Saturday, 9 November 2019

My Own Way


The fourth single by Duran Duran, released on 16 November 1981 was designed as a stop-gap release to capitalise on the Top 5 success of the band's previous single, "Girls on Film", but prior to the recording and release of the band's second album Rio which was recorded in the early months of 1982. "My Own Way" peaked at #14 on the UK Singles Chart. A much slower version of "My Own Way" was later recorded for Rio, with slightly different lyrics. Even though it was released as a single, and a gateway to the Rio album, "My Own Way" has yet to appear on any of Duran Duran's compilation albums apart from the 12” Essential Duran Duran (Night Versions) collection.

The song begins with a recording of the rapid clicking of the motor drive on a Nikon camera. "Girls on Film" presents an impressionistic set of images through its lyrics as it chronicles a rather racy photo shoot in a breathless first-person style, complete with fanciful and suggestive turns of phrase like "Lipstick cherry all over the lens as she's falling" and "Wider baby smiling you've just made a million." This hazy yet sexy imagery makes it tough to determine whether the photo shoot in question is fashion-oriented or pornographic, which adds to the song's saucy sense of fun. The raunchy video created uproar, and it was consequently banned by the BBC and heavily edited for MTV. Simon Le Bon commented in 1999 that the scandal of the music video overshadowed the song's message of fashion model exploitation.


The two Duran Duran Night Version 12” singles were both originally ripped by DjPaulT to MP3 @ 320kbps

Duran Duran; Girls On Film (Night Version) 12”

A.     Girls On Film (Night Version)
B1.  Girls On Film
B2.  Faster Than Light

Duran Duran; My Own Way (Night Version) 12”

A.     My Own Way (Night Version)
B1.  Like An Angel
B2.  My Own Way (Short Version)

There’s more from Duran Duran lurking here

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