The column that dives into British music history, British Invasion, is back. The author apologizes for skipping a column on Oct. 24, as he needed to evaluate whether the backup singer in “Pop Muzik” really was off her rocker. As for today’s column, we will dive into a deep cut of the British charts, delving into the music and man behind the 1997 single “Your Woman,” by White Town.
White Town’s one-man wrecking crew consisted of British Indian producer Jyoti Mishra. The Indian-born Mishra emigrated to Derby, England, at three years-old with his family. His stage name White Town is inspired by Derby’s mass of white inhabitants and his experience growing up as a brown boy in a predominantly white town, which, according to Mishra, “wasn’t a barrel of laughs.”
Growing up, Mishra found an escape from the racial abuse he suffered through music and geekdom. At first it was 1970’s electronic music, scouring for records with interesting synth basslines like Sailor’s “A Glass of Champagne and Spaces” and “Magic Fly” by Space. After seeing a Pixies concert, Mishra got the courage to form White Town with two other instrumentalists in 1989.
They released their debut, the succinctly named “Socialism, Sexism and Sexuality,” in 1994 to lackluster fanfare. Despite being a decent indie pop record, no labels were biting and after a few years of shopping around, the other instrumentalists left and Mishra was the only one standing.
It’s pretty hard to make a song just by yourself, but the advent of digital audio workstations made it a bit easier to do so. This was a godsend to Mishra, who, armed with a cheap microphone, an eight-track recorder and a cheapo sampler he borrowed from his girlfriend, made his song “White Town,” in 1996
Mishra’s song is built around some sampled horns from the 1932 song “My Woman” by Lew Stone and his Monseigneur Band, sung by Al Bowlly and lyrics written by Bing Crosby. Mishra first heard the track in the 1970 BBC dramedy “Pennies From Heaven” and once he got his hands on an Atari ST, he decided to make a song based off the horn riff he had stuck in his head those past few days.
The big selling point about the sampled hook is its contrast within the song. J’na Jefferson, a Billboard writer, said “Its production juxtaposes the original song’s despondent sound with upbeat enduring energy.” Other standout hooks from this song also include the spacey, funky basslines that introduce the first chorus.
Speaking of the bassline, its inclusion highlights the chameleon nature of this song. Mishra says his song mixes Bowlly’s gloomy brass with George-Clinton style funk, Depeche Mode electro-pop and 90’s boom-bap.
Another strong selling point are its unique lyrics, sung from a woman’s perspective on a seemingly one-sided relationship … by Mishra, a man. The framing device tripped up a lot of listeners and on a FAQ he did on his website in 2005; he answered a question about what the song is about.
According to Mishra, the song covers a range of topics, covering his time as a Marxist in the 1980’s and being a straight girl in love with a “lying, two-timing, fake-ass Marxist.” That’s where “So much for all your highbrow Marxist ways,” comes from, I presume. It also details the hypocrisy that results when love and lust get mixed up with highbrow ideals, according to Mishra.
The words “love and lust” also appear juxtaposed on a street sign in the black-and-white music video, directed by Mark Adcock. The video leans even more into the nostalgic vibes Mishra was creating with this song. The exaggerated acting, interwar-period aesthetics and silent film cinematography evoke the era of 1920s and 1930s silent films.
Two big motifs of the film are use of circular masks to emphasize focal points and street signs with opposing beliefs named on them, like lust or love, expectation or independence or doubt or promise, with promise being replaced for truth later in the video.
So, what did people think about a somber electro-pop song with a silent-film music video? At least in the UK, people ate it up. The song started to pick up steam when BBC Radio 1 presenter Mark Radcliffe started spinning the track on his late-night show. Eventually, Mishra got a major label deal with EMI, who re-released his EP “Abort, Retry, Fail?” and made “Your Woman” the lead single for a sophomore album, “Women in Technology.”
The song reached No. 1 in the UK, topped the charts in Iceland and Spain and became one of the first gender-reversal songs to top the UK charts. It was climbing up the Billboard Hot 100 as well, peaking at No. 23 before Mishra pulled the record from American stores, due to fears over his privacy thanks to his increased fame.
“Sophomore in Technology” made a blip in sales then quietly left. Mishra soon left EMI as well, as they struggled to market someone who didn’t really want to show his face and was a genre chameleon with his No. 1 hit.
Mishra came back to the indie scene and released some more music. The last song he uploaded on his YouTube channel, “Sleep the Days Away,” is an amazing work of indie pop that I urge everyone to listen to. It’s like listening to The Smiths without having to be reminded of what Morrissey is up to these days
I also urge everyone to listen to “Your Woman” as well. This muted, subversive pop sound has taken hold in popular music today through acts like Billie Eilish and Clairo, and with genres like lo-fi and bedroom pop.
It can be debated whether this change in sound came through Spotify’s influence on music listening over the past 15 years and the streaming service’s preference towards this type of sound. But it can’t be mistaken that 28 years after the fact, the song has aged like fine wine.