“Awwwww, yeah! I see a real woman, I need to grab her, she busts out yodelin’…”
There is just no better way to open a song than that.
In 1988, after hitting #1 with the Gary Glitter/”Dr. Who” mash-up “Doctorin’ the Tardis,” Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty – you might remember him from such WLW posts as “Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu, ‘It’s Grim Up North’” – wrote a book called The Manual. The book’s subtitle explains its purpose: “How to Have a Number One the Easy Way.” It don’t take money, it don’t take fame, and it sure as hell don’t take musical skill, Drummond and Cauty explain, and they use their “song” “Tardis” as the case study. If you have a job, forget it; you won’t be dedicated enough to see it through. Are you a musician? Quit playing your instrument. “Even better, sell the junk,” they say.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Austria, three remixers read The Manual, and it hits them: ABBA + Indeep’s “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” = gold, baby! Edelweiss was born, and five million records were about to be sold. Drummond and Cauty may have had their tongues firmly planted in cheek when they wrote this, but they weren’t joking; The Manual worked, and Edelweiss were the first of many bands to prove it. Even the Pipettes and Klaxons were allegedly inspired by The Manual. Who knew?
Less a song than a collection of bits from other songs – the assembly of the track owes more to “Pump Up the Volume” and Bomb the Bass’ “Beat ‘Dis” than “Tardis” – Edelweiss swiped the first half of the chorus to ABBA’s “SOS” and changed the words to “So if you really love me, you should bring me Edelweiss,” referring to the pretty flower that grows in the alpine region. If a man wanted to impress a woman, he would get her one of those flowers, even though it meant quite possibly falling to his death in the process. Those Austrians, they’re a hardcore bunch. (more…)
Bill Drummond and Jimmy Caulty have about as many aliases as Alain Jourgenson. As the Timelords, they cribbed Gary Glitter and the “Doctor Who” theme song. As the KLF, they created gonzo but fluffy techno house tracks, even bringing Tammy Wynette along for the ride on one of them. And while there is a clear connection between “Tardis” and tracks like “Last Train to Trancentral” (which the Blue Man Group made their unofficial anthem), there is absolutely no way that anyone could have predicted what they’d do a mere six months after the massive success of their 1991 album The White Room. The cute, bouncy house songs like “3 A.M. Eternal”? Dead, gone. In their place: the meanest, grimiest rave track to ever crack the Top 10.
