UNDERWORLD WEEK (5)
One of Underworld’s strengths and difference from contemporaries like Orbital and The Chemical Brothers is their use of lyrics. Karl Hyde’s lyrics are a key part of the Underworld sound with their seemingly cut up approach.
Karl Hyde on lyrics:
“The little details fascinate me: like a photograph, you look back, you can say, ‘Well it was a beautiful day, we sat in the Botanic Garden and there was some big greenhouses, and you look at the photograph and you say ‘There was that woman who had the t-shirt on . . .and the little girl and the woman with the push chair,’ and those are the things that interest me. Not the big greenhouses that are fantastic and impressive.’ It’s the detail.”
I got very angry about it all. I got very righteous – wrongly, but I got very righteous. Like “I’m out there, living on the front line, bringing all these words back,” Because I’d done a pact with myself where I felt I was very ordinary, very middle of the road, and the only way I could contribute anything that was extreme enough was if I got ranging drunk, wrote everything down and handed it over to the recovering one in the morning. And he put that on the records. And I got very angry towards people like Rick and my family, who I thought were just living a nice life while I was out there killing myself. It was a very warped and distorted and wrong point of view, but that’s where it took me. Things like ‘Born Slippy,’ in fact most of the first two albums were ‘This is hell, this is a nightmare, do you like this?’ And it made me even angrier when people said, ‘Oh the lyrics are great.’ I was like, What do you mean great? That’s the truth. Can you imagine what I’m singing about? That actually happened to me.’ People thought they were just stream of consciousness, nonsense words. No they were actually happening!
Today, it’s a couple of tracks each from the classic “Dark & Long” single (1994) and “King of Snake” (1999):
Underworld – Dark & Long Hall’s Mix
Underworld – Dark & Long Most ‘Ospitable
Underworld – King of Snake (Ashley Beedle’s Save Our Discos Re-Edit)
Underworld – King of Snake (Barking Mix)
Bonus track:
Underworld – Banstyle (Alex Reece Mix) Born Slippy given dnb treatment
