"Who do you need?
Who do you love...when you come undone?"
- "Come Undone" by Duran Duran, 1993

It must have been years ago when I heard my first Duran Duran song - "Rio" it was - and I couldn't have been more than four or five at the time. Many years later when we finally got cable I saw the music video for the song, finally putting the song to the faces of five, bright-eyed, smiling British lads who didn't have a care in the world. What would have been like if I had gotten on a boat, sailed around the world, wearing the latest styles - and even more important, been making music, larking about, having a grand old time? I didn't know what it was like of course, but I could easily pretend with Duran Duran, couldn't I? Maybe that was the initial appeal for the "original" fans - who were old enough to see the group in concert in those early days in the 1980s - Duran Duran made music fun again. At the time, I was probably mastering the art of walking.

I am not a full-fledged "Durannie" - in reality, I was born the year after Duran Duran "started" - and so the thought of someone like me identifying with the group may seem a bit odd to the casual observer. I never got to experience the intensity of one of their concerts, never ran into the corner bookstore to buy up the latest Duran Duran teenybopper magazines, never thought about making room on my bedroom wall for their posters or considered carving their initials into the desk I had at school. But that's just icing on the cake. The posters and magazines are faded and worn, but the music never dies. Good music never really goes away - it's all that commercial fluff that boils away into space, never to be heard from again. My local radio station still plays a good deal of Duran Duran - which in my opinion is testimony that everyone still remembers Duran Duran fondly. How many artists from the last five years are still fresh in your mind, let alone those from three times such a time period? Not too many. Yet gems like "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "The Reflex" are alive and well in the subconscious.

When I was 13 I'm sure I heard the "Ordinary World" single on the radio - the song has played in my mind for years but I never found out whose song it was until now. At that age you think the world revolves around your life, and you can take on anything. I had never heard "Come Undone" until recently, but when I look back to those days and think about what was going on in my life, I realize that particular song expressed exactly what I was feeling in 1993, and what I feel every once and a while when I'm having a bad day.

Duran Duran must have the ability to read minds. The chorus hauntingly chimes away, "who do you need? who do you love...when you come undone?" Everyone has gone off the deep end sometime in their lives. Had a nervous breakdown. Felt like there was no one out there who cared. And maybe I don't remember this song because I had lot more pressing things on my mind back then. Namely being told, as an early teen, that I wasn't going to be like everyone else. She who thought she could take on the world was being told to take it easy, stay out of the sun, and mind my place in the world. I couldn't have known in those early days that I would be hospitalized numerous times, be put on all kinds of different medications, and lose what I thought was my own identity. The infamiliarity of the situation clouded my judgment, making me think that there was no one there to bring me out of my misery. But who was really there when I fell from grace? My family and friends, and certainly the power of music. Whenever I hear this song nowadays, it brings a smile to my face but a tear to my eye.

The song "Come Undone" potentially has so many personal meanings for the band - personnel changes, personal relationships, the excesses of fame, etcetera. But I think everyone, myself included, can relate to the feeling of one losing control - that is what makes this song so fitting in so many lives. The feeling when the time seems to tick away, the echoes sink into the darkness with no one there to catch you if you fall. For me, music was my savior. I would go and pop some CD into my boombox and disappear into the melodies for a while. This song harkens back to a time when, or so I thought, I had no one to turn to with the terrible reality that I would have to live with this cloud hanging over me for the rest of my life.

The critics would like you to believe that it's impossible for a seemingly commercial pop act like Duran Duran to write incisive, meaningful lyrics and melodies that could last a lifetime. I am here to provide testimony that they're dead wrong. Who are they to say what floats and what doesn't? Music can take you on an intensely personal journey, from darkness to light. The song "Come Undone" IS my theme song. I want the guys of Duran Duran to know that if anything, they have made a difference in one person's life and without a doubt there are numerous others. Who needs critics anyway?

The proverbial "pop band" comes and goes almost as surely as the changing of the tides. Sure, it looks easy to be popular for any given short period of time but when you look back in the history of popular music, of the artists that were able to ride that brief wave of insanity and popularity, only a couple can hold on and ride the waves like the big kahuna. Duran Duran is now over two decades old, with no signs of slowing although they've been "come undone" successfully several times over the years. But coming undone must have nothing to do with the music - they always build on their past successes and create new ones. Which is exactly what I had to do on my road to recovery. Short-lived popularity is easy to do - it's longevity and making lasting impressions that's much harder. Duran Duran has already proved that they're here for the long haul. I'm just extremely lucky to have been touched by their brilliance. Maybe someday I will be given the opportunity to thank them personally.

---Mary Chang, 2000

littlewillow's Duran Duran writings
the "See Me, Repeat Me" Duran Duran fan tribute project
hits since posting on August 20th, 2000.