“’Til the fearless come, and the act is done…”

13. KILLING JOKE "Love Like Blood” (1985)
From the album “Night Time”

Of all the songs in this line-up, this is the one where I genuinely can’t work how it got here.  I like it – I like it plenty, I like it just fine.  But do I like it thirteenth-most-played-song-of-year amounts?  The stark answer is: no.  Still, the stats don’t lie, and I can get some laughs out of an ageing rocker who calls himself “Youth”, so let’s get on with it!

Bands had a great workrate back in those days; this is taken from Killing Joke’s fifth album in six years, recorded some time after they decamped to Iceland to avoid the coming apocalypse.  (Bands were also berserk back in those days.)  It seems to be one of their bigger hots, perhaps their biggest, and has been described as their mainstream breakthrough, which suggests a gradual softening of their original sound.

(Also, I’ve just found out Youth doesn’t even play on this one.  Oh well, that’s most of my material out of the window.)

And, er…  That’s basically all I know.  There were some Killing Joke albums knocking around my house when I was young, but those were “Brighter Than A Thousand Suns” and “Outside The Gate”, so I’m not quite sure where I picked up an ear for this particular track.  It’s a corker though, balancing an ominous air with a rising pop chorus and a driving bassline from the dear departed Paul Raven.  Again, though: 13^th most listened to?  If you say so.

The most memorable time I heard this was at a Planet X reunion night at what used to be called Bumper on Hardman Street, Liverpool, last year – literally the last thing that venue put on, as it closed the next day…  I want to say it was called Legion of Lost Souls?  Something like that?  (This lapse in memory would be acceptable if it was a story from the nineties, but no; this was 2017, and I still can’t remember it.  A good bet some beers had been had, then.)

On that night a friend of mine was on the wheels of steel, or whatever material CD players are made of, and I was sitting at the edge of the dancefloor as he did his thang, which included a spirited airing of “Love Like Blood”.  As soon as it started – before it had even really kicked in – a middle-aged couple squealed with delight and raced onto the dancefloor, the only time they’d be seen there all night.  I’m going to guess it was ‘their song’, and that it was a very important moment for them, as they looked delighted and in love as they bopped along to this most unlikely of serenades.

I believe this is where the children would use the following hashtag: #lifegoals.

Join us next time in our “White Van” for the latest “Messages” as we “Get Off Your Pretty Face”!