‘The Invisibles’ Theme Song: ‘Mogadishu’ by Luke Haines’ Baader Meinhoff [Music]

Known for its excellent programming devoted to eclecticism, introspection and general artsy fartsyness, public radio station KCRW welcomed none other than Grant Morrison to its Los Angeles studios to spin five favorite tracks and discuss in detail why they are so near and dear to his heart. Among the selections is "Mogadishu" by Baader Meinhof aka Luke Haines, a 1996 track that Morrison said "would have been the theme song of The Invisibles," his cult classic Vertigo series, and is "the sexiest song about terrorism that you will ever hear."Speaking with KCRW's Eric J. Lawrence, Morrison pointed out the thematic similarities in Haines' Baader Meinhoff album, which was named after and based on the German terrorist group also known as the Red Army Faction, and The Invisibles, whom the writer described as "sexy terrorists."

this particular song is just so cool, for me it's this is the essence of cool, this song, and it's a really sexy, slow, kind of iconic song. And what it made me feel, it was very much of a time where I was doing The Invisibles comic, which was about a group of sexy terrorists, you know occult terrorists. And this would have been the theme song of The Invisibles. You know I think it says everything about that outlaw glamour, the life lived on the fringes of the law, and on an international scale, and I really love it for that. It's the sexiest song about terrorism that you will ever hear.

Lawrence also asked Morrison about the similarities between writing comic books and writing songs.

The thing about comic book writing, I mean the writer Denny O'Neil once said, 'It's headlines written by a poet' which I thought was a great description. It's about the same idea of compressing a big idea into the smallest amount of words. You know a comic balloon, you can't really have more than 35 words in it or it starts to over balance the artwork.

In the same way, that in a song, you've got meter, you've got your lines, and you really have to make sure that what you're saying is honed down to an essence. So yeah, I mean definitely I think there's a lot of similarities between them, and I think the best comic writers do take a lot from lyricists and, you know, even from beat poets. I think my favorite lyricists took a lot from Ginsberg and from Burroughs and those guys as well.

You can hear the rest of Morrison's selections and listen to or read more of his remarks at KCRW.