Wagging Tongue has been a thorn in my side for a looong time.
Maybe (or maybe not) you’re wondering why.
Here: You know those things you’re used to? Good.
At a certain point someone suggests you something new. Do you also freak out? Well, I do. I need time to adapt to a change, otherwise my brain goes “Tilt!” like a pinball machine.
Therefore, my problem with this song can be summed up in this simple statement:
“Written by Martin L. Gore & Dave Gahan” (or vice versa)
So, what is the problem??? Well, I’ll try to explain.
There have been songs in the past that Dave and Martin have written together (though not together in the sense of same place / same time), but “Memento Mori”, tragically, is an album where all the cards were suddenly shuffled by Fletch’s sudden death.
This song, more than the others, represents a departure from the past and a movement towards the new order of things, which finally sees (even if through the cost of tragedy) Dave and Martin coming closer together and reuniting in a new, perfect unity.
These two human beings, so similar underneath, despite all their differences, complexes, frictions and decades of unspoken words, have always been the mirror reflection of each other, as if between the two there was an invisible harmonizer that took their words and sound and put them together to create one, perfect harmony. Both parts have always been necessary to achieve the result that was called Depeche Mode: Martin said he didn’t write for Dave, but he knew that another singer would never have interpreted his words with so much pathos, and Dave, despite his undoubted vocal gifts, would never have interpreted with such devotion the words of another writer.
(Of course we leave aside Alan who is a deity but that is not relevant to our discussion at this time.)
Speaking purely from a writing perspective, we ended up with Martin as the only pen in the group after Vince’s departure (Vince I love you too, you’re a genius with synths but your lyrics are at the level of summer hits)
Martin was already writing on his own and then had decades to hone his skills as a composer, even becoming worthy of the Ivor Novello Award for best British composer. It took decades and a painful dispute to be introduced to Dave’s writing, very different from Martin’s and certainly a little immature even if functional to his purpose. Obviously Martin remained the main writer, occasionally leaving the helm to Dave for a certain number of songs. In fact, only in three cases do we have a shared credit for the writing: It starts from a first attempt at collaboration in “Oh well”, to move on to a second much more mature occasion with “Long time lie”, up to the complete collaboration in “Wagging tongue”.
We have now reached a level of writing that is almost equal, according to Martin himself. By bouncing their ideas off each other, their writing styles have become very similar, to the point of being almost indistinguishable, according to Martin himself.
So now we have this song, written by both, and for a long time I couldn’t figure out whose point of view was being expressed in the lyrics. Martin’s? Dave’s? Both?
What a mess.
(Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day), “Sweet Dee has a heart attack”, season 4 episode 10 of “It’s always sunny in Philadelphia”)
(Me when I try to explain my reasoning to someone, cigarette and haunted look included)
Anyway, I was pretty resigned to leaving this question unresolved until I came across this beautiful interview, masterfully conducted by Eddy Temple-Morris of Virgin Radio UK. I’ll leave you the link and I recommend you watch it because it’s a brilliant example of how to conduct an interview, that is, letting the interviewee speak without interrupting and demonstrating that you know what you’re talking about. As Giovanni Minoli, a great journalist for Rai (the national Italian state broadcaster, ndt) and author of interviews that have gone down in TV history, used to say: “Study a lot: interview someone only when you know more than them, than they do.”
By now we are used to Dave’s interviews being pretty much the same, as he has become a wise man and knows what to say to the press and what not to. In this case, however, perhaps thanks to the good manners of the interviewer or perhaps thanks to a previous acquaintance, Dave felt much more comfortable and was able to open up a bit more, giving us, among other things, a detailed description of the creation process of “Wagging tongue”.
Note: I simplified Dave’s explanation a bit because he tends to lose track of what he’s saying and it’s not exactly easy to piece together a syntax that makes sense.
I love you the same darling XOXO!
“
…
Interviewer, Eddy Temple-Morris: So, “Wagging tongue,” right?
Dave: Correct.
Int: It’s the second track, right?
Dave: Yes.
Int: So let’s lighten the mood a bit. (They were talking about Andy earlier.) It sounds very vintage!
