BANDCAMP

BEAT OF THE DRUM

MARTIN HALL
7″/12″
AUGUST 1988
VIRGIN RECORDS (111675/611675)

“Beat of the Drum” was the first single to be released from Martin Hall’s hugely succesful album Presence released in September 1988. At the end of the year the song would have become the most played Danish single on the leading radio station The Voice in 1988 (then and now the biggest commercial radio in Denmark).

The single was released in both 7″ and 12″ formats as well as in a press kit box edition entitled The Final Comeback.

1. Beat of the Drum (4:54)
2. Repeat of the Drum (4:54)

BEAT OF THE DRUM

Now one day I woke up to some rules of life
That a serious heart needs a light mind to survive
That if you only hope you won’t get very far
‘Cause dreams call for action

No matter what you want the way is to begin
‘Cause knowing all about it is not the living thing
And those who sit and ask for great things all the time
Well I hope they’ve sorted out the many small things on the line

A focus inside out
The still of the centre
You must live by demand
But also surrender

As the beat of the drum beats the ghosts on the run
So the beat of my heart keeps me wondering
Now it’s been said this world is a stage
Well then if that is true
It’s an unwritten play
That makes being a becoming

It’s so easy seen when it’s someone else
But are you any better when you’re by yourself
‘Cause in this hall of mirrors you’re in a counterpoint
Where it takes one to recognize one

Now there are those who say that life is hard and then you die
Well petty leads to pity if you do not wonder why
‘Cause the way to solve a problem is to get a bigger one
So to those who cry for freedom
Well there’s working to be done

Flemming Nygaard: Keyboards, cello
Lotte Grundlev: Backing vocals
Martin Hall: Vocals, keyboards, guitar
Tina Schæfer: Backing vocals

Design: Birgitte Wester
Photo: Robin Skjoldborg

Presence received excellent reviews. It was also the first Hall record to ever to enter the official top 20. The album is a crystalline pop production featuring catchy songs with grand-scale arrangements and epic, highly charged lyrics. The record was subsequently released throughout Scandinavia and Northern Europe where it also generated a line of great reviews.

The album’s second single “Real Thing” became a minor radio hit in the first months of 1989.

The recording of Presence were made using a Fairlight CMI music computer. The album is co-produced with Flemming Nygaard, former member of Under For as well as musician on Hall’s previous record, Cutting Through.

Nygaard was both a classically trained cellist and a highly gifted technician – all in all an invaluable aid to Hall in the making of Presence. When Nygaard tragically died in the late summer of 1989, Hall dedicated his newly written Requiem‘ to him, an organ concert performed at Taksigelseskirken (a church in Copenhagen) in December.