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Welcome to SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies:
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
Today marks the end of PRIDE Month so we wrap up our month-long focus on songs by, or covered by, LGBTQ+ artists. And because this is also a five-Sunday month, that means we end with a Fifth Sunday A La Mode! Depeche Mode, while not queer (or out) in any respect themselves, have been long associated with queer culture and very popular at gay night clubs since their formation. In fact, they have actively pushed back against the perception that they were gay throughout the early days of their career, but there are still those who today believe, or perhaps hope, otherwise. Regardless, it's no surprise that many LGBTQ+ acts have covered them: LeætherStrip/Klutæ, Massive Ego, Placebo, Jimmy Somerville, et.al. Today's EBM cover of a song from their first album is certainly "gayer" than the original:
Gaytron – Tora Tora [Tora!] (Depeche Mode)
Tora! Tora! Tora! is the only lyrical composition by Martin Gore on Depeche Mode's debut album, Speak & Spell, released on October 1981. (He also wrote the instrumental, Big Muff, but the rest of the album was written by Vince Clarke before his departure from the group.) While there may be some confirmation about its origins from Gore unfound in the annals of countless interviews given over many years, it seems evident that the song is intended to be about the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Historic anecdotes seem to indicate that "Tora Tora Tora" was a battlecry or code phrase used by the Japanese as the bombs dropped. However it's unclear if that's entirely accurate or a dramatization of events as presented and remembered in popular culture from the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!. Other accounts claim that because the bombers were equipped with telegraph transceivers instead of audio transmitters, Japanese Commander Tadakazu Yoshioka designed code similar to Morse: "To" (two dots, pause, two dots) and "Ra" (three dots). "To" is believed to have signaled the attack while "ra" confirmed that their targets had been taken by surprise. It is not confirmed through reliable sources that "to" was actually short for "totsugeki," Japanese for "assault" and "ra" was short for "raigeki" or "lightning strike." The fact of "Tora" being the Japanese word for "tiger" is apparently no more than coincidence. Whatever its full origin, the titular phrase is nonetheless now intimately associated with the beginning of World War II.
It is interesting though that this song, one of British-born Gore's first songs for Depeche Mode, has them "playing an American" in its narrative.
Only live versions of Tora! Tora! Tora! appear on some pressings of their Get The Balance Right! single, but the studio version was never included on any single, and has been covered perhaps less than ten times, mostly by fairly obscure artists.
Alfa Matrix released Re:Covered, Vol. 2 - a Tribute to Depeche Mode in June 2011, a various artists compilation of 31 different covers of the band's music. EBM artist Claus Kruse appears twice on the collection: with his project Plastic Noise Experience, covering New Life and with Gaytron, covering Tora Tora. (He also contributed a version of World In My Eyes with Plastic Noise Experience on the first volume of this compilation.)
When asked in one interview about the project's name Kruse, proudly out as gay, said "Gaytron was politics, a kind of personal Christopher Street battle against intolerance." Christopher Street, of course, referring to the site of Stonewall Inn and center of the gay rights movement in New York during the seventies. Kruse continued, "The name basically combines the words gay and electronic, what you hear is what you get. I founded Gaytron in the early years of PNE (Plastic Noise Experience) 1992. At that time homophobia was still an issue, even in the EBM scene. I decided to make this point clear." In the same interview, Kruse also stated that he did Tora Tora because he liked it and said "the 'battle cry' totsugeki raigeki (misinterpreted as ToRa) fits to Gaytron pretty much."
Regardless of historical accuracy, his interpretation of it has inspired a fully fleshed out, modernized, and energized take on the song. Homophobia is as much an issue today as it was when Kruse founded Gaytron. Perhaps this might be an appropriated battlecry to protest injustices while assaulting such bigotry with a lightning strike of glitter bombs!:
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
Something "Stranger" at which to Marvel... (Because I'm drowning in current pop culture over here!)
Feel free to tell me what you think about today's cover! Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome! You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to reply below, but all replies are screened for spam prevention.
(And if, after 4 years and 218 weekly entries, you find this blog of any value, please click over to my profile and find out how you can leave us a tip if you like.)
Hope you had a happy PRIDE month! Thanks for reading and keep dancing in darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Jun 23 - Blind Delon w/ HIV+ – Almost A Kiss (Throbbing Gristle)
Jun 16 - Erasure – Supernature (Cerrone)
Jun 09 - Xiu Xiu – Falling (Julee Cruise)
Jun 02 - Bones UK – I'm Afraid of Americans (David Bowie)
May 26 - Stoppenberg – Knight Rider Theme (Stu Phillips)
. Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies .
