Blasphemous Rumours
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9. Blasphemous Rumours List of Some Great Reward songs |
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Blasphemous Rumours
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| Song | Blasphemous Rumours |
|---|---|
| By | Depeche Mode |
| Songwriter | Martin L. Gore |
| Produced by | Depeche Mode Daniel Miller Gareth Jones |
| Recorded at | Music Works (Highbury, London) Hansa Mischraum (Berlin) |
| Length (mm:ss) | 5:06 (single version) 6:20 (12"/album version) |
| Tempo | 125 BPM |
| Time signature | 4 4 |
| Key | B Major |
| Engineering assistance | Ben Ward Stefi Marcus Colin McMahon |
| Design | Martyn Atkins David A. Jones Marcx |
| Photography | Brian Griffin |
| Photography assistance | Stuart Graham |
| Recorded | June 1984 |
| Originally released | 29 October 1984 |
| Live performances as Depeche Mode | 257 times * |
| Total live performances | 257 times * |
"Blasphemous Rumours" is a song from the 1984 album Some Great Reward by Depeche Mode. It was released as a double A-side single alongside "Somebody" on 29 October 1984.
Notes
Martin Gore tells WLIR in 1986:
['Blasphemous Rumours'] was mainly inspired from the early days of the band or even before the band got started, when Andy and Vince were regular churchgoers, and I just used to go along because they were my friends. I just thought it was quite interesting. I was never a practicing Christian, although they were. And when you're not involved in it, I think you really notice the hypocrisy and just the funny side to things. One thing I often quoted is this thing called the "prayer list": every week they would sit and pray for people who were seriously ill, and you could guarantee that most of them, the majority of the people who they prayed for, would die. But they took that as, like, being very, very positive, that was "God's will" and "They've gone to somewhere better". And it's just, when you're not part of it, it just seems very ridiculous, very funny. I know a lot of people out there are not gonna agree with me.
Andy Fletcher told the 18th May 1985 issue of No.1 Magazine:
The song 'Blasphemous Rumours' stems from our experiences then. There was a prayer list of people who were sick in some way and you'd pray for the person on top of that list until they died. When Martin first played me 'Blasphemous Rumours' I was quite offended. I can see why people would dislike it. It certainly verges on the offensive.
Alan says in the November 1984 issue of International Musician And Recording World:
We sampled some concrete being hit for what turned out to be the snare sound. All that entailed was us hitting a big lump of concrete with a sampling hammer. The engineer / producer we use, Gareth Jones, has got this brilliant little recorder called a Stellavox which we use with two stereo mikes and it's as good as any standard 30ips reel-to-reel but this is very small and therefore very portable. So we just took the Stellavox out into the middle of this big, ambient space and miked up the ground and hit it with a big metal hammer. The sound was… like concrete being hit. I can't really put it any other way.
Throughout this track, an "arr, arr" sound can be heard that can be heard at the beginning of 'Something To Do' as well. When Alan Wilder was asked about this on Shunt, he replied: "I can't really remember exactly - you are asking me about a sound made about 14 years ago! It sounds like it was a piece of speech put through a modular synth (possibly some other effects) and distorted. I would think it was then sampled and reproduced from either the Emulator or Synclavier."
The melody that can be heard in the middle of the song is of the Christian children's song "Jesus Love Is Very Wonderful".
Quotes from the documentary on the DVD of the Some Great Reward remaster from 2006:
Neil Ferris: "The problem came with Blasphemous Rumours: that was a very, very difficult record, and there were a lot of people who felt that that song, lyrically, and just the title of it, that the record shouldn't be on the radio. And we did struggle with radio play, and there were certain people who objected to playing it, and they made their feelings very strongly known."
Dave Gahan: "Alternatively, over in the States, it got played. You know, stations out here in Long Island, WDRE, played us, started to play it, on the sort of underground, alternative stations."
