Writing and Recording
The song was written by Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss of the group INXS, after the band had gotten back together after a year-long sabbatical in 1989. The song was named after a woman who had bleached her own hair because she had "dyed" by her own hand and who was "love devastation". It is rumoured that Hutchence's then-girlfriend, Kylie Minogue, gave him the inspiration for the title while working on her 1989 film The Delinquents. Minogue was required to dye her hair platinum blonde for the role and was quoted by Hutchence in an interview in '89 as saying "I'm going suicide blonde today."
The recording of "Suicide Blonde" showed some new influences on INXS. Jon Farriss's drums show the influence of dance music especially the acid house sounds popular in the UK. Similarly, the blues harp intro on the track, performed by Charlie Musselwhite, was sampled rather than recorded live.
The track became poignant after Hutchence committed suicide on 22 November 1997, and his lover Paula Yates died of an overdose on 17 September 2000, after attempting suicide in 1998. Kym Wilson (with her then boyfriend Andrew Reyment the last people to see Michael alive) also became known as the "Suicide Blonde" in the tabloids.
Read more about this topic: Suicide Blonde
Famous quotes containing the words writing and/or recording:
“All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)