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
Today marks the end of PRIDE Month so we wrap up our month-long focus on songs by, or covered by, LGBTQ+ artists. And because this is also a five-Sunday month, that means we end with a Fifth Sunday A La Mode! Depeche Mode, while not queer (or out) in any respect themselves, have been long associated with queer culture and very popular at gay night clubs since their formation. In fact, they have actively pushed back against the perception that they were gay throughout the early days of their career, but there are still those who today believe, or perhaps hope, otherwise. Regardless, it's no surprise that many LGBTQ+ acts have covered them: LeætherStrip/Klutæ, Massive Ego, Placebo, Jimmy Somerville, et.al. Today's EBM cover of a song from their first album is certainly "gayer" than the original:
Gaytron – Tora Tora [Tora!] (Depeche Mode)
Tora! Tora! Tora! is the only lyrical composition by Martin Gore on Depeche Mode's debut album, Speak & Spell, released on October 1981. (He also wrote the instrumental, Big Muff, but the rest of the album was written by Vince Clarke before his departure from the group.) While there may be some confirmation about its origins from Gore unfound in the annals of countless interviews given over many years, it seems evident that the song is intended to be about the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Historic anecdotes seem to indicate that "Tora Tora Tora" was a battlecry or code phrase used by the Japanese as the bombs dropped. However it's unclear if that's entirely accurate or a dramatization of events as presented and remembered in popular culture from the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!. Other accounts claim that because the bombers were equipped with telegraph transceivers instead of audio transmitters, Japanese Commander Tadakazu Yoshioka designed code similar to Morse: "To" (two dots, pause, two dots) and "Ra" (three dots). "To" is believed to have signaled the attack while "ra" confirmed that their targets had been taken by surprise. It is not confirmed through reliable sources that "to" was actually short for "totsugeki," Japanese for "assault" and "ra" was short for "raigeki" or "lightning strike." The fact of "Tora" being the Japanese word for "tiger" is apparently no more than coincidence. Whatever its full origin, the titular phrase is nonetheless now intimately associated with the beginning of World War II.
It is interesting though that this song, one of British-born Gore's first songs for Depeche Mode, has them "playing an American" in its narrative.
Only live versions of Tora! Tora! Tora! appear on some pressings of their Get The Balance Right! single, but the studio version was never included on any single, and has been covered perhaps less than ten times, mostly by fairly obscure artists.
Alfa Matrix released Re:Covered, Vol. 2 - a Tribute to Depeche Mode in June 2011, a various artists compilation of 31 different covers of the band's music. EBM artist Claus Kruse appears twice on the collection: with his project Plastic Noise Experience, covering New Life and with Gaytron, covering Tora Tora. (He also contributed a version of World In My Eyes with Plastic Noise Experience on the first volume of this compilation.)
When asked in one interview about the project's name Kruse, proudly out as gay, said "Gaytron was politics, a kind of personal Christopher Street battle against intolerance." Christopher Street, of course, referring to the site of Stonewall Inn and center of the gay rights movement in New York during the seventies. Kruse continued, "The name basically combines the words gay and electronic, what you hear is what you get. I founded Gaytron in the early years of PNE (Plastic Noise Experience) 1992. At that time homophobia was still an issue, even in the EBM scene. I decided to make this point clear." In the same interview, Kruse also stated that he did Tora Tora because he liked it and said "the 'battle cry' totsugeki raigeki (misinterpreted as ToRa) fits to Gaytron pretty much."
Regardless of historical accuracy, his interpretation of it has inspired a fully fleshed out, modernized, and energized take on the song. Homophobia is as much an issue today as it was when Kruse founded Gaytron. Perhaps this might be an appropriated battlecry to protest injustices while assaulting such bigotry with a lightning strike of glitter bombs!:
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
Something "Stranger" at which to Marvel... (Because I'm drowning in current pop culture over here!)
Feel free to tell me what you think about today's cover! Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome! You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to reply below, but all replies are screened for spam prevention.
(And if, after 4 years and 218 weekly entries, you find this blog of any value, please click over to my profile and find out how you can leave us a tip if you like.)
Hope you had a happy PRIDE month! Thanks for reading and keep dancing in darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Jun 23 - Blind Delon w/ HIV+ – Almost A Kiss (Throbbing Gristle)
Jun 16 - Erasure – Supernature (Cerrone)
Jun 09 - Xiu Xiu – Falling (Julee Cruise)
Jun 02 - Bones UK – I'm Afraid of Americans (David Bowie)
May 26 - Stoppenberg – Knight Rider Theme (Stu Phillips)
. Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies .