NOTES

'The Avenue' was one of the earliest tracks to be written during the Junk Culture sessions and dates back to the Inverness sessions in 1983. The song is built up on a sample of a train in motion which had actually been recorded directly from a TV showing of the 1979 Andrei Tarkovsky film Stalker.

The low 'French horn' synth line on 'The Avenue' was actually an out of tune Prophet 5 - Paul Humphrey's main polyphonic synth at the time. The whistling that ends the track is actually Andy whistling (through his teeth rather than through his lips).

Lyrically, 'The Avenue' deals with the repetition of mistakes that people have made before you. The second verse concerns Andy's wish, when he was younger, to fall in love with girls, but how he would then swiftly lose interest.

The sleeve appears to be identical to the 7" but there are subtle differences, notably in the pose of the girl in the photo and the positioning of the title.

The sleeve also features a sticker with the band name as if to clarify the rather obscure 'OMD' hidden in the sleeve title.

TRIVIA

The sample used in 'The Avenue' is taken from the Andrei Tarkovsky film Stalker (1979). The plot of the film concerns The Zone, a strange place patrolled by armed guards. The film's protagonist has the gifts that allow him to lead people into The Zone to The Room, in which people's wishes and hopes come true. Andy McCluskey refers to the film as "One of the most haunting pieces of film and music that I ever saw".