Great Singles - Night Train

I was reading a post about Visage here, at the rather wonderful Castles in Space blog. Visage were a strange mix of members of Magazine and Ultravox along with a nightclub dj and fronted by professional new romantic Steve Strange. All the make up and clothes got in the way and tended to cloud over what were a number of great singles. Fade to Grey is the one that appears on every 80s compilation. However the 2 released from the second lp "The Anvil" were the best. The Dammed Don't Cry as featured on the link is probably the better of the two but closely followed by "Night Train".

I am the proud owner of this single in picture disc format and can distinctly remember when I bought it.

I was 15 years old and the school trip was down to London to see Julius Caesar at the barbican. It was a matinee performance and although we arrived in London at 11 we didn't need to be at the theatre until 3 or something. What we did in the meantime was up to us. The only criteria is that we split ourselves up into groups of 4. Imagine that happening now allowing a bunch of 15yr old boys to wander about London town for the day on a school trip! Little did we realise at the time but it was also the day of the IRA Hyde Park bombings. Being our first time in London we all thought that the endless sirens and blocked off roads were normal.

Being an all boys school our groups did what most of the class did which was after a quick scary walk through soho we all headed to our true mecca which was Oxford Street HMV. In this Aladdin's cave I came out with among others the single to Night Train (there wasn't a hope of getting picture discs at out local Boots). I didn't play it that much as being a picture disc is was slightly warped which gave it a weird speed up slow down sound, which most of my friends thought a massive improvement.

my only other memory is us all laughing at the line "Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look" as Cassius was played by the fattest bloke in the cast.

Night Train - Visage