Sunday Samples 43

It’s been a while since I dipped into the group of bands circling around New Order. Easily one of the best side projects is Electronic: Bernard Sumner’s collaboration with Johnny Marr, formerly better known as the guitarist from The Smiths and currently member of Modest Mouse. They only had a couple hits when they first came out back 1991 — including one which got most of its airplay on the soundtrack to the movie Cool World — but Marr and Sumner quickly sank back into their previous projects.

Since then there have been two more albums, each with its own distinctive sound: 1996’s poppier Raise the Pressure and 1999’s harder-rocking Twisted Tenderness. None of this excellent work caught much notice in the United States since by that time the stations which had formerly played progressive/alternative acts like New Order and The Smiths had moved on to “rapcore” and other such higher-selling mainstream music. Still, the seeds are there of both Marr’s rock influence on Sumner’s later writing for New Order and Sumner’s influence on Marr’s later writing in his various projects.

But for now let’s go back to their self-titled debut album, 1991’s Electronic, for a collaboration with Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys on “The Patience of a Saint”

Talking of my attributes, the things I do so well
As anyone who’s in cahoots with me will readily tell

I’ve lived up here, I’ve been down there, I’ve bought so I could sell
And if I drove a faster car, I’d drive it bloody well

How can I change? I live without restraint
And I would try the patience of a saint
And I would try the patience of a saint

Thinking of my attitudes, talking one on one
I may disagree with you, but look where you’ve come from

And all that you’ve got, I thought that I would faint
But I would try the patience of a saint
And I would try the patience of a saint
I would try the patience of a saint

I’m talking to myself
Talking to myself
I’m talking to the one that I know best
I’m talking to the one that I know best

Bury me with gratitude, you can go to hell

Why should I care? I’d rather watch drying paint
But I would try the patience of a saint
And I would try the patience of a saint
I would try the patience of a saint
And I would try the patience of a saint