SHUT UP MUM

< Michael the Swan

TO BE CONTINUED...

SHUT UP MUM (instrumental) 2015

DANCING ON THE AUTOBAHN (instrumental) 2005

SHUT UP MUM (vocal demo) 2013

SHUT UP MUM (remix) 2025

GENERAL INFO The second of Gary’s trilogy of singles from the mid- 2010s, and the first Gary Le Strange song we (as in me and my wonderful wife Katy) actually made a proper pop video for. Originally intended for the unfinished album Chromium Dockyard. RECORDING VENUE & DATES Original backing track: Walthamstow, East London, Dec 2004 - Aug 2005 Vocal demo: Poplar, East London, Jan 23-25 & May 24, 2013 Single version: Poplar, East London, Mar 13, 2014 - Apr 16, 2015 Remix: Poplar, East London, Feb 26 - Nov 7, 2025 INSPIRATIONS ‘Look Mama’ by Howard Jones; ‘Praying to the Beat’ by Re-Flex; Gary Numan circa 1980; David Bowie’s ‘Scary Monsters’; maybe bits of Tin Machine? WHAT IT’S ABOUT Gary telling his Mum to shut up WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT Misogyny ALT VERSIONS Its first incarnation as ‘Dancing on the Autobahn’ featured lyrics about Gary dancing while the cars crashed all around him, but I wasn’t happy with them and never recorded it. I did however record a rudimentary backing track, in case I ever changed my mind. After briefly considering finishing it for the eventual release of Glamoronica, I opted instead to reuse the tune and re-record it from scratch. I was never fully happy with the mix on the single release though and remixed it this year. THOUGHTS & FEELINGS It’s difficult for me to divorce this one from its video. I think we knew we wanted to do a visual promo for it as soon as I recorded the demo, and that became the main focus, possibly to the detriment of the track itself. As a total piece of work, I’m probably happier with this than anything else Gary ever did. It’s his most successful stint as an unreliable narrator and one of the few Gary Le Strange songs that nearly always makes me laugh when I hear it. He’s so unreasonable and the things he says are so audaciously inappropriate, but he says them with such passionate self-belief. The video backs this up and adds even more layers, along with its gloriously stupid punchline. It’s a fine piece of low-budget filmmaking and I’m proud as hell of it. But I always hated the mix. Coming straight after Norman, which is damn near perfect in every way, this one’s a sonic disappointment. Too tinny, too trebly, with the vocals processed to oblivion. I very rarely want to listen to it without the accompanying visuals. I might have carried on trying, but my TV composing career was starting to take off and I just didn’t have time. And that continued to niggle at me for years. This sense of failure, and the crippling perfectionism that led to it, negatively affected everything I did as Gary Le Strange from here on, to the extent that I eventually abandoned the album this song was intended for and consigned the act to the dustbin. So this song was simultaneously the first thing I thought Gary got really, truly right, but also the first step towards his ultimate demise. THE ALBUM VERSION But it turns out he isn’t dead after all! After 13 long and difficult years, I’ve finally got around to finishing the album this song was intended for. For a while, I wasn’t going to bother including it, what with it already having been out ten years, but once I’d decided to put it back in the running order where it belonged, I knew I needed to do a bit more work on it, so it matched the songs around it. Obviously, this ended up being trickier than I expected and I tried various options before landing on this new semi-remix (see the audio section at the top of the page). It isn’t necessarily better than the original, but it’s warmer and heavier and the vocals are far less processed. I know I could go further and deeper, but there comes a time when you just have to put the damn thing down and get on with something else. Which is just what I’m going to do now. Bye!