Song of the Week - All Groups: E = MC2 by Big Audio Dynamite

E=MC2 by Big Audio Dynamite, is truly one of the greatest songs of the 80's and still fresh, striking and innovative 30 years on. For those of you who weren't born when the 12" single reigned supreme, B.A.D. was fronted by ex Clash man, Mick Jones, who continued on his former band's journey from the punk stage to the dancefloor. B.A.D.'s music was an amalgam of big beats, witty samples (usually lifted from films) and melancholy keyboard riffs. Even without the samples the music had an undeniable cinematic quality, B.A.D. existed somewhere between the beatbox and the cinema screen, with their Medicine Show turning up in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild (the greatest soundtrack that only half was) to terrific effect. 

In E=MC2 the simbiotic relationship between pop and cinema is made manifest in its celebration of the films of maverick British director, Nicolas Roeg. The song is liberally peppered with samples from Roeg's 1970 debut co-directed with Donald Cammell, Performance, the best being a comical exchange between James Fox and Mick Jagger - "Why don't you play us a tune, pal?"  "I don't like music." "Comical little geezer. You'll look funny when you're fifty." What's more, each verse offers a wry synopsis of a film from Roeg's filmography including Walkabout (verse 1), Performance (verse 2), Don't Look Now (verse 3), The Man Who Feel To Earth (verse 4), Bad Timing  (the first half of verse 5), Eureka (the second half of verse 5) and Insignificance (verse 6). The title also refers to Roeg's 1985 head scratcher, Insignificance, an adaptation of Terry Johnson's play in which  Marilyn Monroe (queen of the sack played by Teresa Russell, Roeg's wife) explains the theory of relativity to king of brains, Albert Einstein, played by Michael Emil, using toy trains. You can imagine that the pitch for the movie alone gave many a film executive a heart attack. The chorus trumpets all the qualities that make Roeg's non linear films so quirky, unsettling and unforgettable - the sliding, fluid representation of time, the magic imagery that forces you to widen your mind, to name but two. Roeg's films are puzzles that you want to come back to again and again - a quality which is also true for Big Audio Dynamite's smart, catchy tribute.


E = MC2
By Mick Jones and Don Letts 1985

Somebody I never met but in a way I know
Didn't think that you could get so much from a picture show
Man dies first reel
People ask what's the deal?
This ain't how it's supposed to be
Don't like no aborigine

Took a trip in Powis Square
Pop star dyed his hair
No fans to scream and shout
When mobsters came to flush him out
Gangland slaying underground
New identity must be found
On the left bank for a while
Insanity Bohemian style

Ritual ideas relativity
Only buildings, no people prophecy
Time slide, place to hide, nudge reality
Foresight, minds wide, magic imagery, oh-ho

Met a dwarf that was no good
Dressed like little Red Riding Hood
Bad habit taking life
Calling card a six-inch knife
Ran off really fast
Mumbled something 'bout the past
Best sex I've ever seen
As if each moment was the last
Drops of blood, colour slide
Funeral for his bride
But it's him who's really dead
Gets to take the funeral ride

Ritual ideas relativity
Only buildings, no people prophecy
Time slide, place to hide, nudge reality
Foresight, minds wide, magic imagery, oh-oh, oh-ho, oh-ho

Space guy fell from the sky
Scratched my head and wondered why
Time slides into time
Across international dateline
Scientist eats bubblegum
Hall of fame, baseball
Senator's a hoodlum
Big chiefs in the hall

Ritual ideas relativity
Only buildings, no people prophecy
Time slide, place to hide, nudge reality
Foresight, minds wide, magic imagery, oh-ho

Stray thoughts fear to tread
Placed upon the screen instead
She's my flame too hot to hold
Had to settle for her cold

Bloodlust, Greek god, gold discovery
Gone bust, tight wad, slow recovery
Axe job, flame thrower, iron bar and gun
Betting shop, new owner, a walk in the sun

Ritual ideas relativity
Only buildings, no people prophecy
Time slide, place to hide, nudge reality
Foresight, minds wide, magic imagery, oh-ho

Spread the news: the Maestro's back
With a beat-box soundtrack
The King of brains - Queen of the sack
Executives have heart attack
It's assault course celluloid
The money makers would avoid
Sometimes notions get reversed
Centre of the universe

Ritual ideas relativity
Only buildings, no people prophecy
Time slide, place to hide, nudge reality
Foresight, minds wide, magic imagery, oh-ho, oh-ho, oh-ho, oh-ho