Tracks:
Four Enclosed Walls / Track 8 / Phenagen / Flowers Of Romance / Under The House / Hymies Him / Banging The Door / Go Back / Francis Massacre

(plus bonus tracks) Flowers Of Romance (Instrumental) / Home is Where the Heart is / Another

Release Date:
4.90
Re-issued (2/94) (1/12)

Label & Catalogue Number:
Virgin. CDV 2189

Running Time:
47:50 mins

Personnel:
Vox / Instruments - John Lydon
Instruments - Keith Levene
Drums - Martin Atkins

Format Info:
Mid-price CD re-issue of 'Flowers Of Romance' LP. 8 page booklet featuring lyrics & pix. Later re-issued with a 4 page booklet only.

The 2012 re-issue is mastered from the 2011 Japanese re-issue.

Track Info:
Same tracks as LP version, plus bonus tracks: 'Flowers Of Romance' (Instrumental), 'Home is Where the Heart is' & 'Another'. Three old PiL B-sides which were previously unavailable on CD.

On release in 1981 'Home is Where the Heart is' was credited to Lydon/Levene/Wobble & Jim Walker. However, it was simply a publishing mistake and should be credited to Martin Atkins. The track originates from the 1980 US Tour with Atkins... Although Wobble is given a co-credit, he doesn't actually play on the track. Instead the bass was recorded by Levene, using a tape loop, of a Wobble style bass line...

'Another' is a version of 'Graveyard' from 'Metal Box' with vocals.

Writing / Publishing:
'Flowers of Romance' tracks by Lydon/Levene. Except: Four Enclosed Walls / Under the House / Banging the Door - Lydon/Levene/Atkins
'Home is Where the Heart is' - Lydon/Levene/Wobble/Atkins. 'Another' - Lydon/Levene/Wobble/Dudanski
Published by Warner Chappell Music Ltd / EMI Virgin Music Ltd / Complete Music © 1981 Virgin Records Ltd

Trivia:
Although it had not previously been available on CD, 'Flowers of Romance' was re-issued as a special mid-price CD in 1990; along with 'Paris Au Printemps' & 'This is What You Want...'.

Possibly as a tribute to Sid Vicious, the album was named after the band Levene & Sid formed in 1976: "The Flowers of Romance". ‘Hymies Him’ also features a brief instrumental outtake of ‘No Future’ (listen carefully).

‘Hymies Him’ was originally written by Levene for use in the Michael Wadleigh movie 'Wolfen'.

Francis Massacre' was inspired by Lydon's stay at Mountjoy Prison ("Go down for life, Mountjoy is fun").

Producer:
Produced by 'Public Image Ltd'
Engineered by Nick Launay

Studio:
The Manor, Oxfordshire / Town House, London

Original Sleeve Design:
Unknown

Quotes:
The record is very, very sparse. 'Flowers of Romance' has no guitar on it, it's just a cello'd bass, all drums. One track I played guitar on is 'Go Back', which I played drums also. I made the backing track and I'd go in and play guitar and John would sing. With stuff like 'Flowers of Romances', we'd put the backing track together and we were getting into computer mixes, which was keeping John interested. He did a sax solo on it, he didn't know how to play but that's what came out. I said 'it's OK, we can use it.' It was very experimental like that...
- Keith Levene, Perfect Sound Forever 2001

On ‘Flowers of Romance’ Martin was going off on tour with Brian Brain and he only had two bloody days, so I just started to lay down loads of different drums beats, and we didn’t have any time to set up any real sound, the Townhouse in Goldhawk Road was being built at the time so the drum kit was on a wooden frame over this huge deep hole in a stone room and that’s what created that incredible sound… we just heard it and went ‘Ooh, lets just have some top mikes for the echo off it, and fuck it, don’t do any EQ’.
- John Lydon, Fodderstompf 2004

By the time we got to ‘Flowers of Romance’, Nick Launay [producer] and I were experimenting in the studio. I brought a watch into the studio and miked it up, ran it through some effects, and that became the chhh chhh chhh sound, the texture behind ‘Four Enclosed Walls’. I was drinking bottles of Perrier Water, recorded to quarter inch tape, slowed down it sounded almost like fucking dinosaurs. That was the backing for an unreleased track called ‘Vampire’...
- Martin Atkins, Fodderstompf 2001

Lyrics:
Flowers of Romance

Press Reviews:
Record Collector, May 1990 (CD)
Rolling Stone, March 1981 (LP)