A couple nights ago I snuggled under the covers and put on "Corners" by IQ.
It's one of my favorites songs of all-time and has proven a durable divorce favorite. Back in college I had endless hours of fun listening to it on repeat as I twirled my cigarette in the air and watched the cherry's trailers with intense fascination.
I think it has the longest fade out in the history of rock music. If not, it's up there with a duration of two and half minutes or so. And so I decided the other night to increase the volume to fight the fade and hear what normally goes underheard, perhaps unrecognized.
As the song slowly drifts to denouement, the band is jammin'. Keyboards come in and out with an ethereal effect - as if a soul was looking down on its body; an electric sitar alternately does some speedy runs and then recapitulates a melody from "The Last Human Gateway" from the previous album, Tales From the Lush Attic; electric guitar wails and the bass does these lovely, almost aching, bits. And all of this is atop a steady beat adorned with some tasty fills.
At one point some backwards sounds enter. And then there's dialogue. But I could not make out what was being said admidst the rockin'. Then yesterday it occurred to me: didn't the band put the separate tracks for "Corners" on the The Wake box set? Or was that "The Thousand Days" and I was confusing it with the ambient remix they did in 2010?
So I pulled out the box set and voila!
Yes!
I looked over the contents of the DVD and figured "Vocal and End Effects_01.wav" would hold the key to this mystery. And indeed it did.
At 5:32 a woman says, "Oh, get off it. I know you better than you know yourself. You live for bondage and discipline!" A man moans in a mixture of agony and ecstasy before quickly intoning, "Too much bondage. Too much bondage. Not enough discipline!"
The dialogue was unfamiliar to me but the internet came through.
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