Over the course of late 1991, the Scottish electronica group, One Dove, released two separate versions of Fallen. The first version, released through Soma Recordings featured a mix which was played by Peel on Leap Day 1992. However, issues with sample clearances caused the record’s deletion and a batch of new mixes released through Boys’ Own Recordings. This included a mix by Andrew Weatherall, which became a big hit in clubland. The lyrical content varied between the two versions - albeit the chorus was shared in both.
On the Soma recordings, Dot Allison sings of an angel which managed both to reanimate one of her former lovers and to possess her like an Incubus. On the Boys’ Own version, which this mix was originally released on, the angel is a contradictory mix of lover and master; it enslaves her because it wants to save her. Allison’s breathy Justify My Love style-storytelling reveals the potentially abusive nature of this relationship as she swears the listener to secrecy on other mixes, but this one takes time to describe how the attentions of the angel invigorate and revitalise her. If she is a captive, then she’s a willing one.
The chorus, They say we‘re hard to please/They say we have too much/As if all this would do/When all we want to have is fun speaks for an entire generation, lost to convenience and trinkets, but aching for spiritual gratification of mind and body.
This mix featured on the compilation, Volume Six. I think it may have been acting as a curtain raiser to listeners who would hear a lot from One Dove over the course of 1993. They released a debut album, which made the top 30 and two of their singles had also charted in the top 30 by the end of the year. That could have given them a platform to go on and enjoy further success over the coming years, but they had not enjoyed the compromises that their record label had forced them in to, and disbanded while writing material for a second album.
All lyrics are copyright of their authors
Video courtesy of FrankEB.
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