Dave: The melody is all Martin’s, he came up with this melody. I had the song and I wrote it on guitar and I sent it to Martin and he sent it back to me with this kind of arpeggio, this beautiful Kraftwerk-esque thing and I was like, “Oh yeah! I love that!” So yeah I sang along, but the song is one of those things where what we say to someone, the information or the misinformation, how it gets passed on, distorted, changed and then brought back to you in a completely different way or how we take information, false information, or whatever, true information and it becomes fact and you have to be careful with that, so be careful what you do with that mouth that never shuts up.
Interviewer: Yes, yes, absolutely.
…
“
Anyway, sorry I’m digressing, I was enjoying learning the information I got from this interview and the satisfaction of the interviewer’s good manners and eloquence, when, at a certain point in my head something went “Click!”.
“…what we tell someone, the information or misinformation, how it gets passed on, distorted, changed and then brought back to you in a completely different way or how we take information, false information, or whatever, true information and it becomes facts and you have to be careful with that, so be careful what you do with that mouth that never shuts up.”
A timeline of events runs through my head:
- The first fights during Exciter;
- the war during the solo period (with Dave accusing Martin of being a dictator and insulting him in every possible way like a child playing pranks on a girl he likes, making a record that is all “Martin, why don’t you love me?” and Martin with the usual emotional capacity of an amoeba turns away and poor Fletch thinks for the thousandth time that no amount of money is enough to have to put up with these two who are unable to communicate their emotions with each other);
- the arguments that almost led to the breakup during the making of Spirit, in which James Ford had everyone leave the studio, including Fletch who was carried away by force (it even rhymes), because these two absolutely had to talk to each other and do some forced fucking couples therapy because, oh my god, it took a dentist to get the words out of these two. Tough as nails, really. (Please call Flood and Tim Simenon for the story of the very relaxing making of their albums.)
Imagine how many situations there were that were misunderstood, or that they perceived a distorted, wrong emotion, trying their hand at this telephone without strings that had been going on for decades. Only the presence of Fletch as a communicator assistant was able to fill this gap, but it was not the same as direct communication. Maybe this communication even took place in different places and at different times, without the help of the non-verbal information that face, voice and body give us. It is therefore logical that information can be interpreted incorrectly, erected as a fact and can cause the birth of a series of wrong opinions, which then in turn create situations that have nothing to do with actual reality.
It’s very sad to say, but I think it really took Fletch’s death to break this vicious circle. Now, after all these years and without the mediator who made this communication indirect and asynchronous, it seems that they have finally understood that you have to be careful about what you say, because you don’t know how it will be interpreted by the other party and you could create completely unnecessary misunderstandings.
Coming back to me for a moment, the fact of having found a possible interpretation to the combined meaning of the song completely galvanized me, and I went to watch the video again to cement my theory and there I felt as if all the pieces of my puzzle fell into place.
Follow me.
The first thing we see is the beautiful funeral floral arrangement in the shape of wings that we have already seen on the cover of “Memento Mori” and in the video for “Ghosts Again”, full of stunning white roses.
Ok, break for a little cry. Done.
The first person we see is a woman who is working on this beautiful floral composition. Her expression is sad, so we can assume that the composition she is preparing is for a loved one who has passed away, but her hands are sure in the manual gesture she is doing, that of pruning the roses. It is a difficult task, she certainly does not want to do it, she probably has a lump in her throat from the pain, but someone has to take care of these sad but necessary tasks and she has taken the responsibility of completing this task.
Suddenly she is distracted by a noise, and her face turns to the right ever so slightly. She is pondering something.
Behind her we have a man, who turns on a tap and moves nervously around the kitchen.
We have a couple here (“Come on, what a coincidence!!!! Who the hell could they be???”)
The woman, after considering the situation, gets up from her chair and goes to her left (our right) of the room, and begins to write on a slate-covered surface (I’ve never seen anything like it. I discovered that slate paint exists. I only knew about blackboards. See? You always learn something new.)
Meanwhile, the man continues to watch the sink slowly fill with water, as if in the water he could find an answer to a question that is plaguing him.
But who is this man??? Nervous, unable to communicate with another person, looking at a situation from afar and looking at someone or something as if they could give him an answer or would take the trouble to act for him in some way?
It starts with M and ends with N.
The woman, who despite the difficult situation has a completely different attitude, writes on the slate:
WE NEED TO TALK.
But who was it who said in all these years in all the languages and all the main dialects “Should we talk? Talk to me?”
It starts with D and ends with E.
