October 1983: Duran Duran Release UNION OF THE SNAKE

By the fall of 1983, the demand for all things Duran Duran had reached stratospheric heights. The band's second album, Rio, was a global breakthrough, exploding in America thanks in large part to the rise of fledgling cable network, MTV. With MTV hammering clips for songs including "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Rio" in heavy rotation, the group's stateside profile rose considerably. Enough that Duran Duran's self-titled debut from 1981 was re-released in April 1983 with a brand new single: "Is There Something I Should Know?," which soared straight to #1 on the UK Singles chart, and peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in America.

As the summer of 1983 shifted to the fall, Duran Duran was set to embark on a massive world tour that November, which was slated to find the group headlining arena shows in America for the first time in 1984. Setting the stage for this new era was Duran Duran's ninth single, and the first song from their third album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger: "Union of the Snake."

The song was a result of a songwriting session near Cannes in France, with a bulk of Seven and the Ragged Tiger recorded at AIR Studios on the Caribbean island of Montserrat with producer Alex Sadkin. Mixing on "Union of the Snake" was being worked on right up to the last possible minute before the tapes had to be turned over to the label.

While Simon Le Bon is famously tight-lipped when it comes to the meaning of Duran Duran lyrics, he made a slight reveal about "Union of the Snake" a couplet in the tune ("Moving up it's gonna race it's gonna break/Through the borderline") within the 1984 book issued by the band, The Book of Words: "Borderline might be one between the conscious and subconscious minds." Le Bon later admitted that it was a reference to tantric sex.

The abstract lyrics, according to Le Bon, are among Duran Duran's direct nods to Jim Morrison and the Doors: "There are times when I get into books and things and some of that comes up on the record or I'll get into a certain artist," the singer told Spinner. "An obvious example of that is 'Union of The Snake' and 'Hungry Like The Wolf' are very much related to Jim Morrison and his lyrical ideas."

"Union of the Snake" was released October 17, 1983. The single soared to #3 on the UK Singles chart; It peaked at #3 on the Hot 100 in America for three weeks in a row, blocked from the top spot by Hall and Oates' "Say It Isn't So" and "Say Say Say" by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson.

The single arrived with the atmospheric non-LP b-side, "Secret Oktober." The b-side was written, recorded and mixed by Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes in a marathon 24-hour period when they realized they didn't have anything to put on the flip of the single.

Helping drive the tune up the charts was a wild conceptual music video, directed by Simon Milne. Watch it here.

FUN FACT: According to drummer Roger Taylor, the beat on the track was influenced by David Bowie's 1983 classic, "Let's Dance."