Why Does This Exist?: "Sixty-Five Thousand" by Erasure

Illustration from the children's book The Dirty Child, c. 1890

Most people think of Erasure purely as a "singles" band - when they think of Erasure at all, that is. For a band that had some really good, really popular songs, it's kind of weird how they seldom they are mentioned in the general music discourse these days. I decided to see how Erasure's albums stand up, so I picked up a copy of 1988's The Innocents to see how it holds up. It's surprisingly solid end to end, with the less-well-known album tracks standing their own alongside the hits ("A Little Respect" and "Chains of Love").

The one puzzling track on the album is "Sixty-Five Thousand" - stuck between two of my favorite songs on The Innocents ("Hallowed Ground" and "Heart of Stone"), it's an instrumental interlude that totally wrecks the album's momentum for me, and it definitely raises the question, "Why does this exist?" A melody-less mess of cowbells, samples, and synths, the weirdest thing about "Sixty-Five Thousand" is how it clearly quotes Glenn Miller's big band hit "Pennsylvania 6-5000". Does this have something to do with 1985 Ed Begley Jr. vehicle Transylvania 6-5000, which may have brought the song back into the public consciousness? Or does it signify that this is Vince Clarke's attempt at creating a "big-band" number? It's a real head-scratcher.

"Sixty-Five Thousand" by Erasure