Waiting For The Divergent Wasp

Wire : I Am The Fly

[Purchase]

Released just a few months after their astonishing debut,  Pink Flag, Wire's new single "I Am The Fly" sounded like nothing before it. Are those guitars? Well, of course they must be. But they sound like some kind of post-modern rhythmic metal machine bearing down on us all. The chorus, as Wilson Neale has written in his 331/3 contribution Pink Flag, has Colin Newman sounding like one of Dr Who's Daleks.

What is the song about? You might think it's a first person account of what it must be like to be a housefly (musca domestica):

I am the fly in the ointment 

I can spread more disease 

Than the fleas which nibble away 

At your window display

But remember: Wire is the smartest band of them all. The tune is actually about the demise of punk rock. And Wire plans to have a role in what comes next:

Yes, I am the fly in the ointment 

I shake you down to say please 

As you accept the next dose of disease