Midge stood at the mic and came up with the lyrics almost straightaway: “Walked in the cold air, freezing breath on the window pane …” We were extremely arrogant back then and probably too prog-rocky. I said to the guys I was keen to do something that sounded like the late-19th-century romantics, like Grieg and Elgar. Ultravox had just hooked up with Midge Ure, who’d replaced John Foxx, and I wanted to use my classical training. Everyone wanted us to write a track called Berlin or Paris.
Then, the moment it became huge, the pressure on us to surpass it with a follow-up was incredible. It was too slow, too long and there was a violin solo – the antithesis of a commercial single. It was about £300, which was a substantial amount of money for someone who normally only bought stuff from Save the Children. The only thing that cost money was the Burberry raincoat, because I’d always wanted one. Everything I wore in the video was from thrift shops. Then you go back to your cold, grey, miserable life in Chiswick. In such a crumbling environment, you could easily fall in love. Why Vienna? There was a decaying elegance about it. You’ve gone to this beautiful place, met someone and vowed it is going to continue – and, of course, it doesn’t. Vienna was a love song to an imaginary girl. I remember going into the studio with just a line in my head: “The feeling is gone, this means nothing to me – oh Vienna!” That was all I had.Ī lot of what Ultravox did back in the day was soundbites.
Ultravox vienna official video movie#
The cinematic aspect was high on our agenda: every track was for a movie that didn’t exist. The song had the feel of a haunting mid-European classic, thanks to our keyboard player Billy Currie’s classical training. It was cold and miserable, as all these studios are, with sticky carpets and a smell. Ultravox had been dropped by their label, our management had disappeared and we had to scrape around for money just to get into a rehearsal studio. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Midge Ure, singerįirst and foremost, we weren’t trying to create a hit song, just an interesting piece of music. We wanted to sound like Elgar and Grieg’ ‘Afterwards everyone wanted us to write a song called Berlin or Paris’ … from left, Warren Cann, Midge Ure, Chris Cross and Billy Currie. ‘We were extremely arrogant and a bit too prog rock.
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