Commercial Zone - Track By Track Commentary By The Band

Track By Track Commentary By The Band

"Love Song"/"This Is Not A Love Song":

• John Lydon (1982/92/99): “We don't do love songs, what is the point of these unrealistic pieces of trash?” “It was all very tongue in cheek. At the time people were saying that I'd joined big business and become a bourgeois shit. So I thought the best way of tackling this would be to pump out a song saying 'That's exactly what I am!' Tongue firmly in cheek. And that kind of stopped that nonsense - so it worked.” “'This Is Not A Love Song' was a sort of response to that constant request from the record company for those HITS. Someone said 'Why don't you write a love song?' Ha, I said, love song - ehh, well, this is not a love song!”
• Pete Jones (2000): “I played on some but not all of 'Commercial Zone' - 'Love Song', 'Mad Max', 'Miller High Life' and 'Solitaire'.”

"Mad Max"/"Bad Life":

• John Lydon (1984): “It was originally 'Bad Life', then it went to 'Mad Max'. There were two sets of lyrics, see, for the same song That bootleg that's currently available - and shouldn't be! - is all demo tapes, and it sounds really, really bad.”
• Pete Jones (1999/2000): “Immediately after stepping off the plane from London I went straight into the studio and laid down the bass track for 'Mad Max'.” “Levene had already laid down a basspart, it was out of tune and out of time and staggered from one bum note to the next.”

"Solitaire":

• Pete Jones (2000): “Atkins and I wrote 'Solitaire' but after I left they couldn't be arsed to give me a credit for it.”

"The Slab"/"The Order of Death":

• John Lydon (1999): “When I went to Italy to make the film 'Order of Death' the producers asked us to do music for it. So me and Keith sort of hummed down the phone, there's me in Rome and him in New York, and we put the tune together like that. But the producers changed their minds and didn't use it.”
• Bob Miller (producer, 2006): “I remember talk about soundtrack stuff. 'The Slab' was definitely one of those type of tracks, but really any of the tracks we were working on could have fit that description.”

"Lou Reed Part 1 & 2"/"Where Are You?":

• John Lydon (1999): “'Where Are You?' is about departed PIL members. Say no more.”
• Keith Levene (1983/2001): “I don't know what happened between and John when he went to Italy with her to make that movie, but she left after that.” “ been back from making his movie, which Jeannette had opted to go off and join him on this glamorous trip. So John came back and Jeannette was officially not in the band anymore. We made this tune 'Where Are You?' and it was totally about Jeannette.”
• Pete Jones (2000): “We re-recorded 'Lou Reed Part 2', but that version isn't on 'Commercial Zone'.”

"Blue Water":

• Keith Levene (1982): “A single will be released before Christmas . The album, on P.E.P., will follow.”
• Pete Jones (1999/2000): “From my time with PIL it was one of my favourite tunes because of the stark darkness of it all and the interesting time signature. When there was talk of PIL doing the soundtrack to 'Order of Death' I imagined the backing for 'Blue Water' as perhaps the main theme for the film.”
• John Lydon (2004): “There's a few b-sides that I think were never really heard properly, things like 'Blue Water', when we used a skip in the beat, almost a 4-4-2 step.”

"Miller High Life"/"Miller Hi-Life":

• Pete Jones (2000): “Atkins and I finished recording 'Miller High Life' by ourselves with me adding three or four bass parts to the song.”
• Martin Atkins (2001): “Tracks like 'Miller Hi-Life', wasn't even there! It was me, Pete Jones and Bob Miller, our sound guy, who was almost part of the band at that time. That's where 'Miller Hi-Life' came from - well, it's a beer too. We were experimenting by putting drum kits through synthesisers in 1982. That's what we did, we experimented.”
• Bob Miller (producer, 2006): “'Miller Hi-Life' was a track that I did and never really had a name, and it could not be remixed because of all the things I did to it. So I guess Keith used it and called it 'Miller Hi-Life'.”