Comatose

Notes

Martin Gore and Andy Fletcher said in the May 2001 issue of Keyboard magazine:

Gore: "[Comatose] was one of the weirdest tracks on the record. There's not really a bass going on in that one. There's a lot of really loud hi-hat. The majority of the rest of that backing track was actually a sampled organ that we filtered down until it ended up sounding like a steamboat or something. It works, in a strange kind of way."

Fletcher: "It was a Wurlitzer or something - a big organ, with a Leslie. That track was actually fuller at one point, with a more conventional arrangement. We went more minimal."

Gore: "The chords were a lot more apparent on the demo. Mark sampled some sound; it was one chord. It was a good idea, and it had a good atmosphere, a good vibe to it, but somehow it didn't work. So we really distorted it. It just went a little bit too far: The chords were lost. That's when we had the idea of sampling each individual chord and doing the same sort of treatment he had on the original sample. That worked."

Fletcher: "[The pause after "Don't be afraid // I'm floating away"] was how it was on the demo. The rhythm track carried on under it on the demo, but apart from that it's very similar."

Producer Mark Bell, in the same magazine:

"On 'Comatose' the demo vocal was perfect. I changed the harmonics and rhythm to make Martin sound as if he's in one room singing and the music is being played in another room by some crazy dope nutty professor."

Mark Bell told author Jonathan Miller in 2001: "[W]e used that new PPG soft synth [Steinberg/Waldorf PPG Wave 2.V] on 'Comatose' where it plays an arpeggiating part."

Mark Bell also told Keys Magazin (translated from German): "We used a bass and noise-sound from the Casio FZ-10M, which has got a very weird sounding filter, as well as an arpeggio out of the PPG Wave 2.3."

Dates where Comatose was played

Comatose has never been played live.