Testcard F – That Day Must Never Come

Synth pop with Moroder flair and space-age vibes

When I heard ‘That Day Must Never Come’ by Testcard F, I was imme­di­ately pleas­antly excited by the unusu­al sound­scape. The song has an almost stress­ful, intrus­ive energy that chal­lenges me to really get to the bot­tom of it. At the same time, there is a play­ful light­ness remin­is­cent of children's songs, while the synth lines and beats sound like they come from a futur­ist­ic, space-age world. To me, it feels like a con­scious effort to play with con­trasts – some­thing that rarely comes across so clearly in synth pop.

The band men­tions Giorgio Moroder as an influ­ence, and yes, that sig­na­ture is slightly notice­able at times. The driv­ing rhythm reminds me of the Italo disco era, but instead of smooth per­fec­tion, the exper­i­ment­al approach is in the fore­ground here. I have the feel­ing that Testcard F con­sciously wants to break out of its com­fort zone, and they succeed.

The lyr­ics per­fectly com­ple­ment the music­al agit­a­tion: the des­per­ate search to stop time and nev­er let ‘that day’ come is reflec­ted in the hec­tic sound aes­thet­ic. In par­tic­u­lar, the line "So I gath­er all the clocks, and I put them in a box" gets stuck in my head – a poet­ic and at the same time dark thought that makes me reflective.

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Lyrics of "Testcard F – That Day Must Never Come"

There’s a day,
And a month and a year that,
You could write in numbers,
You could write it in the sky.

There’s a day,
And a month and a year that,
Interrupts my slumbers,
Damn the day we say goodbye.

So I gath­er all the clocks,
And I put them in a box,
And I throw it down the hillside,
That day must nev­er come.

And I take it up a notch,
And I’m star­ing at my watch,
And I’m mak­ing it go backwards,
That day must nev­er come.

There’s a day,
And an hour and a second,
When our time is over ,
Damn the day we say goodbye.

There’s a place,
Where the cogs and the springs,
Do mark the days like clockwork,
Mark the days for you and I.

They will tick and they will tock,
And I’ve got to make them stop
In the autumn or the spring time,
That day must nev­er come.

So I gath­er all the clocks,
And I put them in a box,
And I throw it down the hillside,
That day must nev­er come.