A Screw

For other uses, see Screw (disambiguation).
"A Screw"
A dollar sign with a yellow and black striped infill surrounded by a black outline on a yellow and black striped background.
Single by Swans
Released2 May 1986 (1986-05-02)
GenreIndustrial
Length15:02
LabelK.422
Producer(s)Michael Gira
Swans singles chronology
"Holy Money"
(1986) 		"A Screw"
(1986) 		"Public Castration Is a Good Idea"
(1986)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]

A Screw is a single by the New York City experimental rock group Swans. The single's three songs were later appended as bonus tracks to the CD release of Holy Money.

Background and composition

The single's title track sees the band diving their farthest into the realm of industrial dance music, complete with dubby, distorted vocals and complex programmed rhythms, a distinct contrast to the naturalistic album version.[1] The piano-driven ode to obsessive love, "Blackmail", was Jarboe's first Swans track as lead vocalist.[1] A reworked version of "Blackmail" appears on the 1987 album Children of God.[2]

Regarding his contribution to the single's title track, drummer Ted Parsons said:

"But you know the first recording I did with Swans, was "A Screw" on Holy Money? I get in there – I can’t remember what the studio was – and Michael Gira the singer said, "Well, you know what? There’s no drum kit here, we just want to set a snare drum up in the hallway and have you hit it." And I was like, "What? OK." So they set the snare up in this big hallway down this corridor, and I hit the drum, and that was it. They sampled it, and he said, "OK, that’s great, go home." That was it. That was "A Screw.""[3]

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."A Screw"5:40
2."Blackmail"4:42
3."A Screw (Holy Money)" (Mix)4:58
Total length:15:20

Notes

  • Track 1 and 3 were mislabeled on most original releases. Later issues like the "Greed/Holy Money" compilation corrected this.[4]

Personnel

Charts

Chart (1986) Peak
position
UK Indie Chart[5] 4

References

  1. ^ a b c Raggett, Ned. "A Screw". Allmusic. Retrieved March 2, 2013.
  2. ^ "Children of God Discogs entry". discogs.com. Discogs. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
  3. ^ Fernando, S.H. "Interview: Swans, Prong, and Godflesh drummer Ted Parsons". daily.redbullmusicacademy.com. Red Bull Music Academy Daily. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
  4. ^ "Original "A Screw" Discogs entry". discogs.com. Discogs. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
  5. ^ Lazell, Barry (1997). Indie Hits 1980-1989. Cherry Red Books. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011. Retrieved September 5, 2014.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)