(It doesn’t matter that we have a woman in the video. We know very well how these things work.)
The man, perfectly proving my theory about his identity, reluctantly turns off the tap and writes on the slate: CAN IT NOT BE WRITTEN?
Ladies and gentlemen, the definition from the encyclopedia under the entry “Martin L. Gore”.
His gaze is a mixture of inquisitive at first and condemned to death later, having understood that this time he will no longer be able to avoid this confrontation, because there is no one left to do it for him, but he still tries to save what can be saved by bringing the confrontation back to a mode in which he feels he has control, the written form.
The woman denies it without even getting too upset, perhaps believing that for the first time she can assert herself, given that the man finds himself in a destabilizing situation, due to the lack of the person who communicated in his place .
He turns around, erases what he had written and replies: IT NEEDS TO BE SPOKEN! underlining the SPOKEN.
The man throws away the chalk, having now understood that he no longer has any alternatives.
During this exchange of sentences, we see our couple walking in the middle of a forest. The steps are tentative, the body language distant. Both are looking in the opposite direction from the other, as if they were forced to submit to a task that they know the usefulness of, but inside them there is still a sense of resentment or the tense feeling of not knowing how to behave with the other.
The man and the woman arrive at the foot of a lake and queue up behind other couples. It all reminds one of waiting for a sacrament to be granted, or entering a space determined by an entrance threshold. The man turns toward the woman, perhaps to implore a last way out, but the woman doesn’t look at him, on the contrary: She crosses her arms and continues to look in the opposite direction. She is really fed up with his silences and the man understands this very well, lowering his gaze like a person who feels decidedly guilty.
Our gaze widens over the lake. A mysterious character, who seems to be the custodian of the place, or the officiant of a rite, approaches a couple bent over with their heads under the water. The interesting thing is that this mysterious character has a suitcase with him. Maybe he doesn’t really belong to this place and comes here only to celebrate this rite? Maybe in the suitcase there goes some kind of object that allows the rite to be performed?
Is he a person who comes from another world and helps people overcome a certain threshold?
An angel?
The couple is bowed in what appears to be a prayer position, similar to Muslim prayer with the head bowed forward and also somewhat reminiscent of some adult baptism procedures, where the entire head is submerged in water or where a person walks through the water until they are completely submerged.
The mysterious character touches their backs with a stick, signaling that it is time to resurface.
Is it John the Baptist? Or better yet, is it the Apostle John, “John the Revelator” in English, a name due to the fact that he was the author of the book of Revelation?
Is he the holder of truths that we do not know?
The ritual continues, couple after couple.
The mysterious figure signals to our couple that it is their turn, and they both proceed towards the water, always under his cautious gaze.
The expression of the mysterious character is contemplative, as if he were following what the couple is doing with great interest, but also with a certain concern.
Why does this character have such a great interest in this couple?
Maybe because he is interested in resolving this conflict that has been going on for so many years but he is a little worried since this is the first time these two people have a direct confrontation without him.
It’s him, the ex-mediator. Andy.
The couple sticks their heads under the water.
Suddenly we see the woman start talking, and the man responds. A lively dialogue begins, and every now and then both of them resurface for a moment to catch their breath, then dive back in to continue their discussion. Finally something seems to unblock the man, who begins to gesticulate in an increasingly agitated way and to speak faster and faster. The woman seems to deny what she is saying, keeping her mouth shut, almost as if she were hurt by what she has heard, and this very unusual event has repercussions on all the other couples still waiting: The people still in line are so surprised that the man is speaking and with such vehemence, among other things, that another man feels compelled to write on the blackboard to his partner.
And suddenly our dear Dave and Martin appear. At first glance they seem to be just another couple queuing to take part in this ritual, but that’s not the case: Their image is distorted by the moving water, as if our point of view were underwater.
If our point of view were from outside, from the shore of the lake, they would be in a completely different angle. The only possible explanation is that we are seeing them from underwater, and the only people currently underwater are the two protagonists.
They are both observing themselves.
The man and the woman are shouting louder and louder, it seems that with every word they are each taking away every chip on their shoulder.
Another couple is shown, made up of two people who are completely different from each other in terms of physical features, but who are nevertheless married and looking for clarification.
I’d say that’s an apt reference.
The mysterious character looks almost apologetic, as if he sensed that the discussion was degenerating.
