[kj] [MA] The Air Pours Out of the Enemy

[Palin's Political Death Rattle]

Has anyone ever approached you to use "Feed the Enemy" or "The Thin Air" in a film, because they seem like perfect songs to use on a soundtrack?

Howard Devoto: I'm not aware of it, not those two.

So have other songs ended up on film soundtracks?

Dave Formula: Recently there was a film being made in Liverpool and they want to use "The Light Pours Out of Me."

Is "The Light Pours Out of Me" about death?

HD: I wouldn't say so particularly. There are much better songs about death if you want them.

I have that assosciation as I was listening to that song when our family dog was run over and killed, so it always reminds me of that day in the late eighties.

DF: What was the dog called?

Wilbur. He just got out of the garden and ran into the road and got hit by a car.

HD: I know what you mean. I mean, "Jerks out of me like blood." As much as I can cast my mind back there, I wouldn't have said so, not in any upfront way.

I was listening to that song on the way here and the line that sprung out at me was, "The conspiracy of silence ought to revolutionise my thoughts." What were you thinking of when you wrote that?

HD: Its almost two cliches playing with each other; a conspiracy of silence and thought being revolutionised. That particular phrase goes back so far in my life. That phrase goes back years before Magazine actually! So the origin of that specific phrase is utterly lost to me.