Bookhouse88
New Member
Hey gang,
I just discovered a blog that has MP3 files (and an explanation of the nature of their source) of the flex disc that Morrissey lifted the "You are sleeping, you do not want to believe" sample included at the end of "Rubber Ring" (my favorite Smiths song, BTW : ).
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/09/voice_from_the_.html
The quote appears at about 60% through "Breakthrough: Side One."
Okay, now to let you know what you're (supposedly) hearing when you listen to "Rubber Ring." Dr. Konstantin Raudive of Latvia was a researcher investigating the "electronic voice phenomenon" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon), which supposedly captured the voices of spirits of the the dead as researchers read statements to them in controlled environments. Raudive's research was documented in a 1971 book called "Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead." Included with the book was a flex-disc (phonograph recording) of excerpts of the research, including both audio of the (supposed) ghostly voices, and then the narrator reading the English translation (the ghost voices are in Latvian, German, Swedish and other languages) back to us.
What we hear at the end of "Rubber Ring" is the narrator (not one of the ghost voices, thank god) translating back for us what the researcher's former mentor, Swiss parapsychologist Dr. Gephardt Frye (deceased) supposedly said from beyond the grave (in Swedish and German)... "Du Sovas Vilt Nicht Glauben" (anyway, that's what I think she said the ghost was saying; I can't type German/Swedish well : ). The translator only says "You are sleeping" once; on "Rubber Ring", Morrissey repeated the sample to make it "You are sleeping, you do not want to believe. You are sleeping." I am giving Morrissey credit for the sampling; I don't know who is actually credited for doing the sampling, but it's a good bet that Morrissey was the source for the sampling material in the production of the song.
So, there you have it... a very spooky source for one of the most memorable moments in the discography of the Smiths. I have to say, I am very glad to learn that the voice, as creepy as it sounds in "Rubber Ring" was not the actual ghostly voice, but the translator, because this particular sample has a very special place in my induction into being a Smiths fan.
******************************
Here's my story.
In the spring of 1987, I was a high school junior living in the woods 5 miles north of a tiny Wisconsin town, living an extremely isolated and lonely life, bullied daily in school for my intellectual and sarcastic view of life (ie, I kept talking back as I got pummelled; I never gave up ! : ). Anyway, I had basically no friends, but as Junior year started to separate me a bit from the tougher kids (who weren't so into the classes, I took, trigonometry, chemistry, etc), I befriended a girl who had the distinction of having gone to "art camp", and she brought back a love for strange bands with names like Depeche Mode, the Dead Milkmen, the Dead Kennedys, the Sex Pistols, the Cure and the Smiths. It was mostly all noise to me because I had never really been into music as a teenager; all I heard in the 1980s on the radio was silly love songs, and I wasn't getting any love, so I totally rejected the notion.
Anyway, this girl (who had a boyfriend... *of course*) and I did sort of become chums, which was nice, and I was convenient for her because I had a driver's license and could drive her home after school. One day, she (accidentally or on purpose, I'll never know) left her new copy of "Louder than Bombs" in my dad's car's tapedeck). That night, doing my trigonometry homework, I popped the tapedeck in a walkman (which I owned at that point just to listen to comedy albums and Weird Al tapes : ). The Smiths was noise to me, but I let it play... and then I fell asleep.
I was awakened in a start by a shocking woman's voice, declaring in a strange accent: YOU ARE SLEEPING, YOU DO NOT WANT TO BELIEVE. YOU ARE SLEEPING. I couldn't believe that a voice like that would just appear on the tape. I reversed the tape and listened to "Rubber Ring", and all of a sudden, I could understand the vocals much more clearly than earlier, and the message of the song got to me somehow, I connected to the poetry of it. I kept listening to "Louder than Bombs", and found solace and comfort in nearly every song, along with wit that I'd never known could exist in a non-directly-comedic music.
Very soon, I was asking the girl for all of her Smiths tapes to borrow, and I then bought every Smiths tape I could get my hands on. I could tell over the rest of our friendship that the girl was a little irked at the way I embraced the Smiths as "MY" music, because she half-regarded me as a bit of a nerd/dork (and I was), and looking back, I should have maybe been smart enough to use our shared love of the Smiths to make a better connection with her than I did (I was COMPLETELY lacking in social skills with girls, having been a social pariah in school and living in the remote woods). But... I went on with life, stumbled my way into adult hood, and all the while, the Smiths and Morrissey were there for me. I may have once been sleeping, but I had been awakened, and... I WANTED TO BELIEVE. : P
Bookhouse88 !
