The incident mentioned in the lyrics to "Blasphemous Rumours" is reportedly based on a true story. Singer Dave Gahan tells the story of a sixteen-year-old girl's failed attempt to kill herself by slitting her wrists. This story is continued when the girl is 18. She renews her faith in God only to be struck by a car, end up on life support, and die shortly afterwards. The conclusion: "I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours but I think that God's got a sick sense of humour, and when I die, I expect to find Him laughing." It has been suggested that the stories are separate, but this is an incorrect assumption, as the mother of the girl is said, in the first verse, to be 'fighting back the tears'. This is then mirrored when the girl is killed in a car accident. The lyrics are as follows; 'Once again a tear fell from the mothers eye.' This horrific irony is the reason that God is said to have a sick sense of humour in the chorus. The song also contains numerous samples of screeching tyres and skittering hubcaps.
By contrast, "Somebody," which was sung by Martin L. Gore himself, is a softer, more gentle love song in which Gore sings of his desire to find someone to be his lover and his confidant and who respects his opinions about "the world we live in and life in general," though she may not necessarily agree with them. There is also some speculation that the song "Somebody" was written and sung tongue-in-cheek by Gore, as an wry look at saccharine love songs. The evidence is suggested in the last two lines: "Things like this make me sick. In a case like this, I'll get away with it".
Blasphemous Rumors
Somebody
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