This song was released almost 30 years ago, in October 1983. Man does that make me feel old. I remember buying this single on Christmas Eve of that year, on the way up to my Aunt and Uncle who lived near Notre Dame. We went there every Christmas Eve to see the rest of my mom's family. I used their record player to play that single for the first time. It was the first song from the album, and would make it to #3 early the next year. A later single, The Reflex (a possible jukebox song), would be Duran Duran's first #1 single. The album Seven and the Ragged Tiger made it to #8, and would be the last with the full lineup until the 2004 release Astronaut.
I was listening to Radio2 from the Netherlands today, and the album this song comes from was their classic album of the week. So they were playing all the tracks and not just the hits, one an hour. Being one of the first albums I ever bought, and one of my favorites, it definitely brings me back.
And Union of the Snake is my favorite from the album. I'm a sucker for good synth-pop, and this one delivers in spades. But what really does it for me is that guitar. It's sort of a disco guitar, playing in the background, helping keep the beat with the drums (a ripoff of David Bowie's Let's Dance). It's a little funky. Not nine cans of shaving powder funky, but maybe three or four.
The lyrics, like all Duran Duran songs, were pretty oblique. Simon LeBon has said the "borderline" is between conscious and unconscious. But in later interviews, he said it's just all about sex. Which is fine. In my early teen innocence (yeah, right) it didn't really mean that, even at a time when everything else did. With the video getting heavy play, it was about a snake union. Now, I just wonder what their dues were.
Selection B7 is Secret Oktober, a song recorded and mixed just hours before the album was sent to press, in an all night session. And it shows. Not a song that will get any jukebox play.
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