This
single came free with the first 15,000 7" copies of the
June 1980 reissue of the Empire
State Human
single, which reached Number 62 in the UK charts.
|
It
featured the group's version of Mick Ronson's Only After
Dark
and the full-length 5' 38" version of Toyota City
(edited to 3' 15" for inclusion on the Travelogue
album). The sleeve of the Travelogue CD lists Toyota
City as being 5' 38", but unfortunately the CD contains
the same 3' 15" edit used on the original LP and cassette.
|
| Commenting
on the group's cover versions, Philip remarked, "I think
we did them with a certain amount of taste and respect for the
original, and we've made efforts not to put them out as singles.
The easiest thing in the world to do is to do a way-out wacky
cover of a well-known song. If we did The White Cliffs Of
Dover with silly clangings in the background, everyone would
rush out and buy it, and we'd sell lots of records. |
| "We
don't want to do that. In pure financial/career terms, it's
cutting your own throat because if you make it on other people's
songs, you're not giving people good reason to want to listen
to what you do. Which is why we had a very big argument with
Virgin Records over Only After Dark, which they pressed
without telling us. We never wanted Rock
'N' Roll
to come out as a single off the double
EP, although we agreed to it. I must admit it was probably
that which got us onto Top Of The Pops, but after that,
we didn't want to release another cover version for a couple
of records. |
| Martyn:
"We went into Virgin and they said, 'We're going to release
it whether you want us to or not.' They actually said that,
unequivocally. We said, 'You can do it completely against our
wishes and we'll do everything in our power to get out of our
contract.' They'd already shrink-wrapped Only After Dark
with Empire State Human without telling us. We knew it
was going to be released, so we said, 'We're not against re-releasing
Empire State Human, so can't you make that the single
to be pushed?' and they gave in to it. We wanted to re-release
State Human at some stage. |
| Philip:
"There's only one thing Virgin can do without our consent
- that's take two singles off each album, and we've had battles
with them over every one." |
Nevertheless,
Only After Dark was released as a single in its own
right in Germany (Virgin 102 148 - 100), although it had a
different b-side to the UK issue - WXJL Tonight
from the Travelogue album.
|
|
Only
After Dark written by M. Ronson/S. Richardson, Toyota
City written by The Human League
|
|
Produced
by The Human League & Richard Manwaring
|
Only
After Dark available on: Travelogue
CD (Virgin CDV 2133)
|
