#10: Flesh Of My Flesh : Orange Juice (Polydor, OJ4, 1983)
Let me begin this week by trying to explain why the first single under which Orange Juice has its own specific catalogue number, offered up by Polydor, carries OJ4.
OJ1 had been a 12″ promo featuring two non-singles, A Million Pleading Faces and Breakfast Time, given to DJs as a way of further plugging the Rip It Up LP. OJ2 had been the number attached to the bonus disc included as part of the 2 x 7″ release of Rip It Up, while OJ3 had been a flexidisc of a previously unreleased song, The Day I Went Down To Texas, that was given away with copies of Melody Maker, one of the four weekly UK music papers, in March 1983.
OJ4 was released in June 1983. A full eight months after Flesh of My Flesh had first been heard as an album track, the decision was taken to issue it as a single. In order to tempt fans to buy it, a completely new mix was issued on 7″ (and also available as a picture disc), with production duties handled by legendary reggae and dub musician/producer, Dennis Bovell.
mp3: Orange Juice – Flesh of My Flesh (7″ version)
A decent enough pop effort, but it wasn’t one to get the sort of attention of the big hit a few months earlier, and despite a six-week stay in the singles chart, it peaked at #41 which, going by history, seemed to be the natural position for Orange Juice singles.
The fact that the band was struggling a bit for material can be seen from the b-side offering:-
mp3: Orange Juice – Lord John White and The Bottleneck Train
The writing credits are attributed to Manyika/McClymont/Ross. It is a rollicking but strange almost surreal sort of tune in which Zeke tells the story of a train journey in Zimbabwe, but if you pay close attention, you can also make out a sort of wailing sound courtesy of Edwyn which turns out to be the vocal to Flesh of My Flesh played backwards. Quite clearly, the band and Dennis Bovell were intent on having a bit of fun in the studio.
The 12″ version of the single added various studio effects to Flesh of My Flesh. It is, in my view, a bit on the self-indulgent side, and does the song no favours at all.
mp3: Orange Juice – Flesh of My Flesh (12″ version)
One other thing to add…the picture disc version of the single for some reason had an edited version, by about 90 seconds, of Lord John White. So, for completeness:-
mp3: Orange Juice – Lord John White and The Bottleneck Train (edit)
What we didn’t know was that the band were already back in the studio, working on new material for a third album, and that the next single was at an advanced stage of planning. But those of you who have been following the story of Orange Juice via this series will be well aware that things rarely go smoothly or as planned.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Then and now, an odd choice for a single