Heart Like Chernobyl

Origin
Dave Ball said: “When I wrote the music to Heart Like Chernobyl it was at the height of lockdown and I had been alone for about 6 weeks. I was feeling a bit Joy Division and recalled their track Isolation”. Marc Almond later wrote lyrics about a person who becomes morally toxic due to constant exposure to news about bad events happening in the world. Chernobyl nuclear disaster is referenced in the title and trough the song, including samples in its beginning and end: recording of one of emergency calls to the fire department and fragment of Mikhail Gorbachev's speech regarding the tragedy, with click sounds of Geiger counter.

Record and release
Like other songs on *Happiness Not Included, “Heart Like Chernobyl” was recorded during 2020 lockdown, with the duo working on it separately: Ball programmed and recorded the track digitally in his home studio, Kitchen Sink Drama.

“Heart Like Chernobyl” was the first released song from the album, but as taster for it and not as single. It was announced as such on July 30th, following the announce of the album. On 12th August 2021 (a day earlier than listed in initial announce) its lyric video published on Soft Cell's official YouTube channel, followed by posts on social media pages and the track being available on streaming platforms. The album is scheduled for release on February 2022.

Other versions
An extended mix of the song by Dave Ball was realessed on Bruises On All My Illusions CD single on 18 February, 2022.

Personnel

 * Written-By (music), synthesizer – David Ball
 * Written-By (lyrics), vocals – Marc Almond
 * Production, sound engineering, synthesizer, drum programming – Philip Larsen
 * Sound engineering – Barry Grint

Lyric video
The lyric video for “Heart Like Chernobyl” was created by Ewan McWilliam of Design Workshop in 2021. It consists of video footages of Pripyat city, Ukraine, where Chernobyl power plant is located, in a variety of color effects, corresponding to artworks of the album. It was published on band's official YouTube channel and social media pages on August 12th 2021.

Music video
The video for “Heart Like Chernobyl” was filmed on 18th August 2021, in Tate Britain Museum, London, UK. The set of the video is red lit part of installation Rupture No.1: Blowtorching The Bitten Peach by artist Heather Phillipson.

Finished video first appeared on Almond's official web site, on September 14th 2021. On 17th September it was published on Soft Cell's official YouTube channel.

Availability
“Heart Like Chernobyl” appears on following records.

Original version of the song is also available on streaming platforms.

Listen

 * Official uploads on YouTube

Trivia

 * Being the first presented song from the album, “Heart Like Chernobyl” has determined the theme of its visual artworks, icnluding singles and streaming platform covers – a Ferris wheel in Pripyat.
 * On streaming platform artwork the song title imitates *Happiness Not Included album title, with asterisk replaced by radiation hazard symbol.
 * Although reactor 5 is mentioned in the song, the explosion on Chernobyl nuclear power plant happened in reactor No. 4, while No. 5 was in construction and eventually not completed.
 * The comment section of YouTube upload of “Heart Like Chernobyl” lyric video was initially available but disabled later. The later uploaded music video has disabled comments from the beginning. The reasons are unknown, although are speculated to be the negative comments toward the song.