Stories of songs about love – we’ve heard them all and, frankly, after hundreds of years of the things, most of them have all the romantic heft of a Ginsters Valentine’s Day Card bought on the M4, just outside Slough. Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti’s ‘October Love Song’ (originally released as a single in 1983 and now remixed and re-released for Record Store Day), is quite something else, though.
When I interviewed Chris and Cosey a few years ago, they told me about its rather lovely birth: "I was in the front bedroom in Tottenham, and we had the studio in the bedroom behind. We put the mics through and Chris said ‘just do whatever you want and I’ll record the vocal’. It was just a spoken word for Chris. I had this vision of him sat in the other room with his headphones on, a really intimate situation where I could talk to him but I wasn’t in the same room as him. So I told him how I felt about him, and that’s how ‘October Love Song’ was written, about how we got together: ‘do you remember how I took your hand on the stairs". It was like me whispering in his ear."
The version of ‘October Love Song’ streaming above is featured on a special CD Chris & Cosey made for their recent US tour, and will be available in the shops on next weekend’s Record Store Day. It features five Chris & Cosey tracks ‘remixed’ by the duo in their Carter Tutti guise. As well as ‘October Love Song’ it also features ‘Cowboys In Cuba’, ‘Dancing Ghosts’, ‘Deep Velvet’ and ‘Lost Bliss’. Stay tuned to The Quietus for a review next week.
