Precision wrapped in mystery
There’s something hypnotic in the way When I’m With You unfolds. From the first pulse of the synths, the listener is transported into a narrow tunnel lit by cold neon lights, where every sound echoes like it was made in a chrome cathedral. The beat moves steadily, robotic and strict, yet there’s an undeniable warmth in the voice that cuts through it like a spotlight in fog. Russell Mael sings like a man trapped inside a loop, the melody bending around his tone without ever releasing him.
In 1979, Sparks were already seasoned outsiders. Based in Los Angeles but eternally adored in Europe, the Mael brothers were known for slipping between styles like escape artists. With When I’m With You, recorded in Munich with Giorgio Moroder’s collaborator Harold Faltermeyer, they embraced the synthetic precision of disco-era production. The studio gave them tools to build a song like a machine, clean and minimal, but with a strange human glitch pulsing in its core.
The track climbed to the top of the charts in France, a country where Sparks had long found refuge for their eccentricity. The success was quiet elsewhere, but in France it became part of the late-night soundtrack for a generation of kids discovering music on transistor radios and smoky dancefloors. Sparks even performed on French TV in matching tuxedos, blending into the decadent style of the era like they’d always belonged there.
A typically eccentric effort, with Russell Mael mouthing the song’s lyrics as a ventriloquist’s dummy, sitting on Ron Mael’s lap.
(Molly Meldrum, Countdown, 1980)
Every element in When I’m With You is stripped to its essence. No flourishes, no wasted motion. The synths don’t shimmer – they press forward. The bassline circles like a lazy predator. The drums click in tight patterns, more architectural than emotional. And yet, there is emotion, precisely because everything seems held in restraint. It’s this tension that makes the track linger long after it ends, like a conversation cut off too early.
When I’m With You captured a moment when electronic music wasn’t fully at home in pop yet. Sparks didn’t wait for the trend to settle – they leaned into it with the curiosity of engineers testing a new device. They weren’t futurists, just craftsmen following a strange idea until it made sense. That idea still hums today, every time someone dares to write a love song that feels like a message from another planet.
