The Flowers of Romance (album)

The album is largely centred on percussion, and Levene has described it as "probably [...] the least commercial record ever delivered to a [record] company."[3] Similarly, the Trouser Press Record Guide states that "the music is so severe as to lend credence to a record executive's statement that The Flowers of Romance is one of the most uncommercial records ever made – at least within a 'pop' context."[4] Simon Reynolds has described the album as highly experimental and preoccupied with moving beyond the defining standards of rock music, subsequently making it a pioneering post-rock record.[5]

Occasional drummer Martin Atkins played on three songs, while band members Levene and John Lydon handled percussion duties on the other tracks. One, "Under the House", actually has both Levene and Atkins playing dual drumlines. The prominent, and heavily processed, drum sound was influenced by Peter Gabriel's third album, on which engineer Hugh Padgham had processed Phil Collins' drums. Collins, in turn, was so impressed with the sound on The Flowers of Romance that he hired the album's engineer, Nick Launay, to reproduce the sound for his own projects.

Throughout the album, musique concrète sounds, such as amplified wristwatches, reversed piano and televised opera, weave in and out of the mix. Producer Nick Launay recalls: "On 'Four Enclosed Walls', for instance, we placed Martin's Mickey Mouse pocket watch on a floor tom, so it would resonate and have more tone. Then I added two harmonizers with a fifteen-second delay fed back on themselves, one panned left, one right. I recorded about seven minutes of it ticking away."[6] "We also had an AMS digital sampler, one of the first digital devices ever available. One day Martin played a drum groove and I pushed 'Loop Lock' and tried to make a perfect loop. The AMS was so primitive you couldn't actually edit it to get it in time, so I randomly kept locking in different beats as he played them, till I got one that sounded cool. That loop became the song 'Track 8'. It's actually out of time, but somehow it grooves."[7]

Vocalist John Lydon contributed Stroh violin and saxophone (though he was not known to be trained on any particular instrument) and, according to a Rolling Stone article about the album, simply banged on anything handy for percussion, including the face of a banjo on "Phenagen".[8]

Keith Levene's innovative guitar style was stretched even further through the use of reversed tapes and trebly distortion, and his synthesisers drone and burble throughout the album. Several songs (for example "Four Enclosed Walls" and "Phenagen") have a Middle Eastern feel. Bass player Jah Wobble had left the group before The Flowers of Romance was recorded, so Keith Levene played bass on "Track 8" and "Banging the Door", the only two tracks to feature the instrument.

Regarding the track "Phenagen", Lydon notes: "It's not Moroccan, it's Renaissance, early English and French, 15th century. That's what I've been listening to a lot, that's real traditional English music."[9] Keith Levene recounts: "There's a bit of backwards guitar [...] [There also is] a banjo with three strings missing, and he [Lydon] was hitting it with something that was hanging off the banjo 'cos [sic] it made that noise [...] that was used on 'Phenagen' [...] He was annoying me all the time making that noise, then he laid down a track making that noise, then the next thing I know is this fucking great track called 'Phenagen'. It's horrible really, but it's really good the way it comes out."[10]

Regarding "Flowers of Romance", Lydon comments: "The romance referred to is not being romantic, but alludes to people romanticising over past events with their memories [...] What I'm on about is that I wanted to move on and carry on with trying to create new things."[11] Levene recounts that Lydon "bowed the bass" on the track.[10] Atkins drums on the track.[12]

On "Under the House", Lydon claims: "I wrote that after I saw a ghost, it was at The Manor".[11] "I'd seen a few things I didn't like. I ended up sleeping in the coal shed, I couldn't bear it in the house any longer. When a place is haunted there's an intensity which is insufferable."[9] Launay recounts: "Again, Martin laid down the beat, then we overdubbed the toms and doubled them with harmonizers, a trick used a few times on this record. Having grown up in the south of Spain I was really influenced by Spanish Gypsy music, Flamenco, and I don't mean the tacky touristy type. I kept hearing that kind of clapping, so after explaining what I meant, we did it and added a simple delay to get that effect of two clappers playing off each other. The operatic wailing in the background is exactly that – there was an opera on TV while we were playing the song back in the control room. I thought the combination sounded so cool, I put a mic on to the TV speaker and recorded it to tape randomly till it made some sense. Once the track had some kind of shape, John went out and sang on it."[7]

Regarding "Hymie's Him", Levene recounts: "There was this weird bamboo instrument that I used on 'Hymie's Him' – Richard Branson had gotten some in Bali and gave me one of these things [...] I had been offered to make this film soundtrack for Wolfen. [Director] Michael Wadleigh [...] said, 'This is how wolves feed in the dark, this is the plot of the movie – what I need is an urban jungle sound.' So I came up with 'Hymie's Him' as my pilot for the score for the movie [...] I had it in the bag and Wadleigh loved it. I really wish I'd done the movie."[3] "We were booked into The Manor for ten days, and it was like we knew we were doing a new album and we didn't do anything for days – we couldn't do anything. It was like this horrible mental block. After wasting seven days of being waited on hand and foot, just being real lazy cunts... we were really trying but nothing was happening. It was something to do with The Manor as well. We did get one track down – 'Hymie's Him' – that was the first definite solid thing we got laid down [...] I think we could do a service to a film. Like with this Michael Wadleigh thing, we wanted to go right down to a bottle banging on the table – the whole lot, not just the music but sounds. But then Tom Waits and other people came into it, and it wasn't what we had in mind."[10]

Lydon recounts: "[Michael Wadleigh] offered us the chance to do a soundtrack. I mean, who wouldn't want an opportunity like that? [...] The clips we saw were really excellent [...] Originally Wadleigh wanted us to write music to suit the atmosphere, it's about wolves and killing people, and that suited us fine of course."[10] "I thought what Keith did with the music was so good there was no point in me singing over it. Leave it alone, I said. All I could do was insult Keith with the title."[11]

According to Lydon, "Banging the Door" "came about as a rant against the fans who found out my address in London and used to come around every night, banging away on the door and shouting 'Johnny! Johnny!' through the letter box. Nearly drove me mad!"[11] In a 1980 interview with The Face, he comments: "It's much, much worse than it was in the days of the Sex Pistols. I've even had them pitching their tents on my front doorstep [...] I just don't let any of them in anymore. I just don't answer the door."[13] Keith Levene: "Martin played the drums and I played the bass. Then I added synth to that."[10] Nick Launay: "Keith was very into these synthesizer boxes that plugged into each other with little red cables, I think it was made by Roland. It was a bit like the giant Moog synth that Kraftwerk used, only in miniature. You can hear it on 'Banging the Door', it sounds like an evil giant frog!"[7]

Regarding "Go Back", Lydon commented in the NME in 1981: "London's getting very, very fascist and I don't like it at all! 'Go Back' was written about that, about London and tedium and right-wing groups. It's pathetic, people wallow in misery and accept anything – 'Have a cup of tea, good days ahead."[14] "That's just the way things are going in this country. You can't afford to pretend it's not happening."[9] Keith Levene: "I only use guitar on one track called 'Go Back', and it's a great little guitarline, it's turned out to be a funky track actually."[10] He also played drums on the track.[3]

Regarding "Francis Massacre", Lydon commented: "For me the song just sums up the way I felt when I was in [ Mountjoy Prison in October 1980] – grating noises, 'Aaargh, let me out!'"[9]