Crushed By The Wheels of Industry

[Jarren202]

REALLY cool video. Not many videos survived the 80's with their reputation intact, let alone the songs they represented.

It's funny, I came here after listening to this song on my Heaven 17 CD and had an inkling that the comments would be full of capitalists and socialists.

Seems I was right!

The way I see it, Heaven 17 always had a very tongue-in-cheek attitude to the politics of 80's Britain. They could easily be taken either way, but that's what made them so accessible.

A great band.

[rsp196607]

I've known of this song for 25 years. Its title is unforgettable to me. But now is the first time I've actually heard it.

A friend told me of a coed who, while standing at a corner on campus, got run over by a commercial truck. The first thought that came to my mind was that she had been crushed by the wheels of industry.

[MultiMcEnroe]

Unsterblich

[ludocrat]

Album version is absolutely indecisively better than this...thing.

[rogersachs9]

This is so infectious, I can't stop watching it. Glenn, Martyn and Ian are brilliant together.

[ashleighjarvis22]

cracking tune....makes me feel 12 again, top band

[farswept]

quite good, I played the hell out of this anthem in the day, never knew this vid existed 'til now. too bad about the crap einstein

[claudiusrex]

Awesome song, awesome message.

[gattok1]

bella song

[blondie1159]

Glenn Gregory ROCKS!!!!

[OperationAnime262]

Why don't we grow up with music like this? (my dam 90's generation)

[MrYuppie]

@OperationAnime262 The 90's sucked big time mate... Agree with u.

[stillben]

the thing is, people moan that they don't have a job nowadays. people 'like' to be crushed by work.

[taracanyon1]

A very poignant video in terms of Britain's working classes these days..except we haven't been crushed by the wheels of industry but by the banks who run it...good band Heaven 17, didn't 2 members leave the Human League just before this time..

[KEINAANDKELLY]

the old man look like my father mdr !!!

[KEINAANDKELLY]

la classssssssssssssse

[DJPIGG]

Nice PJ's!

Great video for an even better song!

[essertpitay]

Work now !!!

[shawsky]

woo woo

[Crijevo]

interesting video - in terms of execution, quite ahead of its time, concerning the year 1983. Heaven 17 from this period are truly great, this song in particular, a bit naive still straight-forward comment on corporational slavery. This video avoids the cliched 'promotional' aspect, somewhat typical of the time. Glenn, Martyn and Ian are acting fairly dynamic in it.

[metyyra]

Oh dear chezuz this is just too much to bare

[funkmike]

Who needs liberation when you've got You Tube?

WOO WOO!!

[flaxsdf]

excellent track!!!

[flaxsdf]

muy bueno buena musica tecno de los 80

[LadyLaffer]

Ireneshusband you can sh1t talk this all you like, but that detracts nothing from this band, its music and their socialism. You are clearly just having a go at socialism.

[ireneshusband]

LadyLaffer, you are very obviously a sock-puppet for beatityatube. Looking at your profile, the only other video you have commented on is one about swine flu (UMpJfIl5iiE) where you weighed in to attack people who took beatityatube to task for making personal attacks. One of those attacks is prefaced with the words "as someone who works in the medical profession".

I'm still not exactly clear what kind of troll you are trying to be, but I think you are pathetically sad and should fuck off.

[oakhart]

LOL, "elevenisies" is like a tea break...or a moment before lunch.

I think it comes from the old factory days.

Where factory people were not allowed to eat at their work places. So you have "elevenises" for the first cup of tea and a snack at work before lunch.

[ScubaSteveM45]

Sorry what did they mean by "elevensies" is that like the UK equivalent to the American "Nooner" when you hook up on your lunch break?

[ireneshusband]

I would also add that your wildly inaccurate personal insults, as well as your trick of returning to this page over and over again to vote your own comments up and up and mine down and down, is not very grown up.

You also seem very proud of your anti-intellectualism, as if it gives you some working class cred. Well the truth is that people who really want change read books, even if they have to learn their ABC from scratch. It's not about being a great genius. It's about not being smug.

[LadyLaffer]

ireneshusband you have a real chip on your shoulder, and seem to know nothing about this band or what they stoof for. I grew up in Sheffield and was very much part of all of this.

[ireneshusband]

I know what their politics were from reading interviews in the 80s. What I am saying is that they are not overtly stated in this song, even though they are clearly its inspiration. If we think about how far the language of liberation has been absorbed into the code of consumerism in the last 20 or so years, I think this song is remarkably prescient.

As for my "chip", beatityatube made repeated personal attacks. I found his anti-intellectualism dismal and disappointing, hence my last comment.

