Locomotion

Locomotion is OMD stepping out of their Kraftwerk-shadowed austerity into brass and daylight, and the shock of that pivot is the whole point. The song opens on a marimba-bright synth figure and a horn section that sounds borrowed from a Merseyside marching band, propulsive in a way the group's earlier work deliberately refused. Andy McCluskey sings it high and slightly strained, that reedy, boyish yearning of his cutting against the arrangement's cheerfulness so the track never settles into simple pop uplift. Lyrically it circles the mechanics of wanting — motion as a substitute for resolution, a relationship kept alive by momentum rather than understanding, the repeated title turning locomotion into both engine and evasion. Coming out of Liverpool in 1984, it caught OMD mid-negotiation between art-school seriousness and chart ambition, a tension the band would keep failing productively to resolve. Junk Culture, the album it launched, is full of this restlessness: sampling, calypso, brass, anything to escape the cold room. Play it early on a bright morning when you're leaving somewhere and haven't decided whether that's a good idea. The horns will carry you out the door before the lyric catches up, which is exactly the trick the record is pulling.