Underworld 'Born Slippy (NUXX)'

Chart Peak: 2 [original version peaked at 52]

YouTube

Two points that I think need to be got out of the way first: some people dispute whether the original 1995 'Born Slippy' is the same song as this one at all, but I've mentioned its chart position for the sake of completeness. I also dithered over whether to use the "from the movies" tag on this entry, since this track wasn't created specifically for cinematic use; but I ultimately decided it wouldn't have been on this album, nor possibly even released as a single, had it not been used in Trainspotting, so the tag stays.

The one other thing I feel like I should point out about this record is that it didn't change my life. I say that because I'm sure there are plenty of blog posts by people roughly my age who could make that claim, and I can imagine it could almost have happened to me. To avoid diving too deeply into autobiography, though, suffice it to say that when I first heard this, I didn't really get it. And it swiftly became a record more successful than was good for it, picking up some unappealing associations along the way, particularly that moment where everyone assumed Karl Hyde was saying "Shouting 'Lager lager lager!'" and decided to join in. Of course, he really is saying those words, but the punctuation is different, "shouting" and "lager" are just two things he's experiencing and telling us about, and that's at the heart of the song really: not unlike the film itself, it's portraying hedonistic behaviour rather than necessarily endorsing it. Thus we get the exciting but ultimately rather disturbing succession of different sounds and words piling on top of each other: that second percussion loop that arrives about two minutes in is my favourite moment in the build-up of the track. And, intentionally or otherwise, there's a poignant moment towards the end (at least of the edited version we're talking about here) where it lapses back to the unadorned keyboard notes that start the track before the beat kicks in again, as if to say that the cycle won't stop.

OK, so now I know it's a masterpiece. It just took me a while, that's all.

Also appearing on: Now 35
Available on:Trainspotting