Louise (song)
Encyclopedia
"Louise" is a song by the British synthpop
group The Human League
. It was released as a single in the UK in October 1984 and peaked at number thirteen in the UK Singles Chart
. It was written jointly by lead singer Philip Oakey
with fellow band members Jo Callis
and Philip Adrian Wright
. The song features a lead vocal by Oakey and female vocals by Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall
, analogue synthesizers by Philip Oakey, Jo Callis, Philip Adrian Wright and Ian Burden
. The producers were Chris Thomas
and Hugh Padgham.
the Human League’s follow up album to the international multi platinum selling Dare
. Like the rest of Hysteria it was recorded during the hugely expensive and turbulent sessions by the band at Air Studios during 1983/4. Dare producer Martin Rushent
had quit earlier, after repeatedly falling out with Oakey and production had been handed to Chris Thomas
, Hugh Padgham with final finishing taking place at Town House Studios.
Louise is essentially a male ballad
with female backing; and was expected to be Hysteria’s answer to Don't You Want Me
. The vocal is accompanied by electric piano-style chords (another similarity to “Don't You Want Me”), all underpinned by a catchy lolloping bassline, and adorned by a prominent brass solo (also played on a synthesiser).
But like most of Hysteria it wasn’t strong enough to match the selling power of Dare and wasn’t Virgin Records first choice as a single release from the album. That went to the down beat Life On Your Own
.
The lyrical story telling of “Louise” superficially seems to be a story about a chance encounter between a man and a woman on a bus who seem to be on the verge of a lover’s reconciliation. But like much of Oakey’s song writing, what seems ‘sugary sweet’ on the surface actually has a much darker subtext. Oakey points out that the story is actually about the original protagonists from “Don’t You Want Me” meeting up 4 years later. In “Louise” the man sees his lost love again and still cannot deal with reality. The anger that drove the earlier song has dissipated, and is replaced with a hopeful fantasy that his ex-lover is drawn to him all over again. So Louise is really about self-deception, delusion and eternal sadness. Oakey says about Louise in interview:
However, like the less savoury premise of “Don’t You Want Me” the darker side of the Louise story went over the heads of the record buying public, who misinterpreted the lyrics as “sweet and upbeat”.
Because the second single from Hysteria, “Life On Your Own” didn’t do as well in the charts as expected, Virgin Records held back on the follow-up release of “Louise”. However the unexpected runaway success of the independent Giorgio Moroder
/Philip Oakey movie sound track single Together In Electric Dreams
in late summer 1984 prompted them to reconsider and release “Louise” as a single in October 1984. It eventually went to number 13 in the UK Chart spending a total of 10 weeks in the charts.
The Single cover artwork by designer Ken Ansell is a reverse reproduction of the artwork to “Don’t You Want me”. The Louise cover has an inset montage of a menacing Ian Burden glowering at an ‘innocent’ Joanne Catherall taking over the roles of Oakey and Sulley from the 1981 artwork.
The Song was revived and covered in 2006 by Robbie Williams
on his album Rudebox produced by William Orbit
.
It was again revived by Tony Christie
in a stripped down version featuring piano
and trumpet
on his 2008 album of songs by Sheffield
based songwriters, Made in Sheffield
.
who had directed most of the band's videos up to that point, and was to be his last for the band.
His story board plays on the literary perceptions of the song. It was filmed in Black and White to add gravitas, something that wasn’t popular with Music TV stations at the time, who called it “drab”. The video’s story mirrors the song’s origins in that all the characters from the 1981 video for “Don’t You Want Me” are present. Susan Ann Sulley wears the same trench coat she wore in the DYWM video (in a flashback to the DYWM video [which was in colour]) and has a similar hairstyle; she is the ‘Louise’ character, and it's revealed that she was dating the 'film editor' played by Wright (in this video's storyline, she dates Burden). Oakey, who plays a 'bookwriter' as opposed to a 'film director' in the video for DYWM, spends the whole video navigating a Narrowboat
along a London
canal while narrating the scene as the action takes place on the road paralleling the canal. There is also limited stunt work with a London Routemaster
bus skidded to a halt on a bridge (where Burden and Sulley get off); and Joanne Catherall herself dives into the canal water in one scene. The video also alludes to Philip Oakey and Joanne Catherall’s real life long term relationship, with the couple sharing a bath fully dressed and other intimate moments on camera. The video was called “too arty” at the time and the story that it was trying to tell, was never fully understood by the public.
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...
group The Human League
The Human League
The Human League are an English electronic New Wave band formed in Sheffield in 1977. They achieved popularity after a key change in line-up in the early 1980s and have continued recording and performing with moderate commercial success throughout the 1980s up to the present day.The only constant...
