Going Backwards
| 1. Going Backwards List of Spirit songs |
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Going Backwards
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| Song | Going Backwards |
|---|---|
| By | Depeche Mode |
| Songwriter | Martin L. Gore |
| Produced by | James Ford |
| Recorded at | Sound Design (Santa Barbara) Jungle City (New York) |
| Length (mm:ss) | 5:43 |
| Tempo | 97 BPM |
| Time signature | 4 4 |
| Key | B Minor |
| Programmed by | Matrixxman Kurt Uenala |
| Engineered by | Jimmy Robertson |
| Mixed by | James Ford |
| Mixing assistance | Brendan Morawski |
| Mastered by | Brian Lucey |
| Studio assistance | Connor Long Óscar Muñoz David Schaeman Brendan Morawski |
| Drums | James Ford |
| Art direction | Anton Corbijn |
| Design | SMEL |
| Recorded | April–August 2016 |
| Originally released | 23 June 2017 |
| Live performances as Depeche Mode | 136 times * |
| Total live performances | 136 times * |
"Going Backwards" is a song from the 2017 album Spirit by Depeche Mode. It was released as a single on 23 June 2017.
Notes
Martin Gore told Amazon:
"An album starts taking shape, for me, really, when you have about four songs together, and we had gone down a cynical path. And I thought, "Okay well, maybe I just gotta go with this." Well as I said, it was definitely one of the first songs that I had written, and I think it was actually one of the first songs that we had started working on in the studio. And I think that from an early point we all deep down knew that it would be the first track on the album, so it was an important track. Even though we never regarded it as a single or anything like that, it was more of a statement."
When Neue Zürcher Zeitung hypothesised that "'Going Backwards' is about a civilizational regression where society and technology are developing as fast as never before", Gore replied:
"Yes, but that's just a reason for decay. I have long believed that new technologies would bring the world together – the world would be united by them. We were all enthusiastic about the Arab Spring, when people started organising themselves with social media and fought for their freedom. But then everything went wrong: the Middle East seems to be falling apart."
Dave Gahan told Rolling Stone (archived):
"If we want things to change, a revolution, we need to talk about it and about caring about what goes on in the world. It doesn't seem the way things are in London. We seem to be going in another direction, and I think Martin felt like he needed to express that [with 'Going Backwards']."
Hotmix radio asked Andrew Fletcher about his favourite song of 'Spirit', and he replied:
"I think it would be '[Going] Backwards'. I don't know why. I've never really given it enough attention, because I do like 'Cover Me' as well, but we open our set with 'Backwards', and it really sounds good."
Lyrics
Going Backwards
We are not there yet
We have not evolved
We have no respect
We have lost control
We're going backwards
Ignoring the realities
Going backwards
Are you counting all the casualties
We are not there yet
Where we need to be
We are still in debt
To our insanities
We're going backwards
Turning back our history
Going backwards
Piling on the misery
We can track it all with satellites
See it all in plain sight
Watch men die in real time
But we have nothing inside
We feel nothing inside
We are not there yet
We have lost our soul
The course has been set
We're digging our own hole
We're going backwards
Armed with new technology
Going backwards
To a caveman mentality
We can emulate on consoles
Killings we can control
With senses that have been dulled
Because there's nothing inside
We feel nothing inside
We feel nothing inside (we feel nothing)
Nothing inside
We feel nothing inside (we feel nothing)
Nothing inside
Because there's nothing inside
Songwriter: Martin L. Gore
Publishing Information: ©2015 Sony ATV Music Corp. and Grabbing Hands Music Ltd. All rights on behalf of itself and Grabbing Hands Music Ltd. admin. by Sony ATV Music Corp. (BMI). (USA).
Published by Sony ATV Music Publishing Ltd Licensed by Grabbing Hands Music Ltd. (Rest Of The World)
Music video
Live performances
- Main article: Available recordings of "Going Backwards"
- Main article: List of dates where "Going Backwards" was played
