It's Immaterial
Driving Away From Home (Jim's Tune)

”If I could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint it”

Edward Hopper might be the perfect artist to capture the unease of our times, Automat is the proof. A woman sits at an isolated table in a deserted café, lost in the gaze of a small cup of coffee. A suspended existence, a fragmented and elusive physical and psychological space where a sense of resigned solitude and piercing nostalgia overwhelms the attentive observer. Nighttime metropolitan arteries, abandoned gas stations, wind-swept roads, glimpses of old tracks, rundown motels—a narrated America later portrayed in Robert Altman’s films and sung by Springsteen in Nebraska, that of rural and urban landscapes united by a transversal discomfort of the soul, that of the dream shipwrecked in a thousand contradictions, is the central element in Hopper's works. However, this story is not about America, even though it played an important role.

A couple of months before Christmas 1985, London's Siren Records, a subsidiary of Virgin, decides to send John Campbell and Jarvis Whitehead, accompanied by Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads, to freezing Milwaukee to begin recording "Driving Away From Home." Initially, the record label had chosen David Byrne, only to dismiss him as he was then entirely absorbed by Eno’s cosmic projects.

As I was saying, we are in the States in Milwaukee, and the reason for this transatlantic journey is to give the track a country-western rhythmic section, a canonical American road song imprint. Campbell and Whitehead agree with the idea but not entirely: yes to the western mood, but they want to add something British, cowboy boots, and hat but sitting in a tea room drinking excellent Earl Grey, strictly stained with one-fifth milk. A first version is recorded, then gradually the rhythmic section recruited by Jerry Harrison with good Nashville musicians is diplomatically shown the door. The American adventure brings to the multitrack the drum parts, the keyboard parts by Jerry himself, and finally the most important part, as hinted above and soon revealed here.

One of the last evenings of their stay in Milwaukee, John, Jarvis, and Jerry decide to have a drink at the Skylight Bistro. A classic American venue, dimly lit, with a small stage, that day hosts a blues band. In the midst of the stage, one of the musicians, recognizing a familiar face among the audience, shouts: "Oh, we heard that Jim is in town." Soon afterward, Jim Lieber climbs onto the stage and brings the harmonica to his lips. It takes John and Jarvis a blink of an eye, after looking into each other's eyes, to realize that’s just what they needed.

There is a piece of us in every person we meet in our existence, and vice versa.

A perfect mosaic where each individual has their own tile, all contribute to revealing the full picture. An important tile in John and Jarvis's life was provided by Lieber, who the next morning records a couple of tracks with his magical harmonica before leaving immediately for Nashville. Who knows if he ever returned to Milwaukee, perhaps he was there only for an appointment with fate.

January 1986, It’s Immaterial return to London and lock themselves in the recording studio with their producer Dave Bates to create a new version of "Driving Away From Home." Bates also recruits Dave Bascombe, particularly struck by the excellent work done in Songs From the Big Chair by Tears for Fears. Bascombe regards the track as excellent, although he makes some changes to the drums (a comic cadence, in his words, like Benny Hill Show) and introduces a singer from the Sirens stable, a certain Merran Laginestra. Very little remains of the initial structure, so much so that Jerry Harrison specifically asks to have his name removed from the credits list.

The new version edited at number 363 Kensington Street has something magical, it’s evident, everyone involved in the work realizes it immediately. To start with, it remains, as initially intended, an on-the-road song. Something ghostly in the psycho-country meshes insinuates itself and flows fluidly throughout the track, cold asphalt for miles up to Newcastle and perhaps beyond [semi quote.] Here we find Edward Hopper and his "spiritual autobiographies," icy urban landscapes, metropolitan universes equal and parallel to those of Campbell and company.

In every city someone to turn to, something to see, just press the foot hard on the accelerator and drive, drive away from home, perhaps for a sense of freedom or perhaps to escape, from a place or from oneself. Campbell reviews the places of his life, one where you could live, the one with a shop where you’ll find everything, absolutely everything, and the one with clean air, away from the smokestacks. All here, in sequence, they flow on the M62 in a journey that seems never-ending. Even England, like the States, has its abandoned gas stations, its wind-swept roads, its shabby motels, geographical landscapes, and places of the soul.

This second version of the track is so characterized by Lieber's harmonic accents that the name of the track is appended with "Jim’s Tune." The clamor of It's Immaterial seems incessant after the bang of "Driving Away From Home." A singular and original outsider that, by a twist of fate, finds itself climbing the charts, reaching as high as the 18th position in the UK.

Virgin has managed to ruin everything for It’s Immaterial primarily, and reflexively for itself. The major cuts the advertising budget for the record, convinced that it already had strong legs to stand on its own. First mistake. Then it underestimates the market, offering a number of copies of the record markedly lower than the demand. In short, another two hundred thousand individuals who would want the record are left outside the store with money in hand. Second mistake. Fatal.

"It’s only thirty-nine miles, And forty-five minutes to Manchester"

They never reached the top ten of the British charts again, I’m not even sure if they ever reached Manchester, maybe they went as far as Newcastle or Glasgow [semi quote.], but for almost forty years at regular intervals, I get in the car with them. The spectral echo of the harmonica traces the way. One could drive with eyes closed, far from home.

For thirty miles or more.