The Passage's Xoyo and Mifune, together at last

The late '70s and early '80s were a hey-day for self-consciously literary pop music: Kate Bush did Emily Bronte, Joy Division mainlined Kafka, Magazine hammered out blistering four minute consommes of Dostoevsky, and the Cure did the same for Camus. The NME exploded with the most pretentious, name-dropping music criticism ever written. It was exciting. It was too much. In 1982, the obscure, vaguely post-Joy Div. band, the Passage staked its claim in this terrean with a heady single, 'Xoyo', which begins and ends with passages from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and in-between deliriously hails an emerging universe of cyborg sexuality (which Twelfth Night also does, at least on some readings, if you go to the right schools). A lot of people vaguely remember the track, and it's the sort of thing that often is, and in fact deserves/needs to be on youtube. This video fills that gap.

The images are from the delightful Danish film, Mifunes sidste sang (1999), a.k.a. Mifune, which is itself strangely, barely represented on youtube. More gap-filling.

Mifune's adorable star, Iben Hjejle, is best known from High Fidelity (2000). She could/should have been the next Julia Roberts, but chose to stay largely a Scandinavian or even narrowly Danish star, e.g., allegedly turning down the Arwen role in LOTR that the somewhat drippy Liv Tyler massacred (or perfected if you think Arwen was supposed to be a drip).

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Xoyo
• The
• Passage
• Mifune
• Mifunes
• singste
• sang
• Iben
• Hjejle
• Dogma
• 95
• Literate
• 1980s
• pop

[falconneil]

Dick Witts was a flipping genius. Classically trained and full of unusual ideas that didn't mesh with much else going on back then. Their albums encompass all kinds of sounds and feelings, from classic Manchester introspection in Pindrop to their later more dance based tracks, but all had that sordid and dangerous underbelly.

[swanstep]

@falconneil . Good comment. I agree completely.

[djbethell]

The best Passage song ever. I had in on 7" with the brilliant b-side Animal In Me. Lovely!

[swanstep]

@djbethell . Thanks for dropping by/your comment. The Passage were pretty fascinating alright, and that (quite clockwork orange-ish I think) B-side is up on youtube now too.

[sastal]

Just heard this for the very first time this evening via the four-CD box set of Cherry Red Records. Besides the Ben and Tracey stuff, this and Thomas Leer clearly stood out. I am going to venture out here and take some major insults, but I kept thinking of Soft Cell and Jarre. Beautiful song.

[swanstep]

Thanks for your comment. The Ben and Tracy incarnations are the best Cherry Red stuff for me too, with Passage a close second. Still CR's US punk stuff - The Dead Ks, The Runaways - is pretty epochal. And there are CR gems from people like Medium Medium, and Fantastic Something. These bands weren't world-beaters but they had the odd (since widely strip-mined) great song or sound. And pre- The The Matt Johnson... the list goes on. An amazing pool of talent for such a small label really.

[stellaviolens]

What raining again ?

[bromodomain]

Typical Dick Witts - a quote from Shakespeare to start with and a song about sex, all set to a thumping Dr Who-like tune. My very favourite band of the early 80s. I hear they didnt like the finished mix of Pindrop, but I for one loved the lo-fi murky sound. The NME dubbed them the ELP of punk - a little unfair, but a good approximation of what they were like live.

[Zelda36J]

X o Y o triple X sexpose - fabby track - shame he's a dwarf !! :)

[LENTICULARPLASTIC]

An unusual band, I thought they deserved more celebrity than what came to them, and more resonance than they were able to generate.

[denpunk666mitsos]

Thanks for posting. This and others on "Pillows and Prayers" defines cool from a certain time and place. If you never had it for "99p or less" you were a dick.