, for the first time in years. After 9/11 she considered removing it again, but decided to keep it in the set as the song seemed to take on a whole new resonance. Laurie noted that the song seemed very relevant again - after all, she said, it's basically still the same war, and US planes are still crashing... The version available on the Live In New York album, recorded just days after the fall of the Twin Towers, shows Laurie's voice trembling at times as she performs a highly emotionally charged version of "O Superman".
So who was speaking, who was warning of the planes? The answer claims to be "the hand that takes". Is this the chill fingers of Death? We are warned of the planes again, but then the dread is dialled back a touch with the rather more chirpy "They're American planes, made in America. Smoking or non smoking?" as if the mysterious voice is merely checking our bags in at the airport. But after quoting the slogan of the US postal service the song takes a darker and more sombre turn once more, the synth wash in the background becomes an ominous hum as in quick succession we lose the love, the judge and even the deity from the opening lines...
I've loved this song since I first heard it one evening in 1981 on wonderful Radio 1. What a shock; the eight and half minutes of hypnotic electronica really stood out amongst the fluffy new wave synth pop of the time.
Utterly unique. Weirdly soothing but unsettling, terribly sad and melancholy too. The only recognisably musical sounds are the glorious synths that buzz in towards the end, and the occasional use of flute and saxophone. The softly repeated, compulsively insistent "ha ha ha ha " is so odd, so unlike anything else, but instead of being off-putting, it becomes comforting and familiar by the end, so that when the song finally stops, the listener is left bereft.
It's an astounding achievement. How on earth did Laurie come up with this? The song was written in late 1979 not long after the Americans had initiated a disastrous attempt to rescue the hostages held in the US embassy in Tehran. Helicopter blades whipped up the desert sands into the engines and the end result was some downed planes and no sign of the hostages. Laurie was in the middle of writing her mammoth United States, a series of monologues and songs that took a sideways look at the state of the USA at the start of the new decade, and she decided to write a song about the utter failure of the avowedly superior US technology.
Lyrically she was initially inspired by an aria written by Jules Massenet for his 1885 opera Le Cid. The aria begins "O souverain, o juge, o père" which Laurie appropriated and altered slightly, changing the Sovereign to a Superman and adding in a Mom to join the Dad. Right from the start it's clear that this song is about Force, Justice and Love.
Laurie envisaged the lyrics as a conversation with a higher power, but unlike Massenet's glorious prayer to Heaven, this would be via the way more mundane channel of a telephone answer machine. This juxtaposition of the powerful and the ordinary crops up throughout the song. Laurie was struck by how the USA is always portrayed as the great defender of fairness and goodness and Mom's home-made apple pie, but that the country was also capable of terrible acts of aggression and violence.
The softly repeated "ha ha ha ha" which carries on throughout the song was intended to be a sort of electronic version of a Greek chorus. It's likely that Phillip Glass's groundbreaking opera Einstein On The Beach (1976) may have influenced this - the Glass work had repeated examples of softly chanted numbers, insistent and compelling in just the same way as Laurie's "ha ha ha ha". Laurie fed the voices through a vocoder, a voice synth originally developed by the US military, which she felt seemed very fitting. The unanswered answer machine messages pile on the feeling of disconnection, of isolation, but then suddenly the machine appears to reply, "Well, you don't know me, but I know you..." which only ramps up the spooky and spooked mood. And it's message is a simple phrase, delivered plainly but it still somehow creates a real sense of foreboding and deepening catastrophe.... "Here come the planes..."
In the summer of 2001, Laurie had brought "O Superman" back into her live set, for the first time in years. After 9/11 she considered removing it again, but decided to keep it in the set as the song seemed to take on a whole new resonance. Laurie noted that the song seemed very relevant again - after all, she said, it's basically still the same war, and US planes are still crashing... The version available on the Live In New York album, recorded just days after the fall of the Twin Towers, shows Laurie's voice trembling at times as she performs a highly emotionally charged version of "O Superman".
So who was speaking, who was warning of the planes? The answer claims to be "the hand that takes". Is this the chill fingers of Death? We are warned of the planes again, but then the dread is dialled back a touch with the rather more chirpy "They're American planes, made in America. Smoking or non smoking?" as if the mysterious voice is merely checking our bags in at the airport. But after quoting the slogan of the US postal service the song takes a darker and more sombre turn once more, the synth wash in the background becomes an ominous hum as in quick succession we lose the love, the judge and even the deity from the opening lines...
"When love is gone, there's always justice, when justice is gone there's always force..." What's left? "...and when force is gone, there's always Mom... Hi Mom."
So when we are left with nothing, we still have our Mother, and Laurie entreats her to hold us. But in these days of technology and guns and oil and warfare, Mom coldly holds us with military arms, petrochemical arms, electronic arms... and with that the song fires up a deeply treated saxophone / synth duet for a musical coda which subsides after just 45 seconds leaving us with only the continuous "ha ha ha ha" again. Then, without warning, everything stops. Silence.
Originally only 1000 copies had been made of this single, but fortunately one reached John Peel in the UK, and he played it a number of times. Interest was such that the song started to gain airplay on daytime Radio 1 as well, and suddenly Warner Brothers had to press 80,000 copies of the single. It rapidly rose to number 2 in the UK charts.
