Depeche Mode “Leave In Silence” 1982. Last week we were vacationing at a cabin in way way up north Wisconsin and each year we drive out about an hour west to Superior (and Duluth, MN). There used to be a shockingly great used record store in Superior – Vinyl Cave Records – which closed in 2016 and transferred a lot of its inventory to Globe News, the business next door that is a weird mix of magazines, tchotchkes, crappy candy and now, records. This was one of several Depeche Mode singles we acquired; this copy from Spain on Victor/RCA (and subtitled “Partir en silencio”).

“Leave in Silence” was Depeche Mode’s sixth single and it hit #18 on the UK charts. A different version of the song with a running time of almost a minute longer was included on A Broken Frame, the band’s second LP. The song is darkly beautiful, lush in minor. The video, though, is comically awful and does not match the mood of the song at all; the band hated it too, choosing not to include on their Some Great Videos VHS compilation.The B-side of the single has “Excerpt From: My Secret Garden,” an instrumental remix of “My Secret Garden” (which also appears on A Broken Frame). The track is a good match for “Leave In Silence” as it too has a succulent feel: the remix’s intro starts with a keyboard effect that recalls the dripping of water off of overgrown greenery in a hidden garden.