[beatityatube]

This is a socialist anthem.

[ireneshusband]

I disagree. This song is a critique, a satire to some extent (although music has a way of taking things beyond satire). It isn't a manifesto. That is to say, it doesn't propose a solution. It "names" the problem and, in the way that music often does, offers the possibility of thinking and dreaming beyond it. I would place this song, and this video even more so, strongly in the tradition of Charlie Chaplin, especially Modern Times.

[beatityatube]

I guess you didn't live in Britain in the 1980's under the Thatcher regime. It was pretty shit. Charlie Chaplin? Get real.

[ireneshusband]

Yes I did live under Thatcher. You obviously know little about the life and work of Chaplin, who grew up in extreme poverty and whose family was forcibly broken up as a punishment for that poverty. His rage at this inhuman absurdity was what drove everything he did. One of his most memorable images was the clown getting trapped in the cogs of the machine in Modern Times. I suggest you get your hands on a recording of Mark Steele's lecture on Chaplin which will confirm everything I have said.

[beatityatube]

I have no interest in rubbish like that. If you believe there is no politics in this Sheffield bands message then that's your problem. I suspect that you don't care much for anything North of Croydon and turn out religiously to vote Tory.

[ireneshusband]

I didn't say there was no politics. I said there was no prescription, no manifesto. "Time for a party / liberation for the nation" is pretty ambiguous. Is the party an organised political movement? Is it a Reclaim the Streets event? Or is it a nightclub in Tenerife? While I have no doubt that the individual members of Heaven 17 had a political course of action in mind, the song doesn't proclaim it. It simply says "You know you want change. Here are the possibilities."

[LadyLaffer]

Ireneshusband, what is this charlie chaplin nonsense?

[ireneshusband]

Haven't you seen Modern Times? How much do you know about Chaplin's biography? If you had, I think you would have been able to come up with a more constructive comment than just to dismiss what I said as "nonsense" without any explanation. Why this anti-intellectualism? What does it achieve?

[beatityatube]

This video always reminded me of the Talking Heads.

[SeaBassTian]

The only word that can describe this is AMAZING...

[80sbritmix]

thanks so much for posting this vid.

[DJPIGG]

I had NO idea the video for this song would be SO good!

Thank you for posting it. :¬)

[dfcvda]

had so much on vinyl, all gone now, like the 80`s ... and my youth!!

[domozgirl1994]

Great hearing all the oldies from the 80's, going to see Heaven 17 and ABC on Sunday here in Dublin cant wait.

[Harrisonhowell]

One of the best of the Eighties bands. I still have a pile of their stuff on vinyl.

[bakelsjimmy]

What a class song and group, still got the 12 inch sumwhere.

[MannaMachine69]

Bought this single and the 12 inch back in the day. Fabulous track. Should have been huge!

[speurder1000]

Thanks so much!!!!

[AcaiBerryMONAVIE]

sunset now - 1984

[14hcap]

i think that i wore the grooves out .iplayed it that much ...superb

[dbvalentine]

R we crushed enough yet? Rock on H17!

[NufffRespect]

This is my fave Heaven 17 song. The production and instrumentation on this track are amazing, especially considering it was over 25 years ago. It still sounds fresh today. The lyrics apply to today's world more so than they did back then. Glenn Gregory's voice is amazing, he's my fave singer of all the singers of that time, along with Phil Oakey, Martin Fry, etc. I would love to hear something new from Heaven 17.

[p6ulo]

Couldnt agree more my friend. This was a really special period of the '80's. Innocent yet confident and bold. There really was a very special musical movement at this time that reflected all of this. I'm also a Sheffield lad so i'm obviously biased! I remember it all so well with great affection.

[uea978]

Prophets!

[inckamarx]

do you think the party is a metaphor for workers control over industry? i only started to think so when seeing some of the images in the background which look quite like class struggle photos/paintings

[beatityatube]

yes this band was very much anti-thatch, and pretty much left-wing.

[prlad85]

I love this song and video.

[PoPoNellie]

What was the video that started at the end of the clip.

[george6111]

Temptaion Heaven 17 ;)

[PoPoNellie]

One of the best songs in the movie "Electric Dreams". Too bad it was underused.

[Rumpio]

I was just thinking "bloody hell, that's good quality" then i saw whose vid it was - lol

My favourite possession for years was the 12" of "And That's No Lie" - i remember it being on The Tube (I think) when Peter Cook (yes, that one) presented it.

[ireneshusband]

What was it like, Peter Cook presenting the Tube? Did he do it fairly straight, or did he do it very (for want of a better adverb) Peter Cook?

[redtux1]

@ireneshusband

both