. It was released as a single in the UK in October 1984 and peaked at number thirteen in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
. It was written jointly by lead singer Philip Oakey
Philip Oakey
Philip Oakey is an English composer, singer, songwriter and producer.He is best known as the lead singer, frontman and co-founder of the famous English synthpop band The Human League. He has also had an extensive solo music career and collaborated with numerous other artists and producers...
with fellow band members Jo Callis
Jo Callis
Jo Callis is an English musician and songwriter who played guitar with the Edinburgh based punk rock band, The Rezillos , and post-punk band Boots For Dancing before joining The Human League.-Biography:Callis was educated at the Edinburgh College of Art...
and Philip Adrian Wright
Philip Adrian Wright
Philip Adrian Wright is an English musician, also known as Adrian Wright.Wright had studied film making at Sheffield Art College and was a friend of Philip Oakey. In 1978 he was invited to join the new avant-garde electronic band The Human League which composed of Oakey, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig...
. The song features a lead vocal by Oakey and female vocals by Susan Ann Sulley and Joanne Catherall
Joanne Catherall
Joanne Catherall is an English singer; best known as one of the two female vocalists of the veteran English synthpop band The Human League.Born and raised in Sheffield, England...
, analogue synthesizers by Philip Oakey, Jo Callis, Philip Adrian Wright and Ian Burden
Ian Burden
Ian Charles Burden was a keyboard player with the English synthpop band, The Human League, from 1981 up to 1989....
. The producers were Chris Thomas
Chris Thomas (record producer)
Chris Thomas is an English record producer who has worked extensively with The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Roxy Music, Badfinger, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Pulp and The Pretenders. He has also produced breakthrough albums for The Sex Pistols and INXS.Thomas is quoted as saying -Early life:Thomas was...
and Hugh Padgham.
Background
"Louise" was the third single released from HysteriaHysteria (Human League album)
Hysteria is the fourth album by the British synthpop band The Human League, released in May 1984. Following the worldwide success of their 1981 album Dare, the band struggled to make a successful follow-up and the sessions for Hysteria were fraught with problems...
the Human League’s follow up album to the international multi platinum selling Dare
Dare (album)
Dare is the third studio album from British synthpop band The Human League.The album was recorded between March and September 1981 and first released in the UK on 20 October 1981, then subsequently in the U.S...
. Like the rest of Hysteria it was recorded during the hugely expensive and turbulent sessions by the band at Air Studios during 1983/4. Dare producer Martin Rushent
Martin Rushent
Martin Rushent was an English record producer, best known for his work with The Human League, The Stranglers and The Buzzcocks.- Early life :Rushent was born on 11 July 1948 in Enfield, Middlesex. His father was a car salesman...
had quit earlier, after repeatedly falling out with Oakey and production had been handed to Chris Thomas
Chris Thomas (record producer)
Chris Thomas is an English record producer who has worked extensively with The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Roxy Music, Badfinger, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Pulp and The Pretenders. He has also produced breakthrough albums for The Sex Pistols and INXS.Thomas is quoted as saying -Early life:Thomas was...
, Hugh Padgham with final finishing taking place at Town House Studios.
Louise is essentially a male ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
with female backing; and was expected to be Hysteria’s answer to Don't You Want Me
Don't You Want Me
"Don't You Want Me" is a single by British synthpop group Human League, released from their album: Dare on 27 November 1981.It is the band's best known and most commercially successful recording to date, and was the Christmas number one in the UK, in 1981, where it sold over 1,400,000 copies,...
. The vocal is accompanied by electric piano-style chords (another similarity to “Don't You Want Me”), all underpinned by a catchy lolloping bassline, and adorned by a prominent brass solo (also played on a synthesiser).
But like most of Hysteria it wasn’t strong enough to match the selling power of Dare and wasn’t Virgin Records first choice as a single release from the album. That went to the down beat Life On Your Own
Life on Your Own
"Life on Your Own" is a song by the British Synthpop group The Human League. Written jointly by lead singer Philip Oakey, Keyboard players Jo Callis and Adrian Wright, it was recorded at Air studios between 1983-1984...
.
The lyrical story telling of “Louise” superficially seems to be a story about a chance encounter between a man and a woman on a bus who seem to be on the verge of a lover’s reconciliation. But like much of Oakey’s song writing, what seems ‘sugary sweet’ on the surface actually has a much darker subtext. Oakey points out that the story is actually about the original protagonists from “Don’t You Want Me” meeting up 4 years later. In “Louise” the man sees his lost love again and still cannot deal with reality. The anger that drove the earlier song has dissipated, and is replaced with a hopeful fantasy that his ex-lover is drawn to him all over again. So Louise is really about self-deception, delusion and eternal sadness. Oakey says about Louise in interview:
However, like the less savoury premise of “Don’t You Want Me” the darker side of the Louise story went over the heads of the record buying public, who misinterpreted the lyrics as “sweet and upbeat”.
Because the second single from Hysteria, “Life On Your Own” didn’t do as well in the charts as expected, Virgin Records held back on the follow-up release of “Louise”. However the unexpected runaway success of the independent Giorgio Moroder
Giorgio Moroder
Hansjörg "Giorgio" Moroder is an Italian record producer, songwriter and performer based in Los Angeles. When in Munich in the 1970s, he started his own record label called Oasis Records, which several years later became a subdivision of Casablanca Records...
/Philip Oakey movie sound track single Together In Electric Dreams
Together in Electric Dreams
"Together in Electric Dreams" is a song by the British singer and composer Philip Oakey and producer Giorgio Moroder. It was written by Oakey and Moroder and recorded for the original soundtrack of the 1984 film Electric Dreams....
in late summer 1984 prompted them to reconsider and release “Louise” as a single in October 1984. It eventually went to number 13 in the UK Chart spending a total of 10 weeks in the charts.
The Single cover artwork by designer Ken Ansell is a reverse reproduction of the artwork to “Don’t You Want me”. The Louise cover has an inset montage of a menacing Ian Burden glowering at an ‘innocent’ Joanne Catherall taking over the roles of Oakey and Sulley from the 1981 artwork.
The Song was revived and covered in 2006 by Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter "Robbie" Williams is an English singer-songwriter, vocal coach and occasional actor. He is a member of the pop group Take That. Williams rose to fame in the band's first run in the early- to mid-1990s. After many disagreements with the management and certain group members, Williams...
on his album Rudebox produced by William Orbit
William Orbit
William Orbit is an English musician, composer and record producer, perhaps best known to most for his work on Madonna's album Ray of Light. He has also co-produced several unreleased Madonna songs originally recorded for other albums...
.
It was again revived by Tony Christie
Tony Christie
Tony Christie is an English musician, singer and actor. He is best known for his track, "Is This The Way To Amarillo", a double UK chart success.-Career:Tony Christie has sold over 10 million albums Worldwide...
in a stripped down version featuring piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
and trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
on his 2008 album of songs by Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
based songwriters, Made in Sheffield
Made in Sheffield (album)
Made in Sheffield is a 2008 album by Tony Christie, released on 10 November, 2008.-Production:After hearing the song "Coles Corner" by Richard Hawley on the radio, Christie suggested that it was the type of production he should be striving for. Christie approached Hawley to request his production...
.
Promotional video
The music video for Louise was directed by Steve BarronSteve Barron
Steven "Steve" Barron is a director and producer, best known for directing the films Coneheads , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the innovative music videos for a-ha's "Take on Me" and Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean"....
who had directed most of the band's videos up to that point, and was to be his last for the band.
His story board plays on the literary perceptions of the song. It was filmed in Black and White to add gravitas, something that wasn’t popular with Music TV stations at the time, who called it “drab”. The video’s story mirrors the song’s origins in that all the characters from the 1981 video for “Don’t You Want Me” are present. Susan Ann Sulley wears the same trench coat she wore in the DYWM video (in a flashback to the DYWM video [which was in colour]) and has a similar hairstyle; she is the ‘Louise’ character, and it's revealed that she was dating the 'film editor' played by Wright (in this video's storyline, she dates Burden). Oakey, who plays a 'bookwriter' as opposed to a 'film director' in the video for DYWM, spends the whole video navigating a Narrowboat
Narrowboat
A narrowboat or narrow boat is a boat of a distinctive design, made to fit the narrow canals of Great Britain.In the context of British Inland Waterways, "narrow boat" refers to the original working boats built in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries for carrying goods on the narrow canals...
along a London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
canal while narrating the scene as the action takes place on the road paralleling the canal. There is also limited stunt work with a London Routemaster
Routemaster
The AEC Routemaster is a model of double-decker bus that was built by Associated Equipment Company in 1954 and produced until 1968. Primarily front-engined, rear open-platform buses, a small number of variants were produced with doors and/or front entrances...
bus skidded to a halt on a bridge (where Burden and Sulley get off); and Joanne Catherall herself dives into the canal water in one scene. The video also alludes to Philip Oakey and Joanne Catherall’s real life long term relationship, with the couple sharing a bath fully dressed and other intimate moments on camera. The video was called “too arty” at the time and the story that it was trying to tell, was never fully understood by the public.