The Australian release of Nightbird has a wee bonus: a great big image file of the album cover. Put the CD is your computer and open up the CD folder; the file is called nightbird.jpg. It would make nice wallpaper for your computer screen.
That picture file is the only thing you’ll see when you put the CD in your computer. The CD has some annoying copy protection to stop you copying the music onto your computer. It only takes about 30 seconds and a Post-it note to defeat the protection and copy the files, but it’s still a pain. Even so, it’s definitely worth the bother to put this excellent album onto your computer or music player.
Apart from the usual two UK CD releases of this EP, there is a third version, available only through the EIS. It’s a 3″ CD in a cardboard sleeve, with 3 tracks: Stop! and Knocking On Your Door (original 12″ versions), and God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (from the limited edition EP).
Why the name? A Christmas cracker is an English (Oz, NZ etc.) party toy. It’s a decorated paper tube; pull on the ends and it pops open to reveal a prize.
The correct title has three “Zsa”s. The US single may be misprinted.
The lyrics from Sweet Sweet Baby are taken from Barbarella and Dark Star (cult science fiction films).
This is in fact a proper song (with verses and chorus and everything!). The version on the US Blue Savannah CD single is a dub version. The original version is on the regular (non-limited) UK Blue Savannah singles.
No, there’s nothing wrong with your CD player; 91 Steps has a weird time signature. It is based on a repeated seven-note sequence. It goes in cycles: each cycle contains 7 bars in 7/4 time (14 eighth-notes to the bar, with the beat every odd-numbered eighth-note), followed by one bar in 3/4 time (the sequence without the third note).
This single peaked at number 20 in its second week on the UK singles chart. The chart published for this week was based on false information, causing ILS to appear at number 21 and several other singles to appear at the wrong positions. However, the published chart was later corrected, and the “Last Week’s Position” column in the next week’s chart correctly had ILS at number 20.
Rock Me Gently was not released in the UK, because Vince & Andy didn’t have time to promote it. Note that if it had been released in the UK with the same tracks as the Czech version, it wouldn’t have qualified for the singles charts anyway, because it contains versions of more than one song (RMG and Chertsey Endlos) and is longer than 25 minutes.
Erasure FAQ Copyright 1994-2005 Bennett McElwee. All rights reserved. Please ask me before copying any part of it. Thanks!