Freezing breath on a window pane
Lying and waiting
A man in the dark in a picture frame
So mystic and soulful
A voice reaching out in a piercing cry
It stays with you until
The feeling has gone, only you and I
It means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Oh, Vienna
The music is weaving
Haunting notes, pizzicato strings
The rhythm is calling
Alone in the night as the daylight brings
A cool, empty silence
The warmth of your hand and a cold grey sky
It fades to the distance
The image has gone, only you and I
It means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Oh, Vienna
This means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Oh, Vienna

Ultravox (earlier styled as Ultravox!) were a British new wave band, formed in London in April 1974 as Tiger Lily. Between 1980 and 1986, they scored seven Top Ten albums and seventeen Top 40 singles in the UK, the most successful of which was their 1981 hit "Vienna".
From 1974 until 1979, singer John Foxx was frontman and the main driving force behind Ultravox. Foxx left the band in March 1979 to embark on a solo career. Midge Ure officially took over as lead singer, guitarist and frontman on 1 November 1979 (despite writing and rehearsing with the band from April of that year) after he and keyboardist Billy Currie worked in the studio project Visage. Ure revitalised the band and steered it to commercial chart success lasting until 1987, at which time the group disbanded.
A new line-up, led by Currie, was formed in 1992, but achieved limited success with two albums failing to chart and one solitary single reaching 90 in the UK chart. The band's best-known line-up of Currie, Ure, bassist Chris Cross and drummer Warren Cann re-formed in 2008 and performed a series of shows in 2009 and 2010 before releasing a new studio album, Brill!ant, in May 2012 which reached 21 in the British Album Charts. In November 2013, Ultravox performed as special guests on a four-date UK arena tour with Simple Minds. These shows proved to be Ultravox's last, as in 2017 both Currie and Ure indicated that Ultravox had run its course.
And you know you had to be there if you know what the hell I just said...
"Oh Clearasil....." In my teens I fell into the need for a fashionable non-fashionable look. This was driven by a newly discovered itch, ....GIRLS. My English teacher, and only female in my world at the time, was suddenly no longer enough.
I spent most of my time trying to make sense of “fashion” music and girls on zero funding and the soundtrack suddenly got stuck on Ultravox´s Vienna. Joy Division worked for just about every other moment.The solution was a combination of my favourite music, penguin classic (second hand of course) and clothing from thrift and charity shops.
Simultaneously and out nowhere arrived another itch, Acne, which was accompanied by a constant bad temper towards my parents and a new incredible superpower…. I knew everything that was worth knowing!
I could be seen stalking on The Tube, London´s underground, sorting out my thinly populated sideburns and eye liner while adjusting the collar on my too small vintage naval uniform. The Acne? Thanks to Clearasil I could convert those luminescent green infectious lumps into "natural" pink mini muffins. A win then!
Incredible.
Incredible.
What's not to like?
This version is too polished, the original mellotron version from the eighties is the one i like.
Live Aid version - one of the best vocal performances ever?
Live Aid version - one of the best vocal performances ever?
I agree. However three years later I saw Midge Ure solo literally in a warehouse in Santa Clara, CA, and he performed this song. We were 100-125 people crammed into a space, a weeknight, how I got a ticket I have no idea. Anyway, lights scrambling like some acid trip gone bad as he belted this out - I was completely clear headed and I can say it was sensational.
This song takes me right back to college. Gen X really did have some great stuff, didn't we?
Gen X and Boomers alike.
(being a late 50's child, this band was huge in our crowd)
This song takes me right back to college. Gen X really did have some great stuff, didn't we?
A 1980 release would put it in very early Gen x territory for listeners. ( 1 yr. old to 15 yrs. old). More the late Boomer era. (which goes to '64, so teenage and twenty-something listeners, which I think would be the main audience)
Quovademus wrote:
Nostalgic - When we were young.... How old is this song?
springof63 wrote:
Released in the UK 15th Jan 1981.
I never really liked this song much - it got played to death (and beyond!) on the common room jukebox at Southampton college when i was there. Looked it up on Wiki cause i wasn't sure if it was from 1980 or 1981.
Then i really had to laugh - Ultravox Vienna spent 4 weeks at Nr2 on the UK chart, and was never Nr1 - held off the top spot for 1 week by John Lennon's 'Woman' (fair enough), and then laughingly held off for a further THREE WEEKS by Joe Dolce's 'Shaddap You Face'
How Appropriate!!
It means nothing to me either, except that now whenever i hear Vienna from now on, instead of thinking "oh why are they playing this?" i'm always gonna be smiling instead. Thanx Bill & RP!!
Re-posted from 2015...
oh, Shaddup You Face