I don't wanna classify you like an animal in the zoo

Wherein Man I love this song. Had it on a mix tape and played the crap out of it. Never played much else on the album


Pete Shelley, formerly of the Buzzcocks, had one of the truly great songs of the early 80s: Homo Sapien. Reading through Simon Reynolds' Rip it up and start again: postpunk 1978-1984, Pete Shelley gets a paragraph (though the Buzzcocks get a few pages). Shelley is mentioned in the synthpop chapter and the section on producer Martin Rushent (Spandau Ballet, Ultravox, Human League):

Rushent's first stab at electropop using these new tools was with former Buzzcock front man Pete Shelley. The sound they developed was a transitional hybrid of guitar-based New Wave and electropop, heard at its best on the superb single "Homo Sapien." Released in August 1981, "Homo Sapien" was a coded coming-out for Shelley. The single's innuendos - the fruity was Shelley enunciates "homo sapien," plus couplets like "homo superior/my interior" -- provoked an unofficial ban from Radio One. By the time the singer's solo album was released, another group had taken the Rushent electropop sound to the charts and stolen Shelley's thunder.

Don't recall ever seeing the video, so here it is:


I even enjoy the lyrics:

I'm the shy boy
You're the coy boy
And you know we're
Homosapien too
Im the cruiser
You're the loser
Me and you sir
Homosapien too
Homosuperior
In my interior
But from the skin out
I'm homosapien too
And you're homosapien too
And I'm homosapien like you
And we're homosapien too

And I think of your eyes in the dark and I see the star
And I look to the light and I might wonder right where you are
All the gods in the sky way up high see the world spinning round
But the sun and the moon and the stars are so far from the ground

I'm the shy boy
You're the coy boy
And you know we're
Homosapien too
I'm the cruiser
You're the loser
Me and you sir
Homosapien too
Homosuperior
In my interior
But from the skin out
I'm homosapien too
And you're homosapien too
And I'm homosapien like you
And we're homosapien too

And the worlds built of age are a stage where we act out our lives
And the words in the script seem to fit 'cept we have some surprise
I just want this to last or my future is past and all gone
And if this is the case then I'll lose in life's race from now on

Homosuperior
In my interior
But from the skin out
I'm homosapien too
And you're homosapien too
And I'm homosapien like you
And we're homosapien too

And I just hope and pray that the day of our love is at hand
You and I, me and you, we will be one from two, understand?
And the world is so wrong that I hope that we'll be strong enough
For we are on our own and the only thing known is our love
I don't wanna classify you like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know that you're homosapien too

I'm the shy boy
You're the coy boy

I don't wanna classify you like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know that you're homosapien too
I don't wanna classify you like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know that you're homosapien too
I don't wanna classify you like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know that you're homosapien too