For the book by Jeffrey Archer see To Cut a Long Story Short (book)

To Cut a Long Story Short (book)

To Cut a Long Story Short is a 2000 short story collection by British writer and politician Jeffrey Archer. Unlike his previous collections, which have contained 12 stories, this one has 15. A list of the featured stories is below....

"To Cut a Long Story Short" is a 1980 song by Spandau Ballet

Spandau Ballet

Spandau Ballet are a British band formed in London in the late 1970s. Initially inspired by, and an integral part of, the New Romantic fashion, their music has featured a mixture of funk, jazz, soul and synthpop. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s, achieving ten Top Ten singles...

. It was their first single and reached number 5 on the UK singles chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

. It appeared on the album Journeys to Glory

Journeys to Glory

Journeys to Glory is the first studio album by Spandau Ballet. It was released on March 6, 1981 by Chrysalis Records, just ten days after its recording at Trident Studios. The first editions of the vinyl version had an embossed cover. Early CD releases featured the original white cover...

.

Reception

Allmusic described the single as minimalist spiky synth pop and compares its style as reminiscent to early Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark are a synthpop group whose founding members are originally from the Wirral Peninsula, England...

 with a dirty, overdriven synth sound and a stomping Gary Glitter-like backbeat. Though largely forgotten today due to Spandau Ballet's later change in style towards a slick, soul-pop (which occurred around 1983) the reviewer considers that it might fairly be considered a minor lost classic of the early-'80s U.K. synth pop scene.

Inspiration, meaning and use as Sample

The song has been speculated to be about a veteran

Veteran

A veteran is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."...

, perhaps of Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, who is drafted and suffers from PTSD, the lyrics are told from the man's point of view as a boy being drafted, how he gets no answers as to why he must join the war.
To Cut a Long Story Short was Vince Clarke

Vince Clarke

Vince Clarke is an English synthpop musician and songwriter. Clarke has been involved with a number of successful groups, including Depeche Mode, Yazoo, The Assembly and Erasure....

's inspiration to write Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. The group's original line-up consisted of Dave Gahan , Martin Gore , Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke...

's Just Can't Get Enough to which the keyboard style bears a certain similarity.

The signature riff from To Cut a Long Story Short is used as a sample looping throughout the Freestylers

Freestylers

The Freestylers are a British electronic music group, generally fitting into the breakbeat genre. Recently their style has incorporated more of a drumstep sound, more in line with The Prodigy and other such artists.-Career:...

 track In love with you on their album Adventures in Freestyle

Adventures in Freestyle

Adventures in Freestyle is the fourth album by the British electronic music group Freestylers, released on 2 October 2006.The album contains the track "Painkiller", which has been released as a single before the album and features Pendulum, with whom they had already collaborated on Pendulum's...

External links

• Video of the song performed on UK TV's Top of The Pops (mediocre quality recording but shows the distinctive dress sense of the band at that time)