The man and woman take a breath again, and you can see that they are shocked by what they have said to each other.
It’s clear from their expressions that we’re about to witness an explosive showdown.
This sequence is in slow motion, probably to highlight the destructive effect of the words that are coming out of the mouths of both. The feeling is that of watching a car accident in slow motion, feeling helpless in the face of the situation in front of us.
The argument has now turned into a full-blown fight, with both of them yelling and glaring at each other, angry and exasperated with each other.
Their words are so heavy that they turn into bullets that pierce the water and try to mortally wound the other.
It’s a no-holds-barred battle.
The mysterious character, realizing that the situation had now worsened, or perhaps simply realizing that their time was up, forcefully pulls them both out of the water, throwing them to the ground.
Both are exhausted, but the animosity that was there before is gone, replaced by a kind of realization.
They both understood something.
The mysterious character continues to officiate the rite, moving on to the next couple and taking a book as a pledge of acceptance.
Who knows what that book will be. A Bible? A book of psalms? A diary? We have no way of knowing.
In addition, the mysterious man has a folder under his arm, like a price list holder.
What will be inside? The files of these people? What they have to confess?
The couple walks through the woods again, completely exhausted by the intensity of the experience and what they have accomplished by the end.
They return to the kitchen, and each one erases his writing on the slate blackboards.
The man is still a little doubtful, scared, but the woman looks at him as if to say “Everything will be fine”.
They’re not completely comfortable with each other yet, but it’s a start, a good resolution for the future.
The woman begins to work on the funeral composition again. It is time to move on and keep her promises.
The man puts on a record and continues to watch the sink fill with water as before, looking for an answer, but now he realizes that there is a way for both of them to work on the music by communicating with each other:
Bringing music into the water, so that, in that soft and protective dimension, they can create together, build a new relationship and continue on their way.
The man has understood that he does not have to be afraid of his emotions, and can finally face life without filters, with the woman who will always be by his side.
It’s time for man to put his head under water, and finally find the courage to speak.
At the end of the video we hear for a moment “Don’t say you love me”. As they used to write in the movies… “To be continued.”
I’m not saying this is the definitive interpretation, but it’s what I’ve been able to glean from the sources I’ve found.
The subdivision I was looking for in the end I found it like this:
Martin’s point of view:
You won’t do well to silence me
With your words or wagging tongue –> Dave speaks speaks
With your long tall tales of sorrow –> tell stories of regrets, like the interviews after Ultra
Your song yet to be sung –> Dave said he had yet to express itself after Exciter
I won’t be offended
If I’m left across the great divide
Believe me, they will follow
Just to watch another angel die
Watch another angel die
Dave’s Point of View
You won’t do well to darken me
With your secrets and your lies –> secrets and lies because you don’t tell me anything
With your piercing code of silence –> your painful silence, Martin
Relax, enjoy the ride
I’ll meet you by the river
Or maybe on the other side
You find it hard to swallow
When you watch another angel die
Watch another angel die
Another sun is rising
Another day has come
You can find me, I’ll be waiting –> in the end I’ll always wait for you because we are destined to work together
Until the day is done
I won’t be persuaded –> you won’t be able to persuade me with you silence
Kiss your doubts goodbye –> say goodbye to your doubts, talk to me
Everything seems hollow
When you watch another angel die
Watch another angel die
Watch another angel die
Watch another angel die
Watch another angel die
Watch another angel die
In the end, what does it matter when you see another angel die?
When you see that it’s Andy, your friend and band mate who dies?
Everything seems empty.
But there is still music, which is the only thing that fills the void.
There are people who truly love you, even if they have trouble telling you, who can fill the void. (Even if they are or you feel they are distant.)
In the end I don’t know if all this papyrus makes sense, but it’s what I need to believe.
Two people who should have been together forever have finally come together. They have created an extraordinary album.
They honored a lost friend in the best way possible.
I’m sure he would have loved this album.
It’s a reminder to let go of useless rumination and always clarify any doubts, before this option is taken away from us.
This is an invitation not to be afraid to be yourself, to speak, to listen and not to be manipulated by other people.
Despite the mourning, this is an album full of hope.
Credits:
“Wag Tongue”
Songwriter: David Gahan / Martin Gore
Songtext of Wagging Tongue © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Video:
Directed by The Sacred Egg
Creative Direction by Anton Corbijn
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