Behind the Songs: India

A selection of quotes from The Psychedelic Furs on the song "India".

Tim Butler (on being asked what the song's about): "Well, it's about India." (Slash 1980)

Richard Butler: "It actually started off being about the country India, but I change the lyrics all the time until I arrive at something final. So, it started off being about the country, cos we're called the Psychedelic Furs and all that business, and then Mountbatten [the uncle of Queen Elizabeth II] got killed and he had a daughter called India, so that came into it as well. Now, it's sort of half about the country and half about a girl – not Mountbatten's daughter – but the fact that India's a girl's name. I'll have to have a big re-think about the lyrics before it's actually recorded for the album cos the album will sort of freeze it. It doesn’t mean I can't change the lyrics in the future cos the lyrics to a lot of songs change from day to day, but recording it will be a very important time so we'll have to think about the lyrics in terms of that." (Slash 1980)

Richard Butler: "I like 'India', that's my favorite track." (ZigZag 1980)

Richard Butler (on being asked if "****", the b-side of "Sister Europe", was originally intended as the introduction to "India"): "No. We used it as the intro to 'India' afterwards. It's the introduction to 'India' played backwards." (Overview 1981)

Richard Butler: "'India' is a comparison between India and the USA. The most important line is 'India / I'm American, ha-ha.' A very abstract song." (Sounds 1981 [German magazine])

Richard Butler: "I think it's nice to take an audience through a kind of variety of feelings, you know? Like, you might sing 'Love My Way' which is the kind of tender song, and you might sing 'President Gas' which is a really angry one. And you want the audience to feel like – say, in 'Sister Europe' you want them to feel that kind of sad, sort of melancholy, and then in 'India' you want them to feel angry, you know? It's like you want them to... you want to take them through a whole spectrum of feelings." (La Edad de Oro (Spanish TV) 1984)

Richard Butler: "A lot of people have picked up on us through 'Pretty In Pink' (and) I'm glad that it means they're coming down to the shows because we're not presenting just 'Pretty In Pink' or Mirror Moves, we're presenting stuff that goes way back, like 'India' or 'Sister Europe', which I think are important songs." (Winner Magazine 1986)

John Ashton: "I'd say that fifty percent of what I heard on that first [demo] tape is there on the first album. We'd written a few things together - 'India,' 'Wedding Song' - but I think the whole sound of the Psychedelic Furs evolved around that year." (Musician 1987)

Richard Butler (on being asked if "India" was about America): "Not directly. I mean, it had America mentioned in it. I think some of the early songs like 'India' was just the idea of it to me was it was an angry song. It wasn't about anything. It was about my anger." (Radio Luxembourg 1987)

Richard Butler: "I put phrases and ideas together [in songs] that I liked. I could say something and then pass over it and move on to something else. A list of things I felt angry about would be a song like 'India'." (Sounds 1987)

Richard Butler: "John [Ashton] really wanted 'India' on [All Of This And Nothing], but Tim [Butler] hates it. We were having almighty fights about what should be on the record and Tim just said, 'I don't want "India" on it, I think it's a dirge' and with that he [__] off back to New York. Out of respect for that, we left it out." (Melody Maker 1988)

Richard Butler: "We wanted a lot of noise and we just asked people we knew, 'What do you wanna play?' So Duncan (Kilburn) went off and bought himself a saxophone. When we started we used to get compared a lot to Roxy Music because we used a sax, but it wasn't like that at all. We just did what we did, making up songs as we went along on stage, playing songs like 'India' for 15 minutes. We weren't looking over our shoulders. People always want to make sense of chaos. And they always do." (Q Magazine 1991)

Richard Butler: "'India' was written during Vince [Ely's] audition for the band, and we were so pleased with it that he got the job. The idea of the long introduction was for it to be recorded quite quietly at first, so people would turn up their stereos to get it to a 'normal' level, then when the song started, it would be incredibly loud and send everybody running to turn it down." (Should God Forget liner notes, 1997)

John Ashton (on the recording of "Imitation Of Christ"): "I was experimenting with an early guitar synth, an Arp Avatar. The best thing about it was its Hex Fuzz. I also used it on 'India.'" (Should God Forget liner notes, 1997)

