Speak To Me

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Speak To Me
Song	Speak To Me
By	Depeche Mode
Songwriter	Dave Gahan Christian Eigner James Ford Marta Salogni
Produced by	James Ford Marta Salogni
Recorded at	Electric Ladyboy (Santa Barbara) Shangri-La (Malibu)
Length (mm:ss)	4:35
Programmed by	James Ford Marta Salogni
Engineered by	Marta Salogni
Engineering assistance	Francine Perry Grace Banks
Mixed by	Marta Salogni
Mix engineering	Marta Salogni
Mixed at	Studio Zona (London)
Mastering engineer	Matt Colton
Keyboards	James Ford
Art direction	Anton Corbijn
Recorded	July–October 2022
Originally released	24 March 2023 11 August 2023 ("release")
Live performances as Depeche Mode	39 times *
Total live performances	39 times *

"Speak To Me" is a song from the 2023 album Memento Mori by Depeche Mode. On 11 August 2023, it became the fourth "release" from the album according to the official website's discography section.

Notes

Newspaper Expresso asked Dave Gahan about the line "you lead me, I follow your voice" and which voice it is referring to, to which Gahan answered (translated from Portuguese):

"In that song, I'm actually not referring to any of the leaders that we have right now. I'm talking about something that is not a person, but our conscience. I believe that we always know what the right thing to do is, and are given the possibility of choice, but we invariably end up making the wrong choices. Normally, we choose a path that serves our interests best. That's human, of course. But I think in that song I was trying to ask for something by saying: if there is something out there, show me and I will follow. It's me trying to summon something bigger."

Gahan told NPR:

"[The song's subject] certainly is some kind of larger force that I've felt when asking a big question, which was, basically, am I going to do this record or not? You know, it was like, am I back in? Because I felt really torn between jumping into making another Depeche Mode record, or, as I had been for the last couple of years, for the first time in my life, home with friends and family and my animals and really enjoying that. And so the big question for me was, why would this be different? What would really make me say yes?"

Gahan told Zane Lowe:

"Initially the idea sort of came to me, and the song was incredibly elevated by Martin [Gore] and and James [Ford] and Marta [Salogni], into a into a different place, to another world, somewhere else. And that's exactly where I wanted the song to go as well. It was beyond what I could have really put together myself. It's quite a very simple song, but honest and real. For me, it was a key to open the door to want to continue to make a record with Martin again that was [going to be for] a Depeche Mode record. It was like an answer to that question for me. [...] [It's] a bit sarcastic, you know, "I hear you, I'm here, I'm found..." It's a bit sarcastic, but at the same time, there's an absolute peace and joy in the emptiness of the end. [...] It was awesome when that happened in the studio actually, because Marta is a genius with a tape looping and sending stuff back into the tape machines and then all this process of using analogue tape to create these loops. And we just came to the conclusion that it should just be the end. I think it's the perfect bookmark to My Cosmos Is Mine which sets up everything."

Engineer Marta Salogni told Sound On Sound:

"I also was honoured to receive a writing credit on one song, 'Speak To Me'. It was written by Dave, and James and I literally locked ourselves in the studio one day and completely remade his demo, and presented it to him. He loved it, so much that he gave us a writing credit on it. We changed key, changed tempo, and took out all the instruments, and built the arrangement back up from the vocals. James and I used the EMS Synthi A for a lot of this, for example creating the high-pitched drones and the heavy kicks at the end."

Lyrics

Speak To Me

Speak to me, and I will follow

I heard you call my name

Lying, on the bathroom floor

No one here to blame

There's a message I know can be found

I'm listening, I hear you, your sound

Speak to me, in a language

That I can understand

Tell me, that you're listening

Give me some kind of plan

Give me something, you'd be my drug of choice

You lead me, I follow, your voice

I will disappoint you

I will let you down

I need to know

You're here with me

Turn it all around

I'd be grateful, I'd follow you around

I'm listening, I'm here now, I'm found

Songwriter: Dave Gahan / Christian Eigner / James Ford / Marta Salogni
Publishing Information: EMI Blackwood Music Inc. (BMI) o/b/o JJSR Productions Inc. (PRS) / Reservoir 416 (BMI), published by Reservoir Media Management, Inc. (PRS) / WC Music Corp. (ASCAP) o/b/o Warner/Chappell Music Ltd. (PRS) / Marta Salogni Publishing Designee.

Live performances

Main article: Available recordings of "Speak To Me"

Main article: List of dates where "Speak To Me" was played