For Your Pleasure

Album: For Your Pleasure (1973)
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Songfacts®:

  • "For Your Pleasure" is the last song on Roxy Music's sophomore album of the same name. Clocking in at almost seven minutes, it hears singer Bryan Ferry tying together the album's themes of glamor, artifice, and postmodernism:

    For your pleasure in our present state
    Part false, part true, like anything
    We present ourselves
  • Synthesizer player Brian Eno takes over in the second half of "For Your Pleasure," transforming it into an experimental instrumental replete with tape-loop effects and chopped-up vocals. At one point, Eno samples Ferry's vocals from "Chance Meeting" from Roxy Music's self-titled debut album. The song then ends with a clip of British actress Judi Dench reciting poetry:

    You didn't ask
    You didn't ask why
  • In an interview with Mojo in 1995, guitarist Phil Manzanera said this song made use of a recording technique called Butterfly Echo. According to Manzanera, "It involved putting some sticky tape on the capstan of a tape recorder so when the tape went over it made a sort of wobble noise." He added, "If you wanted something weird you adopted the Ron Geesin approach and used natural sounds and musique concrète. If you wanted something unusual you had to stick nails in a piano and do physical things. Now you can do it all with a sampler."
  • When Roxy Music reunited for a set of concerts in 2001 to celebrate their 30th anniversary, they concluded their live setlist with "For Your Pleasure," the first time they performed the song since 1975. As the haunting final line of "tara, tara" rang out across the venue, Ferry would wave to the audience before the band members exited the stage in succession.
  • The Scottish band Simple Minds recorded an acoustic version of "For Your Pleasure" for their 2001 covers album, Neon Lights. Discussing their decision to cover the song, frontman Jim Kerr said, "Roxy Music was probably the predominant influence on Simple Minds in terms of the sound of the guitars and the synthesizers, melodies, etc." He added, "We've chosen, I think, a more obscure Roxy song, albeit it was the title of one of their albums. This song is called 'For Your Pleasure' and, indeed, we had great pleasure in recording this song. We hope we do it justice."
  • Ferry wrote "For Your Pleasure" while Roxy Music was recording their self-titled debut album in 1972, but the frontman decided to save the song for the band's sophomore album. While Roxy Music never released the song as a single, a live version was included as the B-side to "Both Ends Burning" from the band's fifth album, Siren, in 1975.

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