Here's the best example I can show you, the "Modern Music Suite" from the "Modern Music" album (1976).
This is the album version:
Be Bop Deluxe was a quartet at the time:
Bill Nelson: words and music; guitars and lead vocals
Charles Tumahai: bass and harmony vocals
Andrew Clarke: keyboards
Simon Fox: drums
"Modern Music" ruined me when I first heard it. I didn't listen to anything else for at least 6 months. I didn't touch any of my guitars during that time, either, except to put them in the closet. And I spent many hours trying to figure out, not how to play the guitar parts (which would have been and are still impossible for a "player" of my "skill" level) but what Bill was trying to show us, and where he had seen it, and how. Those were serious questions for me, and they rattled around in my brain for years ...
I read everything I could find about Bill and the band (which wasn't much) and eventually I found out what led him to write this work of unfetered genius, so full of the pain and tragedy which Bill apparently saw coming. He'd grown up listening to American music and watching American movies and the U.S. seemed like a wonderful place to go... But then Be Bop Deluxe accidently got so popular that people started thinking maybe a tour would be in order. Bill was excited to see the U.S. up close until he actually saw it. And it blew his mind. Everything was broken down and falling apart, and people everywere were getting shot, some for no reason at all, others for trivial reasons maybe sometimes. He was so disillusioned ... but who needs illusions anyway?
The suite consists of five songs (i.e. music with singing) and one piece (i.e. music with no singing). That piece combines a beautiful and utterly unplayable guitar solo with the sound of six gunshots (all from different kinds of guns) and a spoken bit which is hard to hear but I think it says, "Step this way, Bill. I'd like you to meed Brutus, our office relations man!" and there's another voice that says "Can I wax up your guitar and get you some quaaludes?"
That short instrumental passage is called "Dance of the Uncle Sam Humanoids", which says it all, but only if you're listening. On the other hand, how could anyone not be listening?
This was recorded live at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, 14 February 1977
Here's another live recording from the Winter Gardens, Bournemouth, 28 March 1977. If you listen closely you can hear how the arrangement had evolved during the six weeks since they'd played Leeds. It goes without saying that the band is tight and powerful. Otherwise they would still have been in rehearsals. Bill is a bit of a stickler about quality.
Finally, a live version from from "Futurist Manifesto", a compilation which was released in 2011:
Modern Music
Modern music on my radio
Another station and another show...
If only I could let my feelings flow (to you) ...
When you're lonely and you're far away
When those steel guitars begin to play
Please don't let them steal your heart away (from me) ...
I hear the rhythm of the rain begin
A shining broadcast on the silver wind
Will you receive these programmes deep within your soul?
The moon is melting in the blazing sky
I hear the flames sing, but I don't know why
I hope that only shadows see me cry (for you) ...
I feel like I'm falling
The music is calling me away, leavе today
You know that I'm needing all the love that I'm leaving
Hеre with you...a song for two...
Dancing In The Moonlight (All Alone)
Burning, my love for you is burning
Yearning, for the day when I'm returning
All alone, I wonder if you're all alone
Moonlight, you're dancing in the moonlight
All night, I need to hold you all night
All alone, I wonder if you're all alone
When will this journey be through?
I'd like to make love to you
Moonlight, you're dancing in the moonlight
All night, I need to hold you all night
All alone, I wonder if you're all alone
All alone, I wonder if you're all alone
All alone, I wonder if you're all alone
Honeymoon On Mars
I wonder if you're all alone
Beneath those diamond stars
A honeymoon on Mars
Tonight this desert world is ours
I'll meet you by the towers
For cocktails in the bar
Martian honeymoon, We're going out there in July
Martian honeymoon, we'll watch the passing show go by
Flash Gordon's ghost will never die
It's just a flash across the sky [x3]
Lost In The Neon World
This jet-age life is getting worse
I feel I'm half a universe away
I left my home some time ago
To fight the creatures of the USA
You tell me that this neon world is free
You say this is the place I ought to be
The time has come for me to go
You say it's fast but it's feeling slow today
Dance of the Uncle Sam Humanoids
Modern Music (Reprise)
Modern music on my radio
Another station and another show
If only I could let my feelings flow (to you)
When you're lonely and you're far away
When those blue guitars begin to play
Please don't let them steal your heart away
From me
Please don't let them steal your heart away from me
from me
from me
