I Die: You Die

"I Die: You Die" is a song by the British musician Gary Numan, released as a single in August 1980. Released shortly before his fourth album, Telekon, it continued the anthemic style Numan had begun earlier in the year with "We Are Glass". The composer himself described the two singles as "Much the same thing. Both very chorus-orientated with the guitars as the main rhythmic device and the keyboards tinkling over the top".

Contents

• Track listing
• Production credits
• References

Lyrically the song was aimed at what Numan saw as an increasingly vitriolic music press:

They crawl outOf their holes for meAnd I die you dieHear them laughWatch them turn on meAnd I die you dieSee my scarsThey call me such thingsTear me, tear me, tear me

The original vinyl single was issued in a variety of different colours. It entered the UK Singles Chart at number 8 and peaked at number 6 the following week but was not included on Numan's Telekon album, released only two weeks later. It did, however, appear on overseas releases of the album, replacing the song "Sleep by Windows". An alternate mix of the A-side was used for the music video and on a limited edition, white-labelled, single release, later included as a bonus track on the 1998 CD re-issue of Telekon. The UK single B-side was a solo piano version of one of Numan's most popular songs, "Down in the Park". In the US, Australia and other countries where "I Die: You Die" supplanted "Sleep by Windows" on Telekon, the latter track was used as the B-side of the single.

Like "We Are Glass", "I Die: You Die" had been premiered live during the final legs of Numan's 1979-80 concert tour The Touring Principle, before being recorded. It has since featured regularly in Numan's performances and on his live albums. Stephin Merritt from The Magnetic Fields covered the song on the Random tribute album in 1997. It was remixed for the 1998 collection The Mix and appears on numerous compilation albums.