The scathing song Brian Eno wrote about Bryan Ferry
Throughout history, the best artwork has been created by those without a specific vision in mind when they began. Allowing yourself to change and adapt your work as you go along, letting the art reveal itself to you, is one of the most effective ways of operating. A side effect of this approach is that you often don’t know what your work means until years after its creation, as was the case with Brain Eno’s debut solo album, Here Come the Warm Jets.
As Eno’s first solo effort following his departure from glam rock icons Roxy Music, it seems almost inevitable that the songwriter would find inspiration in his old bandmates. After all, one of the predominant reasons for Eno leaving Roxy Music was the musical differences between himself and frontman Bryan Ferry, which led to rising tensions within the band. Although fans mourned the loss of Eno, who added an incredible experimental edge to the line-up, the musician did not take too long to get back on the horse, embarking upon a solo career.
Here Come the Warm Jets is far from being Eno’s greatest work, he has been involved in so many projects over the years that it is difficult to pick out any specific work as being his finest. Regardless, the debut solo album affirmed Eno’s unique talents and his ability to create seminal work without the aid of Ferry’s songwriting. However, Ferry still had a part to play in the construction of the album, particularly the track ‘Dead Finks Don’t Talk’.
The song is typical of Eno’s early solo work, evoking his work with Roxy Music but with a slightly more experimental edge and a constant sense that the piece could take a sharp turn at any given moment. Looking at the lyrics of the track and Eno’s vocal performance on it, there seems to be no doubt that the song is clearly about Bryan Ferry and Eno’s role within Roxy Music.
Lyrics like “I’ve been ever so sad for a very long time, my, my, they wanted the works, can you this and that” seem to detail the band’s underappreciation of Eno. In addition to that, the songwriter’s vocals, particularly on the line, “As you peck your way up there”, are evocative of Ferry’s distinctive vocal style, with Eno almost mocking the frontman.
Despite the obvious connotations to Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry, Eno himself claims the song was not intentionally written about his former bandmate. In fact, it was engineer Chris Thomas who first brought it to the musician’s intention. In a 1975 interview, Eno shared, “I listened back to it, and it obviously was. It was certainly something I hadn’t realised. Essentially, all these songs have no meaning that I invested in them. Meanings can be generated within their own framework.”
The track served only to fuel the conflict between the two songwriters, which came about following Eno’s abrupt departure from Roxy Music. Although the pair have apparently buried the hatchet in the five decades since Eno left the band, ‘Dead Finks Don’t Talk’ still remains a stunning takedown of the Roxy Music frontman, even if it was done subconsciously.
