And now on to the second single, Careless Memories b/w Khanada/Fame…

The pulsing, screaming A-side is a straight take on an ended love affair. At his best/worst, Simon Le Bon is excruciatingly obscure, but this lyric is surprisingly literal: “Where are you now? / ‘Cos I don’t want to meet you / I think I’d die / I think I’d laugh at you / I know I’d cry / What am I supposed to do, follow you?” Yeah, we’ve been there. But I can’t help feeling that the young Le Bon struggles to turn it on its head, and it’s all a bit “post-breakup by rote.”

The one line that intrigues me is the one that references the slow burn: “It always takes so damn long before I feel how much my eyes have darkened.” That is what I want to hear about. Instead we get a wimpy second verse, referencing clichéd “signs of love life scattered” on a table, reflecting only slightly below skin level, asking meekly “what did it all mean?” No, Simon, I want to hear about the darkened eyes. Look underneath the lids. Go below the floorboards, through the muck. Lie low, let it fester, look it full-on in the eye. Rummage through it along with the rats.

It’s so much easier to be by oneself. Relating to other strange creatures is a constant strain. So many relationships become a power struggle. It is so easy to abuse or to be abused – the scales tip ever so slightly. Relationships are damaging. How does the mind process the damage? I am going to attempt to briefly process mine right now. Right here on this blog! (Roll up, roll up!) This might end badly. Here goes.

Piece #1:
Organisms can be really, really small.
You can’t always see them with the naked eye.
Take germs for instance.
This girl I knew had a conversation with her father about organisms,
except she used the word “orgasms” by mistake.
Soon thereafter she realized what she had done, and she was mortified.
I laughed as she told me this, but years later I realize that I too, am infected.

Piece #2:
Although there’s no proof,
I’ve always assumed that certain things exist:
A key under my pillow, below even where I placed a tooth, wrapped in mesh;
A rounded toe upon which my body balances;
A pinpoint of light;
Exactly half the distance, and half again;
Two people synchronized in movement and sound;
The fleeting memory of a fish, fully-colored and flecked, just before it’s gone;
A map of the flecks;
Preservation;
An impervious library of accidental sounds;
The inevitable reset;
A catalogue of individual sparrows;
An illustrated collector’s edition of sparrows;
A subset of sparrows I’ve seen, with footnotes;
A deluxe edition of each organism, at once exclusive and free for all;
Converging orgasms at the very tip;
The secrets of the open mouth;
The purest scream;
A world of unending Now.

Piece #3:
I explained that my brain has misfires.
As I explained, I bumbled.
Oh, she knew so well her own misery,
her disgust.
It infects us.

Piece #4:
Ian McCulloch once said about Radiohead, that no one who knows would ever use a word like “Android” in a song title.
I think “organism” is one of those words, but what do I know?
I ridicule my every word.

Ummmm…. OK. So that was a bit of fun. “Fun with Catbirdman as he trawls through bottom drawers and back doors in search of the darkening eyes…” Ironically, I ended up examining the brightened, widened eyes of a child for the bulk of it… I was trying to set up a contrast, but I don’t think it quite came through. Anyway…

A few notes on the remix itself: I took quite a few liberties here with the cut-and-pste approach. I took snippets and laid them in different points in the measures; I added kick drum accents here and there; I isolated certain frequencies and added effects. It ended up pretty shoegazey with that extended, noisy middle section. I’m actually quite happy with this remix, and my only disappointment is that the momentum is robbed somewhat at the end — it should have ended a minute earlier.

Duran Duran: Careless Memories [Catbirdman Version]

This single featured not one but two solid B-sides. My remix of Khanada lengthens the intro and reprises it before the final chorus. It’s purely an extended version. Fame, on the other hand, has some fun with the descending “fame, fame, fame…” vocal part and the wailing guitar, and a few other little tricks. This David Bowie cover reminds me that I started a thread a while back, mapping Duran Duran’s influences from The Velvet Underground through the 70s up to their first single… well, I never did quite finish that, and now I’m jumping ahead. Maybe I’ll pick that up again…

Duran Duran: Khanada [Catbirdman Version]
Duran Duran: Fame [Catbirdman Version]