There are well-established formulas for pop music - 4/4 time, simple structure, combinations of certain instruments, accessible lyrics, a melody that's easy to sing and remember. The more one departs from these norms, the more an audience is going to notice the song itself, rather than accepting it without question.Anne Clark's 'Sleeper in metropolis' was never intended to be a hit song. Sure, the 4/4 time signature is there, and the four bar loop is exceedingly simple. But a spoken word artist who collaborates with a keyboard player (David Harrow) is unlikely to write simple lyrics, nor is she likely to come up with a great melodic hook since she had no intention to sing at all. Somehow, 'Sleeper in metropolis' became an instant cult classic. I supposed cult classics are revered as much because of their eccentricities as despite them, but this one avoids the 'novelty song' epithet, which is an accomplishment for a spoken word song.
It's a hypnotic dancefloor experience, pessimistic but rife with forward motion. The subject matter reinforces the low-tech synth and drum loop arrangement; because the song is about the malaise brought on by the domination of machines over nature, a sterile electronic arrangement seemingly created by a cleanroom, rather than in one, is only fitting. It does not subtract from the experience to be reminded of a time in the early eighties when anxiety about the culture of technology was vogue (think Blade Runner, 1984, Brazil.)
'As a sleeper in metropolis / you are insignificance.' It's a great first line because since it couldn't be sung, it sets the tone for and justifies the spoken word meditation that follows. This metropolis is not a monster or a macroorganism as it is seen in many modernist works, but a vacuum collecting nullity and futility. Anne compares it to a cancer, a disease that devours all in its path, but nothing is anthropomorphized, and the spreading deathliness is superseded by the deathliness of the city itself.
The body has become an inconvenience. Air conditioning has outmoded breathing, and viscose has obsoleted skin. All the ghosts in our machines - dreams, desires, love - are filtered and manipulated by the technology around us to warp them into paranoia. Any resistance is easily trumped by the city. The citizens of metropolis are zombies, automatons, drones, barely conscious, victims of the urban triumph they labored to create.
It's bleak to say the least, but something in Anne's voice embodies the last elements of humanity, of organic will. Her manner might have been the inspiration for the public announcement voices in 1984, but cockney-like hints in her speech, and the way her accents fall on the most sentimental words (soft, warm, love, contact) make it clear that she observes these things not as a clone but as a rebel, a one-woman resistance movement, hoping to shake just one of us out of our tranquilized complacency.
Among the clatter and repetition of machines that surround her (each loop is punctuated by the coldest interpretation of the most basic dance music convention, the double handclap) Anne hopes to wake us up and prod us into action. 'Sleeper in metropolis' wants to make us dance, but the relationship between dancing and being free is subverted; if we dance, are we submitting to the sequencer's control, or are we asserting our individuality? I believe it's the latter; while machines might be able to mimic dancing, they will never be able to dance well, because they will never dance with spirit.
Anne Clark followed 'Sleeper in metropolis' with the similar 'Our darkness', and the themes of modern alienation have appeared repeatedly in her work, though not always as starkly. But the tension between human and machine is captured most perfectly in this track. 'Love is dead in metropolis', but it's an epic death.
Anne Clark official website