I just discovered a blog that has MP3 files (and an explanation of the nature of their source) of the flex disc that Morrissey lifted the "You are sleeping, you do not want to believe" sample included at the end of "Rubber Ring" (my favorite Smiths song, BTW : ).
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/09/voice_from_the_.html
The quote appears at about 60% through "Breakthrough: Side One."
Okay, now to let you know what you're (supposedly) hearing when you listen to "Rubber Ring." Dr. Konstantin Raudive of Latvia was a researcher investigating the "electronic voice phenomenon" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon), which supposedly captured the voices of spirits of the the dead as researchers read statements to them in controlled environments. Raudive's research was documented in a 1971 book called "Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead." Included with the book was a flex-disc (phonograph recording) of excerpts of the research, including both audio of the (supposed) ghostly voices, and then the narrator reading the English translation (the ghost voices are in Latvian, German, Swedish and other languages) back to us.
What we hear at the end of "Rubber Ring" is the narrator (not one of the ghost voices, thank god) translating back for us what the researcher's former mentor, Swiss parapsychologist Dr. Gephardt Frye (deceased) supposedly said from beyond the grave (in Swedish and German)... "Du Sovas Vilt Nicht Glauben" (anyway, that's what I think she said the ghost was saying; I can't type German/Swedish well : ). The translator only says "You are sleeping" once; on "Rubber Ring", Morrissey repeated the sample to make it "You are sleeping, you do not want to believe. You are sleeping." I am giving Morrissey credit for the sampling; I don't know who is actually credited for doing the sampling, but it's a good bet that Morrissey was the source for the sampling material in the production of the song.
So, there you have it... a very spooky source for one of the most memorable moments in the discography of the Smiths. I have to say, I am very glad to learn that the voice, as creepy as it sounds in "Rubber Ring" was not the actual ghostly voice, but the translator, because this particular sample has a very special place in my induction into being a Smiths fan.
******************************
Here's my story.
In the spring of 1987, I was a high school junior living in the woods 5 miles north of a tiny Wisconsin town, living an extremely isolated and lonely life, bullied daily in school for my intellectual and sarcastic view of life (ie, I kept talking back as I got pummelled; I never gave up ! : ). Anyway, I had basically no friends, but as Junior year started to separate me a bit from the tougher kids (who weren't so into the classes, I took, trigonometry, chemistry, etc), I befriended a girl who had the distinction of having gone to "art camp", and she brought back a love for strange bands with names like Depeche Mode, the Dead Milkmen, the Dead Kennedys, the Sex Pistols, the Cure and the Smiths. It was mostly all noise to me because I had never really been into music as a teenager; all I heard in the 1980s on the radio was silly love songs, and I wasn't getting any love, so I totally rejected the notion.
Anyway, this girl (who had a boyfriend... *of course*) and I did sort of become chums, which was nice, and I was convenient for her because I had a driver's license and could drive her home after school. One day, she (accidentally or on purpose, I'll never know) left her new copy of "Louder than Bombs" in my dad's car's tapedeck). That night, doing my trigonometry homework, I popped the tapedeck in a walkman (which I owned at that point just to listen to comedy albums and Weird Al tapes : ). The Smiths was noise to me, but I let it play... and then I fell asleep.
I was awakened in a start by a shocking woman's voice, declaring in a strange accent: YOU ARE SLEEPING, YOU DO NOT WANT TO BELIEVE. YOU ARE SLEEPING. I couldn't believe that a voice like that would just appear on the tape. I reversed the tape and listened to "Rubber Ring", and all of a sudden, I could understand the vocals much more clearly than earlier, and the message of the song got to me somehow, I connected to the poetry of it. I kept listening to "Louder than Bombs", and found solace and comfort in nearly every song, along with wit that I'd never known could exist in a non-directly-comedic music.
Very soon, I was asking the girl for all of her Smiths tapes to borrow, and I then bought every Smiths tape I could get my hands on. I could tell over the rest of our friendship that the girl was a little irked at the way I embraced the Smiths as "MY" music, because she half-regarded me as a bit of a nerd/dork (and I was), and looking back, I should have maybe been smart enough to use our shared love of the Smiths to make a better connection with her than I did (I was COMPLETELY lacking in social skills with girls, having been a social pariah in school and living in the remote woods). But... I went on with life, stumbled my way into adult hood, and all the while, the Smiths and Morrissey were there for me. I may have once been sleeping, but I had been awakened, and... I WANTED TO BELIEVE. : P
Bookhouse88 !
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