John Ashton (on being asked about his personal favorite PFurs songs and which song he enjoys playing live): "'Dumb Waiters' for its sheer full on attack. 'All Of This And Nothing', 'India', 'Pretty In Pink', 'President Gas', 'Heaven', and 'Highwire Days', for pretty much the same reason." (Modern Guitars Magazine 2005)

Tim Butler (on his brother Simon): "He was in [the band] for a while… Simon actually helped write 'Imitation Of Christ' and 'India.'" (Ink 19 2011)

John Ashton: "A lot of [The Psychedelic Furs] was pre-written by virtue of the fact that the band had been around a couple of years. So there were songs there. I joined the band in '78, and 'Sister Europe' was already a song, a version of 'Imitation Of Christ' was there, 'We Love You' was already there. And there were other songs that were coming along, like 'India,' that I brought to the band. 'Fall' was another, and 'Blacks/Radio,' which was just kind of a jam." (Popdose 2012)

Tim Butler (on The Furs' early years): "I think people may have latched on to us at the time because they were bored with the three-minute format of punk, and they could get lost in long songs like 'Imitation Of Christ' or 'India', you know?" (Tucson Weekly 2013)

Tim Butler (on being asked if songs like "India" and "Sister Europe" reflected the sound of The Furs' early beginnings or if they're part of the transformation when the band learned how to play and write songs): "I think 'Sister Europe' is more going toward writing songs with space. 'India' was pretty much a jam in the studio that Richard started singing over the top of." (Westword 2013)

John Ashton (on being asked what was his fondest memory throughout his career): "There are a lot of memories that come flooding back at different times but, John Cale getting on stage with his viola at The Ritz in NYC and jamming on 'India' has to be up there!" (Officially A Yuppie 2014)

Tim Butler: "One of the first times we met [David Bowie] we were playing in Harrah in New York in our first album tour. We'd finished the set, and we didn't used to do encores. But we'd finished the set and David Bowie came bursting into the dressing room with David Byrne [of Talking Heads]. They introduced themselves, and David Bowie said, 'David Byrne and I were just arguing over who's going to produce your second album.' That was the first time we met him – we met him other times over the years – but he said, 'Why don't you do an encore?' And Richard said, 'Well, we don't usually do encores.' And he goes, 'Go on, go and do another one!' So we went out and we did 'India' [laughs]. A request from David Bowie." (Music-Illuminati 2018)

Tim Butler: "I think ['Don't Believe'] is the most – the one that most harkens back to the early sort of aggression of The Furs; circa 'India,' the first album." (Interview with Kyle Meredith, 2020)

Richard Butler (on the inspiration for "India"): "I remember hearing stories about Goa and how all the hippies, mainly Americans, would go over there, and there were needles all over the beach and what a ruin it was." (Songfacts 2020)

Richard Butler: "[Goa] was a hippie destination [in India]. It turned out to be a junkie destination, and a lot of American hippie tourists went there. But it was kind of laughing, kind of sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek when it says, 'India, I'm American, ha ha ha.'" (Songfacts 2020)

Tim Butler: "I think we had a couple of songs that came out of jamming around one song onstage, and something would develop. 'India' came out of that, from the intro to 'Flowers' off the first album. That's a bit psychedelicky. Though there were no psychedelic drugs involved. Maybe a few pints of lager! Maybe more than that." (Tower Records 2020)

Richard Butler: "We wanted ['The Boy That Invented Rock & Roll'] to be eerie and dark, but if we'd wanted it to have a big heralding opening we might have done something a little more like the beginning of 'India' for instance." (Vive Le Rock! 2020)

Tim Butler (on his parents): "From the early days they were really proud of us though. Of course, in the early days there was talk of us getting proper jobs, and how we couldn't rely on this music, but Richard and I have stuck at it, while Simon dropped out and went to university. He was in the original band and co-wrote 'Imitation Of Christ' and 'India'. Yeah, they were always proud of us. When they had friends over they would bring out their scrapbook." (WriteWyattUK 2020)

Rich Good: "It's relentless. It has this grand opus beginning that's almost pompous, and then bam!" (Palm Springs Life 2024)

Photo: Terry Lott