From the sky you could almost hear them cry

Pontaillac-Royan , September 1985

Obviously, going back to “troisième” grade was -to say the least- brutal after a night like this. And Colin’s departure for his second year of “preparatory class” in Bordeaux didn’t help my doldrums.

If I hadn’t got Alb’s letter, and this photo, I could have persuaded myself that it had all been just a dream, of those who are so beautiful when you wake up, that they tend to become real memories in your head.

I had to go back in class, with my 14 years old mates, who collected football pics, or neon pink mittens, and built ridiculous amorous intrigues based on scraps of copies exchanged without discretion during classes.
In this last year of “college” , you could find some New Wave apprentices but their researches where most often reduced to the composition of their looks. And as Alb said about some fanatics at Val’s birthday
“ They should be fined for possessing and using panoplies…”

I was hanging out with them a bit however, without much conviction, wondering what I was going to do with my skin next. Explore lyrics, and musical press was the only activity that really motivated me.
I was rather lonely, speaking little, reading a lot and trying to write.

I was now back to the sources of Depeche Mode, fascinated by this moment when Martin had taken the band’s reins to infuse it with his tempo and  universe.

I was reading, and reading again the first sign of his writing in the enigmatic “ Tora! Tora! Tora!” with this line that I adored
From the skies you could almost hear them cry

From that angry, triumphant and warlike roar falling from the sky, he started  to compose the black dream about to spread on the amorous and vast landscape of a long work still in childhood.

You took my love and died that day

Something inexorable and cursed was attached to the offered feeling, and his this “form of modern art” , beauty was inextricably intertwined with destruction.
Without confessing it to me clearly yet, I enjoyed it , that’s precisely what I liked.