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A Screw

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"A Screw"
A dollar sign with a yellow and black striped infill surrounded by a black outline on a yellow and black striped background.
Single by Swans
Released2 May 1986 (1986-05-02)
GenreIndustrial
Length15:02
LabelK.422
Producer(s)Michael Gira
Swans singles chronology
"Holy Money"
(1986)
"A Screw"
(1986)
"Public Castration Is a Good Idea"
(1986)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]

A Screw is a single by the New York City experimental rock group Swans. The single's three songs were later appended as bonus tracks to the CD release of Holy Money.

Background and composition

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The single's title track sees the band diving their farthest into the realm of industrial dance music, complete with dubby, distorted vocals and complex programmed rhythms, a distinct contrast to the naturalistic album version.[1] The piano-driven ode to obsessive love, "Blackmail", was Jarboe's first Swans track as lead vocalist.[1] A reworked version of "Blackmail" appears on the 1987 album Children of God.[2]

Regarding his contribution to the single's title track, drummer Ted Parsons said:

"But you know the first recording I did with Swans, was "A Screw" on Holy Money? I get in there – I can’t remember what the studio was – and Michael Gira the singer said, "Well, you know what? There’s no drum kit here, we just want to set a snare drum up in the hallway and have you hit it." And I was like, "What? OK." So they set the snare up in this big hallway down this corridor, and I hit the drum, and that was it. They sampled it, and he said, "OK, that’s great, go home." That was it. That was "A Screw.""[3]

Track listing

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No.TitleLength
1."A Screw"5:40
2."Blackmail"4:42
3."A Screw (Holy Money)" (Mix)4:58
Total length:15:20

Notes

  • Track 1 and 3 were mislabeled on most original releases. Later issues like the "Greed/Holy Money" compilation corrected this.[4]

Personnel

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Charts

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Chart (1986) Peak
position
UK Indie Chart[5] 4

References

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  1. ^ a b c Raggett, Ned. "A Screw". Allmusic. Retrieved March 2, 2013.
  2. ^ "Children of God Discogs entry". discogs.com. Discogs. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
  3. ^ Fernando, S.H. "Interview: Swans, Prong, and Godflesh drummer Ted Parsons". daily.redbullmusicacademy.com. Red Bull Music Academy Daily. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
  4. ^ "Original "A Screw" Discogs entry". discogs.com. Discogs. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
  5. ^ Lazell, Barry (1997). Indie Hits 1980-1989. Cherry Red Books. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011. Retrieved September 5, 2014.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
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