[face of glass]

"The Perfect Kiss"

The song is like a mini-movie of sorts with its various sections. Starting out with a complex rhythmic pattern programmed by Steve Morris, Peter Hook soon lays out a short bass vamp that sounds like the Order's attempt at funk. When that's done two sequencer lines start interacting, the other is silently faded in by Gillian Gilbert. Then she attacks the keyboards and out emerges the main theme, both hopeful and yearning. At the same time Hooky begins to play one of his most famous bass lines, as usual, on the higher frets of his instrument. Soon Sumner steps in with his mid-'80s passionate vocals and with his usual enigmatic lyrics that combine naivete, questionable rhyming and something sinister. As usual there's no real knowledge of what the exact lyrics are, people have just been using their own ears to determine them. Some people have suggested that this is the first song about AIDS:

I stood there beside myself
Thinking hard about the weather
They came by a friend of mine
Suggested we go out together
Then I knew it from the start
This friend of mine would fall apart
Pretending not to see his guilt
I said "Let's go out and have some fun"

Then the chorus:

I know you know
We believe in a land of love
I know you know
We believe in a land of love

At the same time Hooky changes the bassline to fit the chorus. Then out breaks a short section of Sumner guitar interplay and a three-note keyboard figure played by Steve Morris.

Second verse with its obvious sexual hints:

I have always thought about
Staying in and going out
Tonight I should have stayed at home
Playing with my pleasure zone
He has always been so strange
I'd often thought he was deranged
Pretending not to see his gun
I said "Let's go out and have some fun"

Then follows the middle eight with its different melodic content:

When you are alone at night
You search yourself for all the things that you believe are right
If you give it all away
You throw away your only chance to be here today
Then a fight breaks out on your street
You lose another broken heart in a land of meat
My friend he took his final breath
Now I know the perfect kiss is the kiss of death

Repetition of the earlier interplay with Morris and Sumner.

Another new section, this one features harsh keyboard tones on the Emulator as played by Morris, Hook beating the syndrums like a man possessed and Sumner playing a short snippet of a solo. Then it all halts down to the main rhythmic figure.

Another new section, Gilbert lays out an ethereal keyboard figure, Hook plays some atmospheric parts on his bass and Morris plays some samples of frog sounds on the Emulator. It has been suggested that the frog sounds are related to the classic fairytale about the frog prince, hence the title of the song too. Morris brings out a wheezing sample from his keyboard to end this section.

The basic sequencer line takes us to a cowbell solo by Sumner, one of the best uses of cowbell in the history of man.


After which Hook breaks out with his bass again and Gilbert begins playing dramatic keyboard chords. The main theme is brought out from time to time but new ideas are added too. This section is for many the best moment for Peter Hook's bass in the history of New Order; he just keeps on playing for two-and-a-half minutes straight, using the main theme but also new ideas. Then at some point Sumner joins in with his guitar, strumming like mad. The result is one of the biggest wank-offs in the history of music for a group that started out as a punk band. The tune builds to a towering climax, with Hook eventually using the thickest strings on his bass. At the end Morris unleashes two samples from the Emulator, the last one is a crashing, orgasmic sound. An epic has come to its close.

Here's an audio file of the Order playing the song live at Leuven, Belgium in 1985.
http://rapidshare.de/files/6861268/T..._Kiss.mp3.html

The song was debuted at Royal Festival Hall in May 1984 with the alternate title "I've Got A Cock Like The M1" and it was released on Factory Records in May 1985. The Order stopped playing it after the 1993 tour which is a disgrace; it is like the Buckingham Nicks line-ups of Fleetwood Mac not playing "Rhiannon".