‘United’: The Throbbing Gristle song inspired by a loving couple
Masters of the obscure and avant-garde, Throbbing Gristle are one of the most stunningly original groups the world has ever seen. Instrumental in the development of industrial music, the group was born out of a performance art collective orchestrated by visionary artists Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti. The band found inspiration in some unlikely places, with their music ranging from the proto-industrial to the genuinely terrifying.
COUM Transmissions, the performance art group, was formed in Hull in the late 1960s. Heavily inspired by Dadaism and surrealism, COUM’s work was often confrontational and provocative, challenging the social conventions of UK society. These principles were carried through to the work of Throbbing Gristle, who burst onto the scene in October of 1976 – amid the blossoming punk rock scene.
Early punk rock was famed for its commitment to shock. From swearing on national television to donning Nazi armbands, punk challenged the conventions and values of 1970s Britain. Throbbing Gristle, however, took this shocking quality to an entirely new level. Regularly employing disturbing imagery, often centring around fascism and the Holocaust, as well as pornography and sexual exploitation, Throbbing Gristle was fearless and controversial.
Their 1976 debut single was no exception, featuring the B-side ‘Zyklon B Zombie’, named for the gas that was used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust. The A-side of the single, ‘United’, was distinctly less sinister. Arising from a desire to have a Throbbing Gristle song belted out from the terraces of a football ground, the song takes its title from Manchester United. “We thought of Manchester City and United – United just sounded better,” P-Orridge told Mojo back in 2014.
‘United’ had strangely wholesome origins for Throbbing Gristle, reportedly inspired by a couple the band had met in America. “The lyrics were inspired by this couple we’d met in 1976 when COUM Transmissions were performing in the US – Rhoda Mappo and Billy Haddock, people we’d been in touch with via mail art,” P-Orridge explained. “We were struck by how in love they were, how they’d share everything and make collages together at night. We thought: ‘Is there a way to deal with the idea of love without compromising our stance musically?’ We sat down with a typewriter and typed it almost word perfect.”
The love of the couple led the lyrics “you and I” to develop into “U-’n’-I-ted” in the mind of Genesis. The single is considered one of the earliest electropop tracks, predating the synthpop boom of the early 1980s. Within the song, which was released on the band’s own independent label, you can hear the early influence that went on to inspire groups like Depeche Mode, Tubeway Army, and Soft Cell, among countless others.
Included on their incredible sophomore record, D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle, ‘United’ remains one of the band’s most popular tracks. Although it never caught on within the terraces of Old Trafford, the track introduced the world to the prolific art of Throbbing Gristle, and it seems fitting that their debut track was rooted in love and happiness, backed with ‘Zyklon B Zombie’, about the horrors of genocide.
