New Moon on Monday by Duran Duran

S.E. Schaible

Arriving on a college campus in the fall of 1982, there was no escaping Duran Duran. The same was equally true for Bowie, ABC, Men at Work and a host of other bands that were part of a post-punk supernova of British, American and Australian acts. Many of the meatheads I grew up with felt the need to disparage Disco – despite owning Bee Gees and Donna Summer albums – and in the 80s there was no doubt a trend of disparagement aimed at Duran Duran, particularly once the MTV-fueled ubiquity of the Rio album hit in 1983. But I will suggest if you were a fan of Blondie (and who wasn’t), Tears for Fears, Kraftwerk, even The Clash – and you ripped on Duran Duran – then you were likely being a contrarian shit-starter.

My favorite track from Rio was Save a Prayer, and it is on regular rotation for me these 40-plus years later. Rio is also one of the most iconic album covers of all time. For me, the seminal track from the band is the percussion- and synthesizer-grounded New Moon on Monday, from their third album Seven and the Ragged Tiger. It starts out with a subtle lead-in with an almost wistful rap delivery by Simon Le Bon – smooth like he’s channeling Robert Palmer – but there may be no more bizarre opening verse to a song than, “Shake up the picture, the lizard mixture.” It seems like the band was just having some fun, and the vocal track could almost be a groggy recap of the night before while comparing notes with some mates at a diner. Hit the comments with your favorite (strange) opening lyrics – that sounds like a fun idea for a thread.

I am a drummer, so percussion moves me the deepest. The marimba-like pulse of this up-tempo gem of a song – and the grinding/grunting synth samples suggesting fireworks or stampeding animals – intermingle in such a seamless way that the entire experience of this track is more like a woven tapestry to be worn – to be experienced – than simply a song to be heard. Among my favorite elements of the song that you could almost overlook are the clip-clop sounds complementing the sonically crisp track from the start; these could almost be a playful nod to the coconut horse hoof sounds from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or to Brian Wilson himself circa Pet Sounds. The chiming staccato of the piano-like Roland (or whichever machine was used – I won’t submit myself to whatever circle of Reddit holds the answer just to provide the answer) has such a lovely and almost Asian element to it that it is both atmospheric and playful at once. Roxy Music is certainly an influence, and on tracks like New Moon it is plain to appreciate.

I have no idea what inspired the song or what the lyrics are supposed to mean, but that is a distant concern relative to how satisfying and nourishing the track is. Sometimes a great song is precisely that.