Cruel

Written by Philip Oakey, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh

[ you'd drink gasoline if it was in a bottle ] It's cruel, but it's true. I don't depend on you.

Title		Cruel
Songwriter		Philip Oakey, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh
Vocalist
Backing Vocals		Louise Love
Production #		226
Engineer		Juan del Toro
Producer		John von Ahlen
Dedicated to		Linda Thorson
Studio		Subterrane Recording Studio
Software		Cubase
Instruments		Linn Drum LM1, Fairlight CMI IIx, Arturia Matrix Brute, Moog Voyager II, Roland Jupiter 4 and Jupiter 8, Oberheim OBX-a, Sequential Circuits Prophet 5.
Time		4:38
BPM		120
Copyright		Subterrane Records 2023
Appears on
Additional Info: Recorded for our cover of the classic Travelogue album, which The Human League originally released in 1979. Released on Compact Disc on conzoom Records. The Deluxe Edition includes 3 Limited Edition CDs. Monday 14th of February, 2022 2032 hours. Mark came over to the studio and we started work on the music video for Cruel. We had watched various footage and tried to work out what would work best for the song. I knew I wanted to do something really quickly, as this video was supposed to come out a few weeks ago and is the final track from our Travelogue album. We found some drone footage, and then some speed racing footage knew it would work. We kept it simple and just transitioned between each scene every 4 bars, except for the choruses. Wednesday 16th of February, 2022. Louise and I caight up for dinner at a Ramen Noodle Restaurant in Midcity Arcade. I got there first and the staff mentioned that the kitchen was closing in "one minute" so I ordered for Louise and I. I ordered the Vegan Katsu Ramen Bowl for both of us. It was a bit creamy for my liking. I also ordered Mushrooms with Natto. I've never had Natto before, and I loved it! Then we went Bang Bang and had Ice cream at a place on Chinatown. It was a mountain of peanut and sesame shavings. So delicious. Then we also had a sago and melon icecream OMG it was amazing. I walked Louise to the tramstop and then went to the studio to catch up with Mark. Mark came over and we finished off the music video for Cruel. Because we wee both so happy with our first version, I realised I need to upscale the original footage we used (it was only 720p). So I used Topaz Video Enhance AI to upscale the video to 4K. Then I had to reimport it to Premiere and make a few tweaks. I also did two new mixes of Cruel and ended up using V3. There is a video with V2 but it's hidden on YouTube. Maybe one day I'll release it. Speaking of unreleased videos, Mark also edited a video for Crow and a Baby and I really should release that one too. It's pretty trippy. Anyway, we spent the rest of the night making tweaks and fine tuning to the video and I think it made all the difference. Not too shabby for 2 nights of work!