THE 12″ LUCKY DIP (30): Public Image Limited – The Flowers of Romance

Let’s begin with a contemporary review:-

SINGLE OF THE WEEK

Sheer deloight! – As the fellow himself might say. This is the first PiL single in well over a year, and however dubious their excuses might sound, ‘Flowers’ is at least fair compensation for all the waiting around.

As title-track, it augurs well for the LP to follow. One of the starkest, most single-minded pieces they’ve ever done – on first hearing it seems all thudding drum and piercing Lydon whine – ‘Flowers’ stands supreme this week; one of that tiny handful of records cable of provoking some emotional response in the listener.

Take the time to get to know it, the hypnotic beat, those uniquely chilling vocals – a relentless montone – and the eerie, vaguely Eastern drone at the music’s core. On the face of it, ‘Flowers of Romance’ is hardly a song at all, but on the inside it’s really much, much more. Let’s have more!

That’s from the NME of 28 March 1981.

I’ll agree with one part of the review, namely that it was one of the starkest, most single-minded pieces they’ve ever done.  It’s as strange and disturbing as earlier single Death Disco, and let’s not forget that it had been written by John Lydon for his dead mother in response to her wish that he come up with a disco song for her funeral.

Public Image Limited had more or less disintegrated during 1980, being basically a duo of Lydon and Keith Levene, and the latter was no longer interested in playing guitar.  No attempt was made to bring in a replacement bassist for Jah Wobble, while the drums were entrusted to Martin Atkins, and it’s his playing which sort of dominates the single.

mp3: Public Image Limited – Flowers Of Romance (extended version)

‘Sort of’ in that you can’t ignore Lydon’s relentless painful sounding vocal, nor Levene’s contribution via a Stroh Violin.

One thing to mention is that the extended version on the 12″ is a bit of a con as it is actually just the 7″ version with the instrumental version added on with just the tiniest of gaps at 2:47.

The b-side is an old track, in that the songwriting credits list the four band members who played on the 1978 album, Public Image : First Issue.  Possibly an outake?

mp3: Public Image Limited – Home Is Where The Heart Is

All in all, it really did make it a very unlikely chart hit, which it was, as it peaked at #24.  I can’t recall ever hearing it on the radio at the time – I certainly didn’t buy it in 1981, and this was another picked up second-hand many decades later.

JC