WHAT Peter Gabriel - No Self Control
WHEN Cwmbran Gateway Supermarket - May 1980
Imagine coming across this record sleeve as a 12 year old in a department store. It’s stuck between David Essex and UK Subs, next to the small electrical appliance department. Then imagine hearing the song that’s inside. In retrospect, it probably explains a lot about how my tastes were going to develop…
“No Self Control” is a downright creepy song. It's different to the shock & awe creepy of the Butthole Surfers or the cartoon menacing creepy of Nine Inch Nails. It's vulnerable, desperate and self-aware. It sounds all too possible.
“You know I hate to hurt you
I hate to see your pain
But I don't know how to stop
No, I don't know how to stop”
Those are some nasty lyrics to be rubbing shoulders with David Essex and home furnishings. Musically, its got an off-centre structure and warped tension which you can’t imagine charting in the 21st century. And it’s got a xylophone. Yeah. A xylophone. Olly Murs doesn’t have a xylophone.
This vintage Top of the Pops performance with its oh-so-jaunty Dave Lee Travis introduction gives an idea of how out of place it now seems.
And since then, Peter Gabriel has remained a constant. He was one of the first live shows I ever went to, he introduced to me music from across the world and he still strives to be relevant and provocative in his mid 60s. And you can’t say that about UK Subs or David Essex.