As the UK synthpop scene began to emerge from the shadows of post-punk at the end of the 1970s, one standout figure unexpectedly surged to the top of the charts, astonishing both fans and fellow musicians alike.
While artists like John Foxx pushed Ultravox into new electronic territories and The Human League experimented with alien sounds in “Being Boiled,” Gary Numan catapulted to fame with his synth-laden track “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” which reached number one in May 1979.
Initially performing under the name Tubeway Army, Numan’s early work, later compiled in The Plan, showcased a bold embrace of punk energy. A fortuitous encounter with a Minimoog synthesizer during a studio session would greatly influence his future songwriting, blending the instrument’s unique tones with themes inspired by dystopian science fiction novels by authors like JG Ballard.
While the debut album, Tubeway Army, featured guitars prominently, it was with his second album, Replicas, that Numan truly crafted his signature sound. Following the haunting track “Down in the Park,” the single “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” presented a bewildering mix of synth lines from the Minimoog and Polymoog, with Numan’s detached vocal style and spoken word verses that defy traditional chorus structures. The song’s disjointed nature was a result of its unusual creative process, merging two previously separate compositions.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2014, Numan recounted, “I wrote it on an old pub piano my parents bought for me, which I didn’t know was out of tune. Originally, it consisted of two different songs, hence its length of over five minutes. Frustrated, I played them back-to-back one day and realized they fit together perfectly.”
In keeping with the themes of Replicas, Numan infused “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” with visions of a future populated by androids. The song evokes imagery reminiscent of Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was later loosely adapted into the iconic film Blade Runner. Numan illustrates a vivid scene of loneliness, where an isolated character longs for an electronic companion, while a foreboding ‘grey man’ lurks outside.
Lyrics such as “There’s a knock on the door” and “I don’t think it meant anything to you,” along with the quotation marks around “Friends” in the title, hint at a robotic sex worker ordered by the lonely protagonist, a concept Numan has discussed in various interviews over the years.
“Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” paved the way for Numan’s even greater success with The Pleasure Principle and its worldwide hit “Cars.” The song also found new life in 2002 when it was sampled in the Sugababes’ track “Freak Like Me,” which Numan publicly stated he preferred over his own recording.
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