Are "Friends" Electric?

"Are 'Friends' Electric?"
Single by Tubeway Army
from the album Replicas
B-side	"We Are So Fragile"
Released	19 May 1979
Format	7" vinyl
Recorded	January–February 1979 at Gooseberry Studios, London, England
Genre	Synthpop, new wave
Length	5:25
Label	Beggars Banquet BEG 18
Writer(s)	Gary Numan
Producer(s)	Gary Numan
Tubeway Army singles chronology
"Down in the Park" (1979) "Are 'Friends' Electric?" (1979) "Cars" (1979)
Music sample "Are 'Friends' Electric?"

"Are 'Friends' Electric?" is a 1979 song by the English band Tubeway Army. Taken from their album Replicas, it was released as a single in May 1979 and reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, staying there for four weeks.^[1] It was written and produced by Gary Numan, the band's frontman and lead vocalist.

Production

Despite being over five minutes long and possessing, in the words of its composer, "no recognisable hook-line whatsoever",^[2] the single topped the UK charts. Whilst the track's distinctive sound stood out at the time, sales also benefited from the record company's use of a picture disc and Numan's striking, "robotic" performance on the TV shows The Old Grey Whistle Test and Top of the Pops.^[3] "Are 'Friends' Electric?" has been a mainstay of Numan's concerts since its release and appears on all ten of his official live recordings to date. A semi-acoustic version appeared on the 2006 Jagged tour set list.

The song was sampled by Richard X in a song titled "We Don't Give a Damn About Our Friends" as a mashup with vocals from Adina Howard's "Freak like Me", which the Sugababes then recorded under the latter title and achieved a number one hit with in the UK in 2002. It was also covered by Information Society on their 1997 album Don't Be Afraid, and The Dead Weather for their B-side of "Hang You from the Heavens". The song was covered by American rock band Weezer and released alongside their 2008 single, Pork and Beans. "Are 'Friends' Electric?" was featured in the video game Need for Speed: Carbon and the AMC Television show Halt and Catch Fire. The song has also been referenced as the inspiration for the theme song of the British TV show The IT Crowd. The song was also sampled by Kryder and The Cube Guys in their 2016 single, You & Me.

Music

"Are 'Friends' Electric?" features three different sections: a recurring "verse" with a synth riff in C and B flat, a recurring section with spoken word over slow arpeggiated seventh chords, and an instrumental break in F. The instrumentation is quite minimal: there is a conventional drum and bass guitar backing track, some additional heavily flanged guitar (particularly in the instrumental break), subdued vocals and, most prominently, Minimoog and Polymoog synthesizers. These synth parts include a slow-paced sawtooth bass riff, and some soaring portamento background lines.

Numan stumbled upon synthesizers by accident. While intending to record a punk album, he noticed a Minimoog synthesizer that had been left in the studio.^[4][5] The keyboard’s massive sound became the inspiration for the Replicas album, and is the dominant sound for this song.

Writing for Smash Hits in 1979, Cliff White described the song as "a dark, threatening wall of synthesized sound" which "throbbed ominously behind a gloomy song of paranoia and loneliness".^[6] White went on to say it was "gripping stuff, but cheerful it isn't".

B-side

The B-side of the single was a more rock-oriented number, "We Are So Fragile". It was performed on Numan's 1979 "Touring Principle" series of concerts and appears on the album Living Ornaments '79. The song was covered by bis on the compilation album Random.

Track listing

All tracks written by Gary Numan. 

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Are 'Friends' Electric?"	5:18
2.	"We Are So Fragile"	2:46

Personnel

Tubeway Army

• Gary Numan – Minimoog and Polymoog synthesizers, guitar, vocals
• Paul Gardiner – bass guitar
• Jess Lidyard – drums

Production

• Gary Numan – production

References

1. Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. pp. 369–70. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
2. Stephen Webbon; Gary Numan (December 1985). "Complete Gary Numan UK Discography". Record Collector (76): 14.
3. Paul Goodwin (2004). Electric Pioneer: An Armchair Guide to Gary Numan. pp. 38–39.
4. Simpson Dave. "Gary Numan and Mary Vango: how we made Are 'Friends' Electric?". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
5. BBC documentary: Synth Britannia.
6. White, Cliff. "Singles". Smash Hits (31 May – 13 June, 1979): 24–25.