Use Me

Recorded March or April 1981. Released as the b side to the Mercury reissue of "Treason", April 1981

Julian Cope - guitar, vocal

Written by Julian Cope

"Use me" is a bit of a curiosity in the Teardrop Explodes catalogue. It's been a song looming in the distance for quite a while on the blog and I know there's some readers out there who are awaiting massive insights and wonders about this song and I hate to disappoint you but...

Ok, let me tell you a story.

In the spring and summer of 1985 I started to buy whatever records I could find by The Teardrop Explodes. This was more difficult than it should have been. Sure, "Kilimanjaro" was available as a mid price album but "Wilder" was long deleted, the first two Julian Cope solo albums were languishing in bargain bins and the Teardrops' singles were impossible to find. I had picked up the double pack of "You disappear from view" from a charity shop in May, "Kilimanjaro" a week later, "Wilder" from Kelly's in Cardiff Market after I'd taken my O Levels in June. I wanted more.

One day in early July, my brother and I decided to go to Chester. Absolutely no reason why, I'd never been there before, I wouldn't return there until around 2005 when my parents moved there. Andy wanted to do some trainspotting and it was near Crewe or something. I had time on my hands after my exams and before the German exchange which kicked off on the same day as Live Aid (I missed all of Live Aid due to travelling across Britain, Belgium and Germany that day). And you never know, there might be a decent record shop.

Oddly enough, there was a decent record shop. Somewhere in the arcades in the city centre, amongst the black and white buildings, we found a second hand record shop. In the back room I surfed through boxes and boxes of records, ignoring an original pressing of "Always now" by Section 25 but finding a pristine copy of "Closer" for three quid. More boxes, more records... Oh that'll do! Twelve inch of "Treason" by my new favourite old band. £1.50. A quick check on the quality of the record - no scratches or scuffs, two b sides I didn't know - though one appeared to be the title song in French. Take both to the counter, buy them, bagged up, let's get back to the station.

Only on our way back we spot a newspaper stand with a poster saying "Chester IRA Bomb Scare - latest news" and Andy and I freak out. Is there a bomb scare? Is it happening now? What the hell? We find a call box and ring back home to Penarth and our parents say "WHAT bomb scare?" So we head back to the station still slightly freaked out and worried, is there a cover up, did it happen, was it yesterday or today or whatever... We sink back into our train carriage, not quite knowing what is happening but happy to be escaping Chester. And yeah we both got some new records too. "Closer" was going to be an epic listen, but I knew "Treason" would be played first - a six minute song on the B side? That should be epic in a different way.

Hours later we got home, exhausted and hungry and still slightly freaked out about the bomb thing. I settled back on my bed, took the "Treason" 12" out and placed it on my Sanyo record player and gave the b side a play. Yes that's "Treason" in French. Great. Next?

A twelve string guitar jangles out a one chord (B minor) strum, after ten seconds a riff appears - an ascending line, briefly hitting E, then moving an ascending Em to F#m back to B minor. Nice, I think, cool riff. Lots of open strings ringing out. Can't wait for the rest of the band to come in and make this great. Julian Cope starts singing. "This time, we can see / This time, concede defeat / Hey hey, what's that sound? / It's time to cut me down / To use me..."

Still waiting for the rest of the band. Maybe a keyboard line or bass to relieve the monotony. But no, the strumming continues... It's ok, something will happen soon. Even if it's just some harder strums for emphasis. Second verse, cats around a marble throne. Or is it dance around the marble throne. Cope's vocal weaves and wanders around, up octaves and down again. It's clear by now there's no other Teardrops in the studio. Cope is screaming about something that "came from the sky". Over and over again. Around the four minute mark the guitar gets more subtle and Cope repeats "What went wrong? Got up late for you" over and over in multiple voices, octaves and strengths, getting more impassioned as he goes before just turning to scat singing and holding that one chord over and over until it just stops suddenly just under six minutes, the final chord repeated as an echo.

What the HELL was that about? Where's the rest of the band? Why does he want to be used? What did go wrong? Do I want to hear this monotonous drone again? I'm not really sure. Are all Teardrops B sides this weird? Maybe I'll give "Closer" a spin now. 

------------

"Use me" then is an oddity. One man, one voice, one guitar, presumably some words written on a scrap of paper and extrapolated over six minutes. At the time I didn't get it. Now I get it slightly more. He's trying to be Tim Buckley, the twelve string drone and the vocal swoops and improvisations. There's a reference to "For what it's worth" by Buffalo Springfield, via the live version of "Sleeping gas" the band had been playing that spring - "Hey hey what's that sound? Everybody knows what's going down". Cope is definitely wearing his influences on his sleeve here.

In "Head on" Cope says this about singles in 1981.

"If we had a new release, all I worried about was getting a cool B-side together. You know, give people some other reason to buy the thing."

I'm not convinced that "Use me" is that cool a b side, it certainly felt in 1985 that I'd been ripped off a bit. I wanted a Teardrops song. I got some jangling droning and shouting. Is Cope singing about fame already? He's only had one hit single. There's some fatalism - "me, I die in flames" - even a prediction of the band's fall from grace and popularity. The dichotomy between post punk credibility and the chance at fame were always plain to see in Cope. He would write a (sort of) clearer song about this within months of "Use me"'s release. 

From a musicianly point of view "Use me" is quite easy to play. I can only thank Brychan Todd of the near legendary Burning Ferns for the insight into how to play the song. Stick a capo on your seventh fret, play Em, change to A.then Am BM half chords and back to Em. (Or keep the capo on the seventh fret and tune to an open Em chord). Once you've got the hang of it, your fingers fall easily into place. It just goes on a bit, doesn't it? Was it ever considered for a full band treatment? I can't imagine it to be honest. Maybe some tribal drums rumbling in the background, some low lying synth bass, Troy Tate playing some soaring guitar over the top. No, I can't hear it. Presumably it was recorded around the time of the Hugh Jones remix of "Treason" in March or April, it probably didn't take long to record. The band were struggling with new material at Bear Shank Lodge, Cope wasn't going to place something important to the forthcoming "Great Dominions" album as a b side. Just something cool, a reason to buy. 

If I had to make a chart of Teardrop Explodes b sides, "Use me" would be towards the bottom, above "All I am is loving you" but not much. If you love it - and I know plenty of people who do love it - then great. But for me it's a bit of a wasted opportunity. There's so much better to come from the Teardrop Explodes and it's just around the corner.