No: The Associates

Every year I like to write something to mark the anniversary of Billy Mackenzie's death, 22nd January 1997. Last year I created an imaginary album of his 90s solo work The Soul That Sighs using George Michael's Older as inspiration. This year I'm keeping it simple and looking at just one song, a song that affects me as much today as when I first heard it 43 years ago. No.

Picture pop loving me at 16 holding Sulk in my hands for the first time expecting an album full of Club Country style songs. I've navigated the opening instrumental Arrogance Gave Him Up with some head scratching. What comes next is shattering. The two minute, tin foil rustling, pulsing, piano heavy, haunting intro to No kicks in. Building anticipation, I’m intrigued but wondering if there's any singing at all. There’s a pause……… Then Billy starts to sing and I'm instantly taken to a place no music in my young life has taken me before. I remember it like it was yesterday. From that moment I knew I held something special in my hands but this would take some real effort to fully appreciate. This is not a pop song. The next 4 minutes of this remarkable, personal, gut wrenching opus set me on a life long obsession with The Associates and especially Billy. Would I have kept trying with Sulk without No? I doubt it. What was I to make of this?

Tore my hair out from the roots

Planted them in someone's garden

Then I waited for the shoots

Then I waited for the shoots

Bit my nails down to the quick

Worrying myself sick about you

Tearing facial marks in bed

What kind of sequel is this that you dread?

I'd only been exposed to pop music. Sad love songs, Weller's English Rose for example, something like Manilow's Could It Be Magic or Elton John’s Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word always seemed so tragic. These songs moved me, made me feel something. This however was something completely different. Billy's other worldly voice singing these words with Alan's pounding, doom laden accompaniment left me breathless and a little shaken. There was no warning label on the sleeve. Like a car crash evolving in front of you yet you can't tear your eyes away. There's no let up with what follows.

Tear a strip from your dress

Wrap my arms in it

Tear a strip from your dress

Wrap my arms in it

By now I can only imagine what is possessing Billy as he delivers the greatest vocal performance I've ever heard. Veering from baritone, to falsetto, to the kind of note only Billy Mackenzie can produce. Can this song that came 15 years before he took his own life be a sign of the struggles Billy was having? A wild impulsive man, hyperactive, challenging and constantly on the edge. A genius with the world at his feet but no interest in conforming with the norms of such talent. Easily bored, restless and constantly searching for the next thing. Never, ever satisfied. Of course I knew none of this in 1982. More haunting instrumental scene setting before something quite extraordinary.

Shaved and cut myself again

Should have let it slip down further

Crushing sour stones taste sour

Every minute hears a medal

No, no, no, no, no

In this section Billy expresses thoughts of suicide as if to hammer the song’s darkness home. He then goes on to extract even more depths from just singing a two letter word five times. It always breaks me, taking me almost to tears. Every. Single. Time. Each “no” is delivered with a twist, never straining yet pleading from the depths of somewhere within Billy. The fourth “no” perhaps my favourite single note sung ever. Alan supporting with intensity and yet somehow the lightest of touches so as not to interfere creating a cavernous sound that is deeply personal. It strays off again into a dramatic instrumental interlude while Billy chants like some crazed Cossack in the background before coming at you again.

Tear a strip from your dress

Wrap my arms in it

Tear a strip from your dress

Wrap my arms in it

Tear a strip from your dress

Wrap my arms in it

Tear a strip from your dress

Wrap my arms, wrap my arms in it

The denouement as Billy soars upwards and then comes down from wherever he's been inside his head, his soul, somewhere very few have access to. We get to experience a repetitive wail of pain culminating in what feels like the ultimate release with the last line sung as if Billy is suddenly free. Then it’s done. Did I really just hold my breath for nearly 6 minutes?

An exhausting, draining, sonic opioid. The pain of tearing hair out from their roots to the final catharsis and closure, arms wrapped in her dress. Whoever she was. Once heard never forgotten. Hindsight and growing to knowing something of Billy's struggles it becomes a letter to Billy's future and today of all days even more profound and moving.

James Bond and Fiddler On The Roof inspiration with Russian overtones. Minor 6th chords. Plaintive ostentation. Alan Rankine explains the music behind No in this Grant McPhee video.

Alan Rankine on No

Whatever it was that inspired Alan and Billy I know that in 1982 it sparked something in me that I'd never experienced before. That sadness that was hiding in plain sight suddenly had meaning. Songs of love and loss continued to resonate and became staples of my listening. Nothing though, absolutely nothing before or since has affected me quite like No. Rest in peace Billy.

No

And here we have Billy singing it live which is even more raw and enthralling. That fourth “no” a genuine contender for eighth wonder status.

No live at Ronnie Scott's