Laurie made a video for the song, a mesmerising performance which used elements from her stage show at the time - such as the spooky light-in-mouth effect. The video begins with a huge white globe, like bleached out sun, over which a shiny suited Laurie casts a shadow with her arm. With her fist tightly bunched she moves her arm and the shadow copies, until she drops her am and the shadow remains... the disembodied arm shadow returns later to wave goodbye. It's very disconcerting.
Incidentally, David Bowie took to performing the song on his 1997 Earthling tour. Sung by bass guitarist Gail Ann Dorsey this was a largely faithful cover though some programmed drums kept the piece rattling along. Bowie himself played saxophone and sang a few backing vocals. Interestingly the song still carried the same unsettling mood as the original, despite the more energetic live setting. Bowie had also borrowed from "O Superman" for the softly repetitive "huh huh huh" backing vocals on "Loving The Alien" in 1984.
Back in 1981 I had absolutely no idea what the song was about, but I was utterly gripped by it. Nothing else sounded remotely like it. In the 1980s there was a genuine background fear of nuclear war; programmes like Threads showed us a horribly realistic scenario if the bomb dropped. To me, "O Superman" was a sort of soundtrack to the end of the world. It seemed to be worrying yet hopeful at the same time. This was music that would be suitable for a nuclear winter. It had a stillness and quiet about it that was deeply troubling and the occasional birdsong seemed to suggest that, at the end of it all, perhaps that's all we'd hear. No more technology, just birdsong.
Today, "O Superman" still has a strange Cold War feel to it, there's still an aura of finality, of resignation, of acceptance - "Here come the planes" is sung without any fear or panic, it's merely a statement of fact, yet it causes such feelings of fear and apprehension. And in today's still troubled world, the relevance of those lines is stronger than ever. And the song still sounds like nothing else, and I'm sure it never will. It is totally unique, and continues to have a totally unique fascination for me.
So when we are left with nothing, we still have our Mother, and Laurie entreats her to hold us. But in these days of technology and guns and oil and warfare, Mom coldly holds us with military arms, petrochemical arms, electronic arms... and with that the song fires up a deeply treated saxophone / synth duet for a musical coda which subsides after just 45 seconds leaving us with only the continuous "ha ha ha ha" again. Then, without warning, everything stops. Silence.
Originally only 1000 copies had been made of this single, but fortunately one reached John Peel in the UK, and he played it a number of times. Interest was such that the song started to gain airplay on daytime Radio 1 as well, and suddenly Warner Brothers had to press 80,000 copies of the single. It rapidly rose to number 2 in the UK charts.
Laurie made a video for the song, a mesmerising performance which used elements from her stage show at the time - such as the spooky light-in-mouth effect. The video begins with a huge white globe, like bleached out sun, over which a shiny suited Laurie casts a shadow with her arm. With her fist tightly bunched she moves her arm and the shadow copies, until she drops her am and the shadow remains... the disembodied arm shadow returns later to wave goodbye. It's very disconcerting.
Incidentally, David Bowie took to performing the song on his 1997 Earthling tour. Sung by bass guitarist Gail Ann Dorsey this was a largely faithful cover though some programmed drums kept the piece rattling along. Bowie himself played saxophone and sang a few backing vocals. Interestingly the song still carried the same unsettling mood as the original, despite the more energetic live setting. Bowie had also borrowed from "O Superman" for the softly repetitive "huh huh huh" backing vocals on "Loving The Alien" in 1984.
Back in 1981 I had absolutely no idea what the song was about, but I was utterly gripped by it. Nothing else sounded remotely like it. In the 1980s there was a genuine background fear of nuclear war; programmes like Threads showed us a horribly realistic scenario if the bomb dropped. To me, "O Superman" was a sort of soundtrack to the end of the world. It seemed to be worrying yet hopeful at the same time. This was music that would be suitable for a nuclear winter. It had a stillness and quiet about it that was deeply troubling and the occasional birdsong seemed to suggest that, at the end of it all, perhaps that's all we'd hear. No more technology, just birdsong.
Today, "O Superman" still has a strange Cold War feel to it, there's still an aura of finality, of resignation, of acceptance - "Here come the planes" is sung without any fear or panic, it's merely a statement of fact, yet it causes such feelings of fear and apprehension. And in today's still troubled world, the relevance of those lines is stronger than ever. And the song still sounds like nothing else, and I'm sure it never will. It is totally unique, and continues to have a totally unique fascination for me.
"O Superman (for Massenet)"
Written by Laurie Anderson 1980.
O Superman. O Judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad.
O Superman. O Judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad.
Hi. I'm not home right now.
But if you want to leave a message, just start talking at the sound of the tone.
Hello? This is your Mother. Are you there? Are you coming home?
Hello? Is anybody home?
Well, you don't know me, but I know you. And I've got a message to give to you.
Here come the planes.
So you better get ready. Ready to go.
You can come as you are, but pay as you go.
Pay as you go.
And I said: OK. Who is this really?
And the voice said: This is the hand, the hand that takes.
This is the hand, the hand that takes.
This is the hand, the hand that takes.
Here come the planes.
They're American planes. Made in America. Smoking or non-smoking?
And the voice said: Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice.
And when justice is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom.
Hi Mom!
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
In your automatic arms.
Your electronic arms.
In your arms.
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms.
Your petrochemical arms.
Your military arms.
In your electronic arms.
