Boy saw the girl and the girl saw the boy…
Following 1984’s Junk Culture album and tour, Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys embarked on an industrious songwriting period even before the year was out. Relocating to Amazon Studios in Liverpool, the pair averaged one new composition every two days over a two-month period.
As ever, the prodigious number of potential songs made choices a little tougher but eventually the band settled on a final track listing for the ten songs that eventually made up 1985 album Crush. Among the tracks relegated to B-side status, ‘Concrete Hands’ was a surprisingly charming slice of pop confectionery that felt in-step with the lush, romantic vibe of Crush, yet was also somehow apart from it in being a simpler, electronic pop affair.
‘Concrete Hands’ had the pleasure of being on the flipside of ‘So In Love’, the first single to be drawn from Crush (also the only single from the album to make a significant chart impression).
As with many of the Crush-era compositions, the track came from OMD’s weapon of choice, the Fairlight CMI. It’s not difficult to draw comparisons between earlier single ‘Talking Loud and Clear’ and ‘Concrete Hands’ as both employ a similar pastoral sound. It’s also an unusual B-side composition because an extended version of the song was also recorded and featured on the 12” releases of ‘So In Love’.
‘Concrete Hands’ plays around with a lot of sampled sounds, which could have sounded gimmicky and cheap in the hands of lesser talents. Here, the effects lend the song a texture that feels natural and emotive. The odd ‘chainsaw’ sound which opens up the extended version is very likely the DTRGTR setting on the Fairlight but bent and reworked into something startling and quirky.
Lyrically, the song’s wistful narrative was actually drawn from the messages on postcards that Andy McCluskey and his girlfriend had been sending each other during this period. It gives the song an authenticity via evocative lines such as “It’s a feeling in her heart, it’s a message in his hands”, lines that are memorable without feeling contrived or cynical matched with a captivating melody, which perhaps makes the track’s absence from its parent album all the more stranger.
Regardless, ‘Concrete Hands’ remains a firm fan favourite and serves once again as an example of OMD’s excellent B-side catalogue.
