“Promo poster produced by Beggars Banquet for the release of the single ‘Go West’ in August 1984.
One interesting factoid is that I remember working on the phasing at the end of the song in the studio in Rockfield when we put an ashtray on one of the spools of the master tape which slowed down the spinning and created the phasing effect in the old-school 60s style. Which shows we were keen on exploring vintage recording techniques at a time when everybody was trying to be a robot haha
But at other times we were quite happy to use technology, like the ‘E-mu Emulator II’ which is all over the recordings of ‘Sanctuary’… and then we ended up in a digital studio to record the rest of the ‘Love’ album so it was just pretty much day by day.
I have to say though, I was never 100% happy with how ‘Go West’ turned out... I just thought it was still missing one little part to make it complete. It had some great elements, but whether it was the songwriting or the arrangement or a bit of both just felt we didn't quite nail it at the time. I obviously wasn't unhappy enough to not let it come out but I just remember thinking it didn't feel quite right.
Anyone who saw us earlier in the year would know initially this was called “Crazy Spinning Circles” but by the time it was released it had become “Go West” but still kept its original name in the brackets. That was definitely down to Ian... and he wanted to call it something different.”
Billy – June 2026