When Depeche Mode was interviewed about the songs on the '101' CD for the April 1989 issue of French magazine 'Best', Martin Gore said (translated from French):
Of all of our songs, this is one that gets the most response. I'm not just talking about live on stage. Although it's a track that is starting to age, I continue to receive letters from fans who tell me about it. Nowadays, they tell me they like it. But when it was released, I received a lot of letters from people who were shocked by the lyrics. They wanted to have "Blasphemous Rumours" banned on the radio.
They said in the 1985-10-26 issue of Melody Maker:
Dave: "This was another split decision. In the end we put it out as a double A side with 'Somebody', but some of the radio stations didn't know which side to play. I'm pleased with the vocal on it, but it didn't do so well."
Fletch: "A lot of this is just Radio 1 paranoia - they really aren't everything, you know. We did get quite a lot of flak about this one, although a lot of the people who wrote to us weren't objecting, they saw that it was more asking question than making a statement."
All four members of Depeche Mode discussed the reception to Blasphemous Rumours in an October 1985 interview with English magazine No. 1:
Andrew Fletcher: "When we went to America we thought we’d get a lot of the same stick[sic] for this record that we’d get over in Europe but we didn't. We got a lot of letters slagging it."
Alan Wilder: "In Europe, the problem was they couldn't say it."
Martin Gore: "Neither this nor 'Master And Servant' had any shock value, they weren't intended to shock people. They both had a good meaning."
Dave Gahan: "I think the problem arose because it had the word 'Blasphemous' in the title, so the record itself must be, whereas it’s just the thoughts of one man looking for some kind of a reason in the goings on in the world. We did get response from Christian associations saying that they understood what we were trying to say."
Andrew Fletcher: "There was also a feature in a Christian magazine, which I used to read, putting across our side."[1]
Lyrics
Blasphemous Rumours
Girl of sixteen
Whole life ahead of her
Slashed her wrists
Bored with life
Didn't succeed
Thank the lord
For small mercies
Fighting back the tears
Mother reads the note again
Sixteen candles burn in her mind
She takes the blame
It's always the same
She goes down on her knees and prays
I don't want to start
Any blasphemous rumours
But I think that God's
Got a sick sense of humour
And when I die
I expect to find Him laughing
Girl of eighteen
Fell in love with everything
Found new life
In Jesus Christ
Hit by a car
Ended up
On a life support machine
Summer's day
As she passed away
Birds were singing
In the summer sky
Then came the rain
And once again
A tear fell from her mother's eye
I don't want to start
Any blasphemous rumours
But I think that God's
Got a sick sense of humour
And when I die
I expect to find Him laughing
Songwriter: Martin L. Gore
Publishing Information: ©1984 Grabbing Hands Music Ltd/EMI Music Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.
Music video
Live performances
- Main article: Available recordings of "Blasphemous Rumours"
- Main article: List of dates where "Blasphemous Rumours" was played
Live versions
This section provides examples of live versions of Blasphemous Rumours from each tour that it was played. The recordings from 1984-12-09 Hamburg and 1986-04-10 Birmingham are generally regarded as the best sounding versions out of these examples.
1984-1985 Some Great Reward Tour
- Play 1984-11-02 Hammersmith Odeon, London, England, UK (FM broadcast)
- Play 1984-12-09 Alsterdorf Sporthalle, Hamburg, Germany (pre-FM broadcast)
1986 Black Celebration Tour
- Play 1986-04-10 N.E.C., Birmingham, England, UK (FM broadcast)
- Play 1986-06-24 St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, MN, USA (Audience)
1987-1988 Music For The Masses Tour
- Play 1987-10-25 Olympiahalle, Munich, Germany (Audience)
- Play 1988-01-11 Wembley Arena, London, England, UK (Audience)
Trivia
- 'Blasphemous Rumours' was featured in season three episode twenty-two of the CBS television series Cold Case.
- 'Blasphemous Rumours' was also featured in season one episode seven of the NBC television series Up All Night starring Christina Applegate and Will Arnett.
References
