About The Song
“Union of the Snake” is the ninth single by the English pop rock band Duran Duran, released on 17 October 1983.
It was the lead single from the band’s third album Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983), and preceded its release by one month. It became one of Duran Duran’s most popular singles, hitting number one on the US Cash Box and peaking at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 for three consecutive weeks at the end of 1983. Further chart movement was prevented by “Say It Isn’t So” by Daryl Hall and John Oates and “Say Say Say” by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson. It also reached number three on the UK Singles Chart.
Cash Box said the song “stealthily stalks along on Simon Le Bon’s clenched vocals, but more cautiously [than ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’] in the night-time nightmare world depicted in these lyrics.”
The B-side to “Union of the Snake” was the atmospheric piece “Secret Oktober”, a collaboration between keyboardist Nick Rhodes and Le Bon. Forty-eight hours before “Union of the Snake” was due to be pressed in the US, the band were informed that they didn’t have a B-side for the single, neither did the band have any material that was appropriate for the B-side. So Rhodes, Le Bon and producer Sadkin set out to work on “Secret Oktober” at 301 Studios in Sydney, Australia (where the Seven and the Ragged Tiger album was being completed); it had been written, recorded and mixed within the 24-hour period they had to meet the deadline.
Video
Lyrics
Telegram force and ready
I knew this was a big mistake
There’s a fine line drawing
My senses together
And I think it’s about to break
If I listen close I can hear them singers, oh
Voices in your body coming through on the radio
The union of the snake is on the climb
Moving up it’s gonna race it’s gonna break
Through the borderline
Nightshades on a warning
Give me strength at least give me a light
Give me anything even sympathy
There’s a chance you could be right
If I listen close I can hear them singers, oh
Voices in your body coming through on the radio
The union of the snake is on the climb
Moving up it’s gonna race it’s gonna break
Through the borderline
The union of the snake is on the climb
Moving up it’s gonna race it’s gonna break
Through the borderline
If I listen close I can hear them singers, oh
Voices in your body coming through on the radio
The union of the snake is on the climb
Moving up it’s gonna race it’s gonna break
Through the borderline
The union of the snake is on the climb
It’s gonna race, it’s gonna break, it’s gonna move up
Through the borderline
The union of the snake is on the climb
Moving up it’s gonna race it’s gonna break
Through the borderline
The union of the snake is on the climb
It’s gonna race, it’s gonna break, it’s gonna move up
To the borderline