“I Die: You Die” was one of the last tracks chosen for midcult, but it was one of the songs that was part of the very conceptual origin of it. I knew I was going to cover Numan, but which song?
I tried to curate songs that would be an explanation of sorts of who I am, how I got here, and what the midcult project is. Obviously there are artists who are important to me who have already been covered, going back to the very beginning of this band. But even before that, I saw Gary Numan perform almost immediately after arriving in Washington state on May 15, 1998. I was still trying to figure out if I could be satisfied DJ-ing or if I could grow those 4-track cassette experiments into something more evolved. I’m sorry to report that he did not perform “I Die: You Die” at the show I saw. He did perform “We Are So Fragile” which was the other track on my shortlist. Thankfully, he did perform it in 2014 when I saw him again in Kansas City at a tiny club venue. The band played level with the audience and I was directly in front of his microphone. It was a very strange experience seeing a hero of mine sing directly into my face while also looking right through me.
The song itself is a response to the vicious critical response Numan received from the music press of the day. Numan was one of the first acts to rise to superstardom on an almost entirely electronic sound, and because the rock music press had been born and bred from guitar rock, they constantly sought to invalidate what he did. Numan’s point of view was that they sold their magazines to his fans with his face on the cover, only to seek to invalidate everything he released as fraudulent music on the pages within. Depeche Mode got the same sneering energy throughout their rise to fame. It seems weird to say given how much popular music has evolved but this remains true, though those voices are pretty trivial now. I still struggle to find musicians who are like-minded enough about electronic music to want to perform it. You either get that it’s an aesthetic choice or you don’t. Obvious, and yet it’s true.
As for my version, I should say that I didn’t set out to sound so much like Numan on my version initially. I did try several less retro synth voices for the intro, but honestly nothing suited the song so well. So I rifled through some of my go-to voices on my Moog set up before deciding on this one. Also, I wasn’t trying to sing like him per se. It isn’t an affectation. It’s a key I don’t sing in very often and I discovered through the recording that his vocal melodies are really what give his voice such a distinctive sound. It’s in their authorship. While nearly all of the songs on this record have grown my respect for their originators, this one doubly so.