Lloyd Cole

There was a turning point, halfway through the 1980s, when songs began to lose the vehemence born of post-punk and the gleaming electronic armor of synth-pop, folding ever more into themselves. Rediscovering the naturalness of a more essential, often acoustic pop, built on a few subtle, handcrafted touches, increasingly refined and elegant. Call it new pop, or later sophisti-pop, but at bottom that's what it was: a return to roots, still steeped though in that anguish – or at least that twilight melancholy – which had marked the entire new wave era.
It's in this context that we should also read the arrival on the scene of the fascinating Lloyd Cole. A sulky, Elvis-like face, quiff included, and the spleen of a misunderstood man of letters, the former philosophy student at Glasgow University in Scotland – though originally from Buxton, England – tiptoed through pop's most electrifying decade, scattering ideas and insights along the way. As the wave era faded into twilight and England set off down the paths of new pop, Cole magically captured that transition in a handful of choruses and enchanted arpeggios. Blending acoustic folk, roaring Sixties guitars (Byrds, Velvet Underground) and decadent ballads (David Bowie, Marc Bolan). Like so many masters of the melodic song, though, he ended up paying the price for his own superior class: too clean and easy listening for indie purists hunting for dissonance, too refined for the mainstream audience, to whom he even dedicated the title of an album, crowning a controversial relationship made up of continual flirtation and rifts. On one point, however, everyone agrees: “Rattlesnakes” is his masterpiece, as well as one of those records that managed to capture, for one fleeting moment, the spirit of an entire era. One that still burns, just like his “Forest Fire”.

In the rattlesnake's coils

At Glasgow University, Cole had met the friends of a lifetime (artistically speaking, at least): Neil Clark (guitar), Lawrence Donegan (bass), Blair Cowan (keyboards) and Stephen Irvine (drums). They are the Commotions, destined to form, alongside good old Lloyd, one of those legendary outfits, on a par with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers or Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. With soul as their north star and the (mad) ambition to become “a kind of male Aretha Franklin”.

The two key tracks on the debut album – “Perfect Skin” and the aforementioned “Forest Fire” – were born in the winter of 1983 and recorded in embryonic form in the basement beneath the Glasgow Golf Club, where Cole's parents worked and where the family also lived at the time. Two of the most representative songs of an album destined to be linked to a sophisticated, cosmopolitan image were thus born under a golf club, thanks to some recently purchased home equipment. Within a few months, the Commotions would sign a five-album deal with Polydor.
The sessions for the debut album “Rattlesnakes” took place under producer Paul Hardiman at The Garden in London, John Foxx's studio, while the mixing was completed at Genetic Studios, near Reading. When the record hit shops in 1984, it was immediately clear that the band knew exactly what they were doing, and that the reins were firmly in the hands of their leader. Cole's talent comes through in the sophisticated melodies, in the literary references scattered through the lyrics (from Simon de Beauvoir to Norman Mailer, from Truman Capote to Eva Marie Saint), but also in his dandy-ish manner, somewhere between Bryan Ferry and Morrissey, albeit with a pinch of wholesome provincial rurality. In this way, even romantic relationships could find a new way of being told, turning an almost worn-out metaphor – love as fire – into one of the most elegant and distinctive songs in British pop of the decade.

Polydor wanted “Forest Fire” as the first single, but Cole and his bandmates stubbornly insisted the first single should be “Perfect Skin”, a disguised sample of residual wave sound, all desolate, melancholy atmospheres, topped off with a masterful arpeggio. They wouldn't be wrong: the “Perfect Skin” single, released in May 1984, reached number 26 on the UK Chart, launching Cole and company into the British Top 30 on their first attempt. But Polydor's idea made sense too. Because “Forest Fire” would remain the emotional peak of the record and the manifesto of an entire style.

A slow burn

“Forest Fire” came out as the second single the following August, eight weeks ahead of the album, which was released on 12 October. It was issued with catalogue number COLE 2, backed on the B-side by “Andy's Babies” (credited to Cole and Donegan). It wouldn't repeat its predecessor's success, stalling at number 41. But it would enchant a generation (and more) of listeners.
Lloyd Cole had had the title “Forest Fire” in mind since he was 16. He'd jotted it down because it struck him as evocative, even though he was perfectly aware that fire as a symbol of passion was already one of the most overused images in the history of song. Rather than trying to disguise its conventionality, he decided to build that awareness right into the lyrics. By 1984, he would go on to ironically describe “Forest Fire” as the closest he was capable of coming to a simple love song.

The lyrics thus move between apprehension, seduction, provocation and romantic swagger. The woman Cole addresses seems on the verge of giving in to the flames of passion; the narrator doesn't promise to save her, but implicitly announces that his arrival might make the situation even more dangerous. When the two of them are together, he suggests, it's as if a fire were sweeping through a forest. But in an age of burning woods and endangered Amazon jungles, the line could be misread. So Cole hastens to sardonically clarify: “It's just a simple metaphor, it's for burning love”. It's his way of taking an emotion seriously without taking himself too seriously. The melancholy that surfaces in his lyrics, in fact, doesn't hold back the amused, almost satirical irony of an author who seems to live every experience, romantic ones included, with the delighted curiosity of an explorer.

A song without a chorus

"Forest Fire" has no real chorus; it proceeds by subtraction, circling obstinately around the same chord progression, and hands its climax not to the voice but to Neil Clark's guitar. There's no traditional verse-chorus alternation, then, nor a melodic hook built to lodge itself instantly in memory, even though the song comes across as devastatingly poignant in the way it unfolds. For most of its four and a half minutes, starting from the opening piano phrases, the track barely raises its voice, turning over and over the same chord sequence, while Cole, fringe in his hands, keeps a coolly detached tone. Each new passage seems similar to the one before, but carries a small variation in colour, intensity, or the weight given to the instruments. Cole's own rhythm guitar is dry and restrained, Cowan's keyboards set the mood, Donegan and Irvine keep the rhythm section understated, while Clark gradually claims more and more space, until his guitar starts to break loose and detonates in that final minute that completely changes the scope of the song. Like a slow burn saving its explosion for the ending.
Cole has called Clark's solo the record's culminating moment, and it's hard to disagree. The idea was born one evening during the recording sessions, when the rest of the band had decided to go out for dinner. Left behind at The Garden with Hardiman, Clark kept laying down new guitar parts. The two worked through the entire night, gradually building what would become the final solo.
Around two in the morning, heard blasting in the studio, the result struck Clark as magnificent. The following morning, once the night's euphoria had faded, the guitarist began to have doubts, suggesting some passages be cut. It would be Hardiman who convinced the rest of the band to listen to the full version, and the verdict could only be unanimous: that solo had to be kept, no matter what.

The choice would determine the song's ultimate identity. Because Clark doesn't merely comment on the melody: he manages to detonate everything Cole's voice had held back until that point. In 1984 British pop, a solo so extended might have seemed almost anachronistic, especially on the record of a new band associated with the more literate side of post-punk and indie-pop. But in "Forest Fire" it doesn't come across as a display of technical virtuosity or as ornamental flourish: it's the natural culmination of the whole arrangement, releasing the energy that had been building up.
For a long time, in his solo shows, Cole would hesitate to perform "Forest Fire" without Clark, considering that part too important to be replaced. Later he would work out a convincing acoustic version, proving just how solid the composition was. But it's in the original recording that the song's strategy shows itself in its most complete form: a slow burn resolved in an instrumental explosion.

A modest hit that became a classic

The British press immediately grasped the originality of "Forest Fire". Adrian Thrills picked it as single of the week in the NME, praising it as "a dark emotional melodrama that grew to assume much vaster proportions". Dylan Jones, in Record Mirror, praised both its lyrics and melody. Robert Hodgens of the Bluebells, called on to review the week's releases for Smash Hits, singled out the closing guitar break in particular. Jerry Smith, in Music Week, highlighted the way the track slowly built atmosphere before giving itself over to the echoes of Clark's instrument.
The public's response, initially, was more cautious. Reaching number 41 wasn't a disaster for the second single by a debuting band, but it fell well short of the number 26 achieved by "Perfect Skin". Even "Rattlesnakes", chosen as the third single, wouldn't go beyond number 65. One of the most celebrated British debut albums of the 1980s would thus be left without a Top 20 single.

The various editions of "Forest Fire" nonetheless offer a small map of the Commotions' influences. Besides the standard 7", Polydor released a 12" featuring an extended version running 5 minutes and 12 seconds, along with "Andy's Babies" and "Glory", a cover of the Television song written by Tom Verlaine. A tribute that made clear how much the group also looked to American music, blending soul and melodic tradition with the legacy of the Velvet Underground and New York art-rock.
The single's sleeve was designed by Da Gama, with photographs by Nick Knight, then still at the start of the career that would make him one of Britain's most important fashion photographers. Stuart Orme, meanwhile, directed the promotional video, taking the band out into open countryside rather than trying to illustrate the lyrics literally. A perfect choice for the song: wide open spaces, a certain detachment, and more interest in mood than in narrative.

A springboard to success

"Rattlesnakes" would establish Cole as the quintessential literate songwriter of his generation. A language in which literature, film, romanticism and pop culture could coexist as naturally as conversation, thanks also to his anguished crooning and a swagger reminiscent of Lou Reed.
On its release, on 12 October 1984, "Rattlesnakes" reached number 13 on the UK Chart, later going on to earn gold certification. Lloyd Cole & The Commotions' biggest commercial success would come with "Easy Pieces", which climbed to number 5 in 1985, and with the singles "Brand New Friend" and "Lost Weekend" (reaching number 19 and number 17 respectively). After "Mainstream", released in 1987, the Commotions' story would come to an end by the close of the decade, freeing Cole to embark on his long solo career.

But "Forest Fire" has outlived the charts, the trends, and the band itself. Cole has kept performing it live, occasionally tweaking the closing line about the metaphor just for fun, before returning to the original wording. More than forty years on, the song retains its full power because it's in no hurry to show what it has. Rather than simply describing a fire, "Forest Fire" reproduces its dynamics: it starts in a whisper, spreads slowly, and by the time it finally blazes up, it has already engulfed everything in its path. Us included, forever ready to be heartbroken.

She crossed herself as she put on her things
She has promised once before not to live this way
If she don’t calm down she will burn herself out
Like a forest fire, well doesn’t that make you smile

If you don’t slow down, I swear that I’ll come round
And mess up your place, let’s go for a spin
They say we shouldn’t even know each other
And that we’ll be undone
Don’t it make you smile like a forest fire

I believe in love, I’ll believe in anything
That’s gonna get me what I want and get me off my knees
Then we’ll burn your house down, don’t it feel so good
There’s a forest fire every time we get together

Hey pick you up, put you down
Rip you up and spin you round
Just like we said we would
’cause we’re a forest fire
Believe you me, we’ll tear this place down

If we get caught in this wind, then we could burn the ocean
If we get caught in this scene, we’re gonna be undone
It’s just a simple metaphor
It’s for a burning love
Don’t it make you smile like a forest fire

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23/08/2026