The Queue Of Future Has-Beens

Wire “Internal Exile”

Colin Newman’s voice has a cold and emotionally sterile affect, and it makes pretty much every Wire song feel distant and vaguely cruel. Even when he’s expressing empathy, he sounds as though he must keep a distance, as though he’s concerned about becoming infected by your feelings and misfortunes. “Internal Exile” may be an empathetic song, but it’s slightly unclear – it’s just as easy to interpret this as an indictment of people stuck in drab, boring lives as it is an expression of solidarity with everyone crushed and alienated by capitalist institutions. Newman’s sings the song like an inscrutable deity, with each line right on the edge of pity and indifference. The music isn’t much warmer, but there’s a touch of sentimentality in the lead parts, particularly a synth horn part that gestures in the direction of joy and triumph, but is undermined by its obvious artifice.

Buy it from Amazon.