It all clicked in a few hours and we ironed out the rough spots the next day. I had a drum machine and synth pad pattern in mind that I'd wanted to do something with and played that. Drummer and backing vocalist Warren Cann recalled: "The song came together very quickly. The minimalist and bleak sound was due to the synth pads, a Roland drum machine and German producer, Conny Plank, who had worked with Kraftwerk. Okay, it was on the NME chart and not the official one used by Top Of The Pops, but at least it provides some consolation for Ultravox fans left fuming at the time. 2 for four weeks in early 1981, it was infamously denied its place in pop history by a novelty record so dire that we refuse to name it. This is unsurprising because few singles are as renowned for being unjustly robbed of the coveted No. 2 hit of all time, at least according to a poll of BBC Radio 2 listeners in 2012. Billy Currie’s album, Doppel, is out now.UK picture sleeve, UK labels The Story Behind The Song We were denied the top spot by the novelty hit Shaddap You Face. It went straight from the chorus to the violin solo. I was surprised it was a hit because it was long – when we went on Top of the Pops, we had to cut it. I was proud of it and couldn’t bear the thought of it being passed over. Others seemed just as likely to chart, such as Mr X.īut I wanted to release it. But when we heard the final mix, we didn’t think we had a hit. This was the start of a new decade and people were receptive – though, obviously, there were a few punks shouting at us. The crowd thought we were on to something new. And Conny Plank, our producer, replied: “Well, sing that then.”Įven though there was no middle section at that point, we performed it at the Electric Ballroom in Camden. Midge felt a little uncomfortable, because he’d only just joined and thought we were being arty-farty. That was why I did a violin solo that was overly vibrato and romantic. He’d tried too hard to be successful and deliberately overdid it. We’d been listening to music by this old German composer called Max Reger. Midge stood at the mic and came up with the lyrics almost straightaway: “Walked in the cold air, freezing breath on the window pane …” We were denied the No 1 spot by the novelty hit Shaddup You Face Billy Currie We were extremely arrogant back then and probably too prog-rocky. I said to the guys I was keen to do something that sounded like the late-19th-century romantics, like Grieg and Elgar. Ultravox had just hooked up with Midge Ure, who’d replaced John Foxx, and I wanted to use my classical training. Everyone wanted us to write a track called Berlin or Paris. Then, the moment it became huge, the pressure on us to surpass it with a follow-up was incredible. It was too slow, too long and there was a violin solo – the antithesis of a commercial single. It was about £300, which was a substantial amount of money for someone who normally only bought stuff from Save the Children. The only thing that cost money was the Burberry raincoat, because I’d always wanted one. Everything I wore in the video was from thrift shops. Then you go back to your cold, grey, miserable life in Chiswick. In such a crumbling environment, you could easily fall in love. Why Vienna? There was a decaying elegance about it. You’ve gone to this beautiful place, met someone and vowed it is going to continue – and, of course, it doesn’t. Vienna was a love song to an imaginary girl. Everything I wore in the video was from thrift shops Midge UreĪ lot of what Ultravox did back in the day was soundbites. I remember going into the studio with just a line in my head: “The feeling is gone, this means nothing to me – oh Vienna!” That was all I had. The cinematic aspect was high on our agenda: every track was for a movie that didn’t exist. The song had the feel of a haunting mid-European classic, thanks to our keyboard player Billy Currie’s classical training.
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