Released the same year as yesterday's Shark Vegas song New Order put out two non-album singles in 1987, True Faith and Touched By The Hand Of God. True Faith was the chart smash, the crossover hit with the award winning video but Touched... has long been its equal to these ears. The juddering synth bass intro was written by Hooky, waiting around for the others to arrive at their rehearsal studio, their timekeeping being a long standing gripe of Hooky's. Tellingly in Substance Hooky notes that 'Barney was happy with it'. From there on in the full band contributed to fleshing it out. Originally Touched... was recorded for the soundtrack of the film Salvation!, a parody of televangelism (a straight to VHS release). New Order recorded several other songs for the soundtrack and then had Arthur Baker remix Touched... for its release in December 1987 as a single. There's an effortlessness about it, synth-pop disco brilliance, which makes it favourite of mine, Hooky's bass well represented and Bernard's lyrics seeming to carry the weight of personal experience.
Touched By The Hand Of God
Kathryn Bigelow's video, shot at their Cheetham Hill studio and intercut with MTV video pisstake snippets, is a hoot- all the group dressed as a hair metal band (and Hooky in his normal clothes).
I'm sure if, like me, you were there at the time, you really don't need me to tell you that this single is 30 years old and that, as people like to point out, in 1987 a single that was 30 years old then would have been released in 1957 and etc etc. Where did the last 3 decades go? When did we all get so old?
4 comments:
I remember this single coming out as if it were yesterday. *sigh* 30 years gone in a flash...
I'm with you SA, the song, like the movie brings back a number of great memories of 3 decades ago. I was working as a publicist for Limelight Club in NYC, where a lot of the film was shot and a friend of mine had a staring role, Dominique Davalos. There were some wonderfully chaotic days during filming.
True Faith was the song of the summer of 1987 - well for my friends and I, we had little time for La Bamba by Los Lobos or Who's That Girl by Madonna... But Touched By The Hand Of God was the darker, more street to studio electro New Order that I still wasn't ready to let go of. Hooky's bass, synth or not is aggressive and uncompromising and you can understand EVERY word Barney sings! It's one of those songs that makes me stop and listen and move every time I hear it.
Can't believe I've never seen this before. It's fabulous
It's coming up soon on the series over at my place......
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