"Self Control"

When this international hit song first appeared in 1984, I was still quite young and living in a communist country. I loved it instantly. Nothing was more helpful in getting the dust off my chest than shouting along this song!

But there was a problem - I need the lyrics badly in order to sing along. I could not easily figure it out though I had been studying English diligently. It was very frustrating. The song came to me only through the radio, via a foreign channel, the jamming of which had just been lifted in the wake of the country's new opening policy. Luckily, it was broadcast rather frequently and I was able to record it with a cassette recorder.

This recorder, however, was a newly acquired valuable of the family, purchased with a special currency issued to our visiting overseas relatives. I hit the "play", "stop", and "rewind" keys so frequently that my parents became very upset with me, convinced that I would ruin the machine in any second. In fact, it was soon taken away from me and placed on my father's big desk permanently (well, at least until I left the country). He sat there all the time, often reading Oscar Wilde, smoking a cigarette, and sipping Chinese rice wine all at once.

My problem was eventually solved in another way. I gave the tape to a newly arrived young professor from Great Britain. He wrote down the lyrics for me in no time.

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Oh, the night is my world
City light painted girl
In the day nothing matters
It's the night time that flatters
In the night, no control
Through the wall something's breaking
Wearing white as you're walking
Down the street of my soul
You take my self
You take my self control
You got me livin' only for the night
Before the morning comes, the story's told
You take my self
you take my self control

Another night
Another day goes by
I never stop myself to wonder why
You help me to forget to play my role
You take my self
you take my self control

I - I live among the creatures of the night
I haven't got the will to try and fight
Against a new tomorrow
So I guess I'll just believe it
That tomorrow never comes

A safe flight
I'm living in the forest of my dream
I know the night is not as it would seem
I must believe in something
So I'll make myself believe it
That this night will never go....