Ieya

"Ieya" was the fourth UK single from the post-punk band Toyah, fronted by Toyah Willcox, and was released in 1980. It was later remixed and re-issued in 1982.

This track became an ever-present mainstay of Toyah's live sets, and to this day it is rare for Toyah to play a full set and not perform "Ieya". Its B-side, "Helium Song", was an extended version of the track "Spaced Walking", which, along with "Ieya", featured on the band's first full-length release, The Blue Meaning. Both tracks also featured on the 2005 compilation album The Safari Singles Collection Part 1: 1979-1981.

The single was released in several formats, including three different 7-inch vinyl releases, and for the first time, a 12-inch single.^[1]

Background

"Ieya" started off as a jam, on stage. Some months before its release the band played in Bath. The show, according to Toyah, had gone phenomenally well, but the band had trouble with the National Front. Toyah explained:

A lot of my band were Jewish, and we all found it particularly offensive that the NF would recruit at concerts - they'd go around the audience intimidating the youngest, the smallest, the scrawniest boys into joining the NF By the end of this concert in Bath, the NF were chanting 'Sieg heil' at the back. Charlie Francis, our bass-player, found this intolerable, and Joel kept taking his guitar off to go and beat them up, which we all had to stop him from doing. Instead we just shouted back 'Nazi scum' and got the audience to chant 'Nazi scum'. For the fourth encore, all we could think of doing was something that had started as a jam in the sound-check that day, which was 'IEYA'. It was a sequence of chords that grew, so every verse had more chords added to it, and it had a fantastically simple chorus, a chant, 'IEYA'. 'IEYA, I am solar, IEYA I'm the beast.'

"At the end of the concert the NF were so incensed that the police were called and had to get us out via the Gents window at the back and into a police van, because the NF were outside, kicking in cars, waiting for us at the stage door to kick our heads in. A full-blown riot was in progress", Toyah remembered.

"IEYA", according to the singer, "is about mankind believing in ourselves so much that we believe we are immortal and can become our own gods, therefore challenging God as the Devil, in the form of the Devil; man being the beast".^[2]

Necronomicon reference

Necronomicon reference ("Zion, Zuberon, Necronomicon") had to do with a paranormal experience of her own. In a 1980 interview Toyah related how nightmare images which were regularly visiting her when she was five all came back to her later in the paintings of H. R. Giger:

You'd go to bed and then the door would slam and there'd be footsteps round and round and round my bed for hours and then suddenly something would push me down into to the bed and let go so I pounced on the bed. And then whisper something in my ear which I'm not going to tell you about. It's not very nice. It's quite obscene. I conjured up this image and it became a repetitive nightmare after a while. Then a year ago I was given a book called The Necronomicon by HR Geiger. It's as important as the bible but it takes a much more naturalistic view on the creation of life. Anyway, I opened up this book and the pictures were the exact copy of the nightmares which I had when I was five years old from what the voices told me, what was said would happen to me and I had this sort of image of babies being sucked into a machine and then turned into meat to be eaten. And just babies being fouled and debauched and sexual things that I didn't understand at the time and it was the exact same image I had when I used to go to sleep at night.^[3]

Tracklisting

7" Black Vinyl

A: Ieya (5:13 Edit) [Willcox/Bogen/Bush]
B: Helium Song (Spaced Walking) [Willcox/Bush]

Catalogue Number: SAFE 28

7" White Vinyl

A: Ieya (5:13 Edit) [Willcox/Bogen/Bush]
B: Helium Song (Spaced Walking) [Willcox/Bush]

Catalogue Number: SAFE 28

7" Picture Disc Vinyl

A: Ieya (5:13 Edit) [Willcox/Bogen/Bush]
B: Helium Song (Spaced Walking) [Willcox/Bush]

Catalogue Number: SAFE P28

12" Black Vinyl

A: Ieya (Album Version) [Willcox/Bogen/Bush]
B: Helium Song (Spaced Walking) [Willcox/Bush]

12" White Vinyl

A: Ieya (Album Version) [Willcox/Bogen/Bush]
B: Helium Song (Spaced Walking) [Willcox/Bush]

Catalogue Number: SAFE L28

Produced by Steve James and Toyah. Published by Sweet 'n' Sour Songs.

Both sides on all formats ran at 45RPM.

1982 Re-issue

"Ieya"

Single by Toyah

B-side

"The Helium Song (Spaced Walking)"

Released

July 1982

Format

New Wave

[Willcox/Bogen]

Toyah singles chronology

"Brave New World"
(1982)

"Ieya"
(1982)

"Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard)"
(1982)

The re-issue of "Ieya" was the eleventh UK single by the band Toyah, fronted by Toyah Willcox, and was released in the summer of 1982. It was available in a different picture sleeve to the original single release, which featured a close up image of part of the album cover of The Blue Meaning.

The single was a rerecording of the track from the 1980 album The Blue Meaning, but given a distinctly poppier reworking. It was again backed with "The Helium Song" - the extended version of "Spaced Walking" which was included on the original single two years previously.

A shorter edit of the re-recording appeared on promo singles sent to radio stations and used in jukeboxes. This edit originally featured commercially on the 1984 Toyah Toyah! Toyah! - All the Hits album and a K-Tel compilation, Chart Heat. None of the single releases included this edit.

The single edit of this song was included on the 1999 reissue of The Changeling, while the full length version made its CD debut on the 2005 compilation The Safari Singles Collection Part 2: 1981-1983.

Track listing

7" Black Vinyl

A: Ieya [Willcox/Bush/Bogen]
B: The Helium Song (Spaced Walking)◊ [Willcox/Bush]

Catalogue Number: SAFE 28

7" White Vinyl

A: Ieya [Willcox/Bush/Bogen]
B: The Helium Song (Spaced Walking)◊ [Willcox/Bush]

Catalogue Number: SAFE 28

This was allegedly pressed because Safari ran out of black vinyl, however its worth noting that the original version of "Ieya" was also released in white and black vinyl variations.

7" Transparent Picture Disc Vinyl

A: Ieya (1980 Original version - Edit)◊ [Willcox/Bush/Bogen]
B: The Helium Song (Spaced Walking)◊ [Willcox/Bush]

Catalogue Number: SAFE P45

The original single version of "Ieya" was included on the picture disc.

Produced by Nick Tauber, except ◊ produced by Steve James & Toyah. Published by Sweet 'n' Sour Songs Ltd.

Both sides of all releases ran at 45RPM.

Personnel

Toyah Willcox : vocals
Joel Bogen : guitar
Phil Spalding : bass
Simon Phillips : drums
Simon Darlow: keyboards

Except ◊:

Toyah Willcox : vocals
Joel Bogen : guitar
Mark Henry : bass
Steve Bray : drums
Peter Bush : keyboards

References

↑ Toyah - Ieya. www.discogs.com.
↑ Toyah on the Blue Meaning. - www.toyahwillcox.com.
↑ Toyah ATV Documentary, 1980

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