Images of Peter: Finding Peter Godwin

Interview and introduction by Emily Carney

Cherchez la femme: “Images of Heaven”

Years ago (it’s been so long, I’ve forgotten what year it was exactly), I was watching one of those late night “alternative” music shows on MTV, looking for videos by my then-favorites, Joy Division and New Order (I regularly bored friends to tears in school gushing about these two bands). I thought it was slightly insulting that the very best musical artists around were only seen on a Sunday night at 12:00 a.m. and later.

I had a crappy circa-1983 VHS recorder I would tape these videos on. . . I remember these tapes were filled with old-wave hits. Pete Shelley’s “Homosapien,” the Psychedelic Furs “Love My Way,” and the Human League’s “Love Action (I Believe in Love)” were just a few of the videos I remember seeing over and over again on extremely grainy videotape.

. . . But I digress. This one particular night a video by a guy called Peter Godwin flickered to life on the Magnavox TV screen. It was called “Images of Heaven” and it straddled the line between being ridiculously 1980s and strangely intriguing. The plot of the video included a man living in a rather sophisticated townhouse (with a spiral staircase!) being tormented by a sexy woman who existed in his television, and in his mind. His apartment was filled with fur, leopard-skin rugs, and silver couch cushions. (I’ll bet it smelled like Opium by Yves Saint Laurent.)

The man looked like a more self-assured, darker version of the Human League’s Phil Oakey; at that time I assumed he was an American singer. (Later I discovered he was from England, although some Web sites have identified him as being German, perhaps because he had a sizable following in Germany). The song was amazing—slightly Italo-Disco, topped off with Peter’s lyrics about “images of heaven/which send me to hell.” As an angst-y teenager, I could relate to being tortured by images of beauty, or the very lack of possessing beauty (I was going though one of my many “awkward” stages, replete with a badly dyed fringe. I was pretty hot for a teen from Florida, not so much for the rest of the world).

As Peter Godwin clicked the television remote repeatedly in the video to find the sexy girl, I was instantly hooked on the music. Another addition was made to the VHS music video archives. I later cassette-taped the song from a local “new wave” radio show on yet another of my endless mixtapes.

Introduction:

Cherchez la femme: “Images of Heaven”
Discovering Peter Godwin
Rediscovering Peter Godwin

Click here to read more from Peter Godwin on. . .

Setting The Scene
Influences
Cult Following and Italo-Disco
Benitez, Bowie, and Electronic Music
French and Spanish Inspirations
Producing and Writing
The English and European Aesthetic
Working with Steve Winwood
Off The Map
Working with Others
Forays Into Acting
More On Acting

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15