Your Telephone Been Ringing While You're Dancing in the Rain

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Your Telephone Been Ringing While You're Dancing in the Rain
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02 July 2026

Click here to read the Book (interconnected cut-ups & vignettes)

What do new romantic 1980s pop band Duran Duran, novelist William S Burroughs, new wave band The Buggles, post-punk folk band The Pogues, MTV, cinema, nostalgia, my novel Transition Events, possible worlds literary theory, retro-future histories, time loops, Alice in Wonderland, director Russell Mulcahy, Music-Evoked Autobiographical Memory (MEAM), and my niece have in common? A lot, as it happens. Well, me, really.

It is a hybrid storytelling piece consisting of both Audio (cut up soundscape collage) and Text (interconnected cut-ups & vignettes) — that traces how our memories take us into our pasts and futures. It includes scribblings, dream diaries, poems and even some bits of my surrealist “dream novel” Transition Events.

Spanning some forty years each vignette is a reflection on my own decades-long insomnia, and my search for a coherent understanding of our world that makes sense. At times these pieces will speak directly to Duran Duran, to William S Burroughs, to memory, or to part of my own creative practice; while at other times they have nothing to do with anything, other than being an alternative snippet into how I was feeling at the time.

Listen, read and enjoy.

Track Listing

This audio is a cultural and artistic re-purposing and re-rendering

  1. The Wild Boys (original pop release) — Duran Duran (1985)
  2. The Wild Boys (instrumental) — Duran Duran (1985)
  3. The Cut Ups 1966 — William S Burroughs
  4. The Wild Boys: a book of the dead — reading by Patti Smith (Berlin 2014)
  5. “The Chief Smiles” (from The Wild Boys) — reading by William S Burroughs
  6. Naropa Lecture (June 12, 1975)
    • Introduction
    • William S Burroughs lecture
  1. “Doctor Benway’s House” (introduction) — Sonic Youth
  2. “No More Stalins; No More Hitlers” — William S Burroughs
  3. Montage-MashUp of songs influenced by William S Burroughs
    • “Lust for Life” — Iggy Pop
    • “Elenor Rigby” — The Beatles
    • “Land: horses, land of a thousand dances, la mor (de)” — Patti Smith
    • “Ziggy Stardust” — David Bowie
    • “Dr. Benway’s House” — Sonic Youth
    • “Interzone” — Joy Division
    • “Street Hassle” — Lou Reed
    • “Sharkey’s Night” — Laurie Anderson
  1. David Bowie interview about cut ups on BBC
  2. “Dead Man’s Blues” — Jelly Roll Morton (1923)
  3. “The Lord’s Prayer” — William S Burroughs
  4. Collaborations
    • “‘Taint No Sin” — collaboration with Tom Waits
    • “Star Me Kitten” — collaboration with REM
    • “Sharkey’s Night” — collaboration with Laurie Anderson
    • “The Priest They Call Him” — collaboration with Kurt Cobain
  1. Razorback — Official Film Trailer (1984)
  2. Tio Mate Smiles (from The Wild Boys) — reading by William S Burroughs
  3. “Arena (An Absurd Notion)” — a “concept concert documentary” about Duran Duran’s
    1984 Sing Blue Silver Tour (released in 1985)
  4. “The Wild Boys” (9-minute extended version) — Duran Duran (1985)