Treason (It's just a story)

Version one - Zoo Records CAGE 008 - recorded late 1979, released March 1980

Julian Cope - vocals, bass

David Balfe - organ, piano

Mick Finkler - guitar

Gary Dwyer - drums

Version two - Mercury Single TEAR 3 / TEAR 312 - recorded late 1979, remixed March or April 1981, released April 1981

Julian Cope - vocals, bass

David Balfe - organ, piano

Mick Finkler - guitar

Gary Dwyer - drums

Version three - "Traison (C'est Juste En Histoire)" Mercury TEAR 312 - recorded late 1979, remixed March or April 1981, additional vocals recorded March or April 1981, released April 1981

Julian Cope - vocals, bass

David Balfe - organ, piano

Mick Finkler - guitar

Gary Dwyer - drums

Written by Cope / Dwyer / Finkler

"More than in Liverpool, and Junior school

Like lions we cling to our pride" 

("Kolly Kibber's Birthday" - Julian Cope, 1984)

When Ian McCulloch dropped the "Arthur Hostile" from Pete Wylie's suggestion of "Arthur Hostile And The Crucial Three" on 5th May 1977, little did either of them - or the third member Julian Cope - know how prophetic that name would be. In time each of the Crucial Three would become genuine pop stars, appearing on TV and radio and gaining a worldwide fanbase, not to mention a career stretching now beyond forty years. Back in May '77 it was just a silly name. How fortuitous.

By the time the Teardrop Explodes and Echo and the Bunnymen played their joint debut gig in late 1978, Cope and McCulloch (and Wylie) had gone through many changes and bands. Cope and McCulloch had played in A Shallow Madness during 1978 - Cope on bass, McCulloch on vocals - until the latter left (or was pushed out), the remaining four piece changing drummer before becomes the first incarnation of the Teardrop Explodes. Cope considered it a favour to the Bunnymen giving them the opening slot for their debut gig, and also informed Bill Drummond about them, helping pave the way towards the Bunnymen's debut single "Pictures on my wall" appearing on Zoo Records in May 1979. The music press naturally jumped onto both bands as part of a new Liverpool scene, and they toured together as a Zoo Records package. 

However there was already tension between Cope and McCulloch. While a publishing deal in the summer of 1979 meant both bands could be placed on a wage, the Bunnymen appeared to have an advantage. After only one single they had recorded a Peel session, while it took two singles before Peel invited the Teardrops into the BBC studios. Also Seymour Stein was interested in adding the Bunnymen to his Sire Records empire. The Bunnymen on a major label? It must have hurt Cope, having helped them on their way. In the music press it all seemed very cosy but behind the scenes there was jealousy, hurt and rage and the distance between Cope and McCulloch would increase over time. It also didn't help that both bands shared the same management and publishing team - Bill Drummond and Dave Balfe - while Balfe was also playing keyboards for the Teardrops. So ideas were traded between bands - both for presentation and music. There is the well known incident Cope recalls in "Head On" where he goes into the Zoo office to find it covered in scrim and camouflage, Cope thinking it's for the Teardrops tour but when Drummond guiltily admits it's for the Bunnymen Cope naturally freaks out. Once the Bunnymen were signed to Sire / Warners that was it. Outright passive aggressive hostility was the order of the day.

All of these feeds into "Treason" and it's the first truly human lyric that Cope has written so far. Before this his lyrics had been - by his own admission - just pop-art images. But all the passion, hurt and anger make "Treason" a great leap forward, both in lyrical content and in terms of the arrangement of the music. Who the "you" is in the lyric is never made explicit - is it Mac, or Drummond, or the critics (either in the press or the whispers and bitching behind closed doors at the cafes and clubs in Liverpool)? Either way, Cope has been betrayed - there's changes he can't understand, he's not reacting to them properly, and his plans are going awry too. And yet however personal the grievances are, these are all universal emotions that anyone can associate with - and Cope is never too specific anyway which allows for the more general reading of the lyrics. There's still room for some pop art images too - his veins are showing through is a nice way of saying he's thin skinned, mirror hopping days is a reference to how he can't pass a mirror without checking his reflection. 

This new style lyric is matched by music which moves up a gear. Instead of spindly cyclical four note riffs on guitar and keyboard, there's a more melodic approach and the song is more arranged than anything previously recorded. It could be considered to be the first post-Paul Simpson song in the catalogue. This song didn't turn up fully formed though - the earliest instance of a live recording I've found is from Bristol in October 1979 and while almost all the parts are there, they aren't quite in the right order yet. After the first verse the band go into what we now know as the middle eight ("Is it real? Or is it treason?"), followed by a second verse with additional lyrics which were dropped, and a third verse which would be totally rewritten, and they finally reach the well known chorus at the end of the aong. It's like a jigsaw with a few pieces missing. 

By the time the band came to record the song later that year it had become the song we all know and love, it was now a matter of getting it on tape. Bill Drummond spoke to his old friend Clive Langer (formerly of Liverpool legends Deaf School and at this point half of a successful production team with Alan Winstanley) to ask him to produce the next Teardrops single. Langer heard the band and wasn't interested, but Gary Dwyer was a huge Deaf School fan and told Langer how much it would mean to him, so Langer agreed. The band trooped down to T.W. Studios in Fulham - where artists such as Madness, Buzzcocks, The Stranglers and Amii Stewart had recorded - with Langer and Winstanley at the controls. In a two day session they recorded "Treason" and it's b-side "Read it in books" to be released as their third single on Zoo in March 1980. Everybody thought it was a hit, and it could have been if it wasn't issued on an independent label. It was very well received in the music press - the Sounds review gave it a gushing Single Of The Week, and that was in a week featuring singles by Wah! Heat, Orange Juice, Josef K, Scritti Politti, Bauhaus and Reginald Bosanquet. It reportedly sold 25,000 copies which is very impressive and certainly boosted the profile of the band at a time when it seems the spotlight was falling on Liverpool and Echo and the Bunnymen were leading the way. 

"Treason" is definitely a highlight in the Teardrop Explodes catalogue at this point. Everything about the song is perfect. The ensemble playing is tight and never boring - Dwyer's drums are steady but always interesting, some great tom work and fills into each section of the song keep the momentum moving. Cope's bass playing is more mature too, there's a melodic sense in his choice of notes which compliments what else is happening. Balfe's keyboards are perfect too, not restricted to four note patterns now they hold the main melody at the start, throw in little melodic asides here and there (the piano line in the last verse is a genius move - where did it come from?). Finkler also delivers in his guitar parts - not ostentatious, perfect for the song, also throwing in little extras here and there. The band have clearly worked hard on the arrangement, every verse has touches of melody which won't appear again, there's drop outs and drop ins for drama, organ swirls and fairground rides, vertiginous leaps. (I've always thought the little instrumental section after "I could swing for you" was an influence on "Baggy Trousers"). And Cope's vocal is the icing on the cake - impassioned, clear headed and melodic. Have I mentioned "melodic" enough? This song has melody popping out of its pores. Oh and sorry, the icing on the cake is of course the group call and response backing vocals at the end of the song. 

I'm not sure if the band attempted to rerecord "Treason" during the protracted sessions for the "Kilimanjaro" album but if they did then it can't have been successful as the Zoo single version appeared on the first pressing of the album* Maybe they realised they had captured lightning in a bottle first time, and it didn't need rerecording with trumpets.

On the other hand...

Nine months on from the release of "Kilimanjaro" and suddenly the Teardrop Explodes were stars in the UK. "Reward" had placed them in the top ten, they had been on Top Of The Pops, girls were screaming at them and there was acid flowing through Cope's veins. Cope had written new material which the band had been playing on their spring American tour but they had failed to capture anything useable on tape during recording sessions. Mercury A&R man David Bates wanted another single out to capitalise on their success and Cope wanted to update the album to lose the "tripping fools" cover, so a compromise was found. "Treason" would be remixed and issued as the next single, "Kilimanjaro" would gain a new cover - the now familiar zebra cover - and the remixed "Treason" would be added as well as "Reward" and a few songs would be remixed and amended too (notably "Went crazy" and "When I dream" which gained a few minutes of psychedelic fade out). Everyone's a winner baby, that's the truth.

The "Treason" remix (by Hugh Jones) is subtle but makes a hell of a difference. The stereo stage becomes wider, the keyboards are spread out more and more noticeable, the different melodic elements are seated better in the mix, the drums get some reverb and Cope's vocal is louder with added reverb and delay, adding more presence to the song. There's nothing new that's been added to the song - it's the same performance as the Zoo single version - but more time has been spent creating it to make it sound better on radio, TV and on record (this would be the Teardrop Explodes' first twelve inch single and I know from memory that it sounded fantastic on those wide deep grooves). Put basically, the Zoo version fits in with the post punk aesthetic of the band in early 1980, the Mercury remix is designed to compete and to become a hit single. 

Everyone must have been happy with what was originally recorded on the multitrack back in Fulham as there wasn't anything added to the remix. But Cope was obviously in the studio with Hugh Jones at some point as he recorded a new vocal for the song. Just the vocal was in French. Cope always wanted to put something cool and different on his b sides and the French translation of "Treason" was included as a bonus on the twelve inch single. I have no idea how true to the original the translation is but I have no reason to doubt it. It probably would have been fun to hear in high school French lessons, just as the Beatles' two German translations were in their relevant lessons. It certainly was quite a cool b side. One wonders who sang the backing vocals in French during the fade out. What's less well known is that the Teardrop Explodes played "Traison" live. When they slipped over the border from the US up to Canada in May 1981, Cope sang the translation in Toronto and Montreal, after introducing the song with much glee that he had rerecorded it in French and that's how it could be released in Canada. (Can any Canadians confirm this?) Happily the rest of the band sang the traditional English backing vocal, clearly they had forgotten their one line of French. 

When the single was released in April within weeks of "Reward" dropping out of the charts, "Treason" slowly but surely climbed upwards to number 18 in the charts. Which is weird because I remember "Treason" being all over the radio at the time, it seemed like it was a bigger hit than it actually was. Regardless, it did its job, the band were back on Top Of The Pops and there was a UK tour in June whose program used the sleeve design for the "Treason" single as a base. What could go wrong? 

Given that the subject matter of "Treason" was Cope's jealousy of Ian McCulloch's success with Echo And The Bunnymen at the end of 1979, it must have been a weird sensation for Cope to be singing a song of envy from a position of power. While the Bunnymen were on the verge of becoming the biggest cult band in Britain with the release of "Heaven up here", the Teardrops had jumped into the charts and into the hearts of many more people. Could he still relate to it as he sang the lyrics every night to the screaming teenage girls? Did they understand the feelings within the lyrics? At the end of the day, does it matter if they didn't. The summer of 1981 must have been a utter mindfuck for Cope and he swung from enjoying the opportunity to turn his fans on to the music he loved (this was around the time he licensed his favourite Scott Walker songs to become "Fire Escape In The Sky") to loathing what was happening to him. Was this fame real, or was he committing post punk treason? Only time would tell. But his reaction was definitely getting rather strange. 

"Treason" seems to be the forgotten Teardrops hit these days. While "Reward" appears on almost every 80s compilation under the sun and "Passionate Friend" is the fan favourite, as famous for the wigged out Top Of The Pops legend as anything else, "Treason" slips through the cracks which is a total shame. I can't say it better than Dave McCulloch's review in Sounds in 1980 - "Everything - the skill, the delivery, the touch of quaintness, the confidence, the commitment - points to a record of 'classic' stature". Amen to that. 

* Personal note. A few years ago I lost a chunk of my record collection (albums and twelve inches) in a house move. God knows how. It was all a bit of a rush. Anyway, it was from the letter R to the letter Z. So my entire collection of carefully bought Teardrop Explodes albums and 12"s and promos and whatever, all gone. Except while digging around a few weeks ago I found my original pressing of "Kilimanjaro" with paper labels. It was like finding an old friend I'd not seen for years and thought had vanished. It was good to confirm that yes it's the Zoo version of "Treason" on the original album.