Saturday Theme

Theme For Great Cities kicks off side one of the album Sister Feelings Call the record that accompanied Simple Minds' 1981 album Sons And Fascination (not a double album, two albums released together). It's a massive sounding, gloriously pulsing instrumental, all the Mittel Europa ghosts of West Berlin, Bowie and Eno Kraftwerk and Neu! reimagined by a post- punk group from Glasgow. When Jim Kerr heard it for the first time on a cassette given to him by Mick MacNeil, played on his Walkman while walking round the streets of Glasgow, he knew it was 'fucking perfect', it didn't need vocals at all. It's a futuristic piece of music, synths and keyboards giving the melodies and sounds, driving drums and a typically superb bassline from Derek Forbes. By the time they came to record it fully, Steve Hillage was in the producer's chair. When the topline comes in at one minute forty we're off, dancing in a club in one of the great cities suggested by the title. 

Theme For Great Cities

The song developed a long life, re- emerging well after 1981 and becoming a mainstay of DJ sets in Ibiza and beyond, a Balearic classic. Weatherall played it in the early days of his DJing career (and the later days too). It's been remixed and re- edited by Fila Brazillia, Fluke, Moby. It being an instrumental leant itself to DJs, pitching it up or down according to the rest of their set. Many people danced the night away to Simple Minds unaware they were doing so- Simple Minds by the time of the Theme For Great Cities were all billowing shirts and anthemic choruses, the group that recorded the song long since turned into something else. 

The photo is what remained of the Ramada Hotel, a huge 1960s concrete hotel and shopping complex by the Irwell and the cathedral in Manchester. Urban renewal deemed it no longer fit for purpose. The Ramada had itself replaced a huge Victorian building. Cities always change and grow, new replacing old, societies building on top of what was there before. I do wonder how long we can go on constructing enormous buildings and then tearing them down every 50- 60 years though. Build, demolish, build, demolish. It doesn't seem like a sustainable way to build great cities.