Dada Soul, Richard Sinclair & Split Second (original) (raw)

Phil’s first CD comprised some material played by his band In Cahoots between 1985-6 plus other material, involving MIDI and various technical equipment, produced in 1986 with Dave Stewart. Phil was a very keen follower of this new development in music production and had recently bought himself a MIDI guitar His use of these two different approaches was the reason he named the CD Cutting Both Ways. When he embarked on his second CD in 1988 he also combined these two approaches, which is why he called it Split Second.
When the designer at Reckless Records set about designing the cover for Split Second he must have thought Split Second was a typo and corrected it to Split Seconds, then illustrated it with a sinking ship! Is this how record covers are usually created?
Dada Soul – track 3 on Split Second – was written by Phil, sung by Richard Sinclair with lyrics written by me and backing vocals sung by Barbara Gaskin. It was recorded in the basement studio of a house in Kyverdale Road, Stoke Newington, belonging to Paul Westwater who was the engineer. Dave Stewart did a huge amount of work on the production.
Phil had written this piece for Richard because he wanted him to sing on the CD. He made me a tape, gave me a copy of the dots and asked me to see if I could write some words for Richard.
Meanwhile Phil had received a letter from a Spanish fan asking if Richard was the Dada soul of Hatfield & The North. I had recently been lucky enough to have been on tour with Phil in the early days when Richard was in Phil’s band In Cahoots and had experienced, first hand, Richard’s non-stop talking habit which seemed to go on 24 hours a day. The title and the lyrics were the combination of these two things I associated with Richard at the time: A Dada soul who never seemed to sleep. So this is what I wrote:

DADA SOUL
I never sleep right thru the night
I wanna see another TV show
Wanna take in a video
Here I go – pressing remote control
Midnight movies
I need them deep down in my Dada soul
Hammer Horror
I don’t care how many times I see them
And even when my head really aches
With the flickering light light that makes
My eyes go red
I can’t go to bed.
——————

I gotta sleep tight tonight
I mustn’t see another video
Gotta feeling its driving me crazy
But whatta way to go!
Staring at the box all night
I’m outta control
Need my sleep now
I need it deep down in my Dada soul
Gottta get some shut-eye
Going out of my mind again
Shutting my eyes- I’ll turn off the light
And remember to count some sheep…
I can’t go to sleep!

Aymeric Leroy once told me he thought I must be an insomniac and had written the Dada Soul lyrics about myself, Well – things aren’t always as straightforward as that.