I Feel You

"I Feel You" is a song by Depeche Mode, released on 15 February 1993 as their 27th UK single and the first single from the album Songs of Faith and Devotion. The song peaked at number eight on the UK Singles Chart and also made number one and number three on the US Modern Rock Tracks and Hot Dance Club Play charts, respectively. It was one of the band's highest-charting singles worldwide.

Martin Gore in Bong issue no. 37, 1998:"'The whole 'Songs Of Faith And Devotion' project started off with the basic principle that we wanted to become more live, spontaneous and have a lot more performances involved. So that whole album turned out to be the rockiest that we've ever wanted to achieve. 'I Feel You' is probably the pinnacle of that and it's about the closest we're going to come to sounding like a real authentic rock band.'"Dave Gahan in Rolling Stone issue #670: "'[...] And then 'I Feel You' came on [while listening to Martin's demo tape]: That was the moment when I looked into the mirror with the broomstick and started miming air guitar. I was ready to do something with some purpose, and suddenly things started to fall into place.'"Alan Wilder said in the May 1993 issue of Keyboard magazine:"'All the drums on there are played. Most of them were sampled and then sequenced in the form of drum loops That's not to say that they don't change as the song goes on. There's a series of loops, which are sequenced together, using Steinberg Cubase, in a different structure from how they were originally performed.'"

Details
"I Feel You" demonstrates a more rock-oriented sound, using more non-electronic instruments than ever before. For example, Alan Wilder plays drums, and Martin Gore plays the guitar, but with electronic sounds still included, like the synthesized tyre screeching intro. "I Feel You" has a compound time signature of 6/8. The 7" version of "I Feel You" is the same as the album version. The "Throb Mix" is a 12" version, but with incomplete lyrics. A part of the "Swamp Mix" is used as an interlude on the Songs of Faith and Devotion album between "Get Right With Me" and "Rush"; this was also used in the intro for the live arrangements of "I Feel You" that were played during their Devotional/Summer tours.

The single release contained "One Caress", sung by Martin Gore. In the USA, Sire/Reprise released "One Caress" as a promo-only single. One promo copy has the original version, and the other has the version from Songs of Faith and Devotion Live. There is no remix for the song.

Artwork
On the cover of “I Feel You”, there are four symbols, each representing a member. To tell which member it is, there’s a number on the right-corner of each symbol, which is that band member’s birthdate, or you can match the symbols up with the symbols on the Songs of Faith and Devotion cover, which overlap a picture of that band member. Using the latter, the top left corner is Alan Wilder, the top right corner is Dave Gahan, the bottom left corner is Martin Gore, and the bottom right corner is Andy Fletcher.

Critical reception
Music writer James Masterton wrote in his weekly UK chart commentary, "In a similar vein to Personal Jesus the track may not have quite the momentum to go Top 3 and is unlikely to win them any new fans."

Music video
The black-and-white music video for "I Feel You" was directed by Anton Corbijn. The woman in the video was English actress Lysette Anthony. There is also a music video for "One Caress", directed by Kevin Kerslake, that was filmed during one of the off-days of the Devotional Tour in the US. It was a promo-only video that was later released on The Videos 86>98. Prior to its inclusion on The Videos 86>98, the music video for "One Caress" was frequently broadcast on MTV's Alternative Rock video block 120 Minutes and Sky One. On 2 September 1993, "I Feel You" was nominated in the MTV Video Music Awards.

Trivia

 * 'I Feel You ' has been covered by Vader (1995), Apollo 440 (1998), Catupecu Machu (2000), Claire's Birthday (2001), Placebo (2003), Škwor (2003), Pat MacDonald (2003), Slaves to the Symbol (2004), Samael (2005), The Narrow