First released on: April 20, 1998
Duration: 06:18
Variations/Remixes:
Blur Remix – A remix done by Blur’s Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon, which is a far cry from the regular version, which has polarized many fans for its quality (or lack thereof!). This was the first Damon Albarn remix for another artist to be released. He had worked on remixing some of Tricky’s songs two years earlier, but the pair fell out and the material was never released. Included in all single releases.
Mad Professor Remix – The Mad Professor once again remixes a Massive Attack single. Included only on the promotional 12″ vinyl release, and then only in a truncated form, until the arrival of the Singles 90/98 Box Set where this remix was included on CD in its complete form.
Radio Edit: A truncated version of the song for radio play. It cuts out much of the beginning and end of the song. Included only on promo releases and Singles 90/98 Box Set.
Credits:
Written by Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall, Andrew Vowles, and Horace Hinds
Produced by Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall, Andrew Vowles and Neil Davidge
For the compiled version of the song, the extra credits are:
Remastered by Mike Marsh at Exchange and Tim Young at Metropolis Mastering.
sampled:
Angel uses a sample from the song “Last Bongo In Belgium” by The Incredible Bongo Band. He appears primarily on their 1973 release Bongo Rock. He is not officially accredited by Massive Attack.
Vocalist(s):
horace andy
Letter:
You are my Angel
come from high above
to bring me love
His eyes
she is on the dark side
Neutralize
Every man in sight
To love you, love you, love you…
You are my Angel
To love you, love you, love you…
History:
Originally, Angel was meant to be a very different sounding song, as it was going to be a cover of The Clash’s “Straight To Hell” that would have also included a sample from an old Sex Gang Children record. For this version, 3D had designated Horace Andy as the ideal vocalist, but when it came time to record his voice at London’s Olympic Studios, they hit a snag. Horace Andy, a religious man, was unwilling to sing the word “hell” in The Clash’s song, so at the last moment, Massive Attack was forced to improvise a new song on the spot to accommodate the refusal. by Horace Andy. In the space of just four hours, they removed much of the originally prepared track, wrote a new tune around it, cut the tempo in half, and removed the Sex Gang Children sample entirely. Finally, to use it as the lyrics for this untitled new song, they took the lyrics almost directly from Horace Andy’s own song, You Are My Angel.
Additional Information:
Angel was the third single released from Mezzanine.
Horace Andy is credited as Horace Hinds in Angel, as he has a real name with “Andy” as his stage name.
It is most likely the most widely used Massive Attack song on TV and movie soundtracks, having been featured in countless different filmed media. See the Videography section for a sample of what Angel has been used for.
Live appearances:
Angel was first performed live in its finished state at the Olympia in Dublin, Ireland on April 15, 1998. Since then, it has become one of the permanent fixtures of Massive Attack’s live show, and hardly ever he leaves the set list, except on the rare occasions when Horace Andy was unavailable to do live vocals. On the 1998/1999 tour, Angel served as the opening song in most instances and had a long intro sequence of about two minutes before Horace Andy’s vocal introduction, but on later tours this intro was cut down. just half a minute. minute. On the 2008 tour, Angel moved to near the end of the live show, typically being the first of 3/4 songs encore.
Quotes:
Mushroom on Angel: “I like its simplicity. You see, I’ve always liked the previous albums and the elements on that and Angel really takes me back to the Protection and Blue Lines stuff.” [Mezzanine Interview Disc – March 1998]
3D on the meaning behind Angel: “As with many of the clues [on Mezzanine]It’s about relationships: what you expect from a woman and what you really get in return” [Vox Magazine – May 1998]
3D on Angel’s initial recording: “In the space of four hours, we cut out all the music, wrote a bunch of stuff around it, kept some of the old tunes, put in the new Horaces tunes, cut out the Sex Gang sample , halving the tempo and adding new words” [Q Magazine – January 1999]