Batman (1989)
The Batman album’s printed lyrics inform you which vocals are by which character and Lemon Crush (named after Anna Garcia’s favourite drink) is sung from Vicki Vale’s perspective, a stockholm syndrome fantasy about Batman who is at one point imagined as a masked “robba”. Tense and owing more than a passing resemblance to Thriller, the music is pounding and full of dark delirium but the sugary and citric taste of the title always seemed better suited to one of his lively ballads like Crucial or Shhh instead. If this song were to be any drink it would be a cocktail of sambuca, Red Rull and underground lake water although I’m sure the title was chosen more for its Gainsbourg-esque sexual connotations than for its beverage origin. As the song ends we’re treated to a few seconds of strummed gorgeousness wrapped in pulsing synth washes and it is a passing glimpse into an alternate remixed universe. I would have loved for it to have taken hold and spread over the song’s brackish remainder like Japanese knotweed.
