(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang - Remastered 2006

This was the first single released by Heaven 17, a British synth-pop band comprising former Human League members Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh on keyboards plus vocalist Glenn Gregory. It was a minor hit in their home country, peaking at #45 on the singles chart and also reaching #29 on the Billboard Dance Music/Club Play Singles listing.

The song's electro-funk sound was inspired by American dance music bands like Cameo, Parliament and Funkadelic, which Heaven 17 were listening to at the time. Martyn Ware told us: "We wanted to do something that was funky because we loved the funk, so we started off with that as an idea: let's do this really fast. Nobody's really got anything out there that's, like, 160 BPM. We used the Burroughs cut up method for making lyrics, as an inspirational start anyway. There was a magazine called Record Mirror in the UK that had a dance chart, or a disco chart as they called it in those days. We were all big fans of disco music, even though it was out of fashion then. But we didn't care. So we looked at all the titles. It wasn't all disco, there was some credible stuff. It ranged from stuff like, 'Let's All Chant,' to deep, more like Sly & the Family Stone-type stuff. We looked at all these titles because we loved the terminology. It was all very mysterious to us with words like hip talk, slang. That's why we came up with 'thang' as a part of the title. We were so excited to have 'thang' in there because it was a really cool word."

The lyrics of the song reference Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan and include a wry joke about cruise missiles. Ware recalled to us how the track evolved into denunciations of the UK and US political leaders: "We started out jamming together loads of these cut up titles and coming up with ridiculous lines for the song, like, 'Heart USA. I feel your power.' What the hell does that mean? I mean, really, what does it mean? We just thought it was a comedy song. I know people will read meaning into it." Ware continued: "Then, as we got more into writing the lyrics, we thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to have some real world people in there?' We were obsessed with Reagan coming into power and the specter of Margaret Thatcher coming into power and those were some very genuine concerns. The whole world was going to be blown to smithereens. It seems a little melodramatic now, but it was a genuine thing at the time if you remember. So we thought, 'It's time for action here. We're all political people. It's time to walk the walk.' So as it evolved, the songwriting – it only took two days to write – it turned into this really bizarre hybrid of politics and dancing and comedy and black American soul influence."