But Not Tonight

Going over some of my tracks; remixes and cover versions, in particular. For whatever reason, I think I may have had more cover versions of "But Not Tonight" than any other Depeche Mode track. I certainly had at least twice as many as I do for "Never Let Me Down Again" even though the later is one of DM's signature tracks. For "Enjoy the Silence" I actually have relatively few cover versions, but tons of remixes, many of them bootleg remixes.  I'm not quite sure what to make of that, or if that's not really enough data that I should try to make anything of it. But I'll take a stab at it anyway, because nothing has ever stopped me from venturing my opinion on things, even if I also freely admit that it's a just so story. I think "But Not Tonight" is actually one of DM's best tracks, and I think it's actually one of their most popular tracks, and one that people really like in spite of the fact that the band itself doesn't seem to.

The band kind of dumped on Sire Records, the American partner of Mute, who released "But Not Tonight" as a single because they got it on the soundtrack of a "dodgy" movie (which, admittedly, seems to have been somewhat of a flop) and the failure of the single was part of what convinced DM to write off the possibility of major success in America. At least for a year or so; when they did the Masses Tour they realized somehow that they were actually huge, especially after the risky Rose Bowl show was a gigantic smash.

But they also didn't like that "But Not Tonight" was released, and they've rarely played it. Alan famously wrote it off, saying that they spent nine days remixing "Stripped" and whipped off "But Not Tonight" in just a couple of hours or something. So what? How much time you spend working on a song isn't necessarily indicative of how good it is. Now, granted, "Stripped" is also a great song, and one of DM's most iconic too. But if DM had actually embraced "But Not Tonight" it could be too. It's clearly well-loved. It's clearly frequently covered. I do see, however, fewer bootleg mixes of it, for whatever reason, but not none. (Dominatrix and Kaiser, for example, both pop up. But they've remixed almost everything DM.)

As an aside, although I don't think this song was the first place I encountered the word "debauchery", of course, it's certainly the song that made it a word that I was very familiar with. I love to use the word debauchery and debauch, all thanks to you, "But Not Tonight!"

Of the cover versions, many are more or less similar to the original, except with a stronger Scandinavian accent, or something like that. I think the best ones are Æon Rings, which is a little different, but still excellent, and I also like Fotonovela and Jimmy Somerville's versions for being significantly different. Scott Weiland, late lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots did an absolutely killer version; very delicate and fragile. Really highlights the lyrics and their theme. A version by New Life Generation is probably the best of the "faithful" covers, by which I mean that it changes very little, but just enough to be at least as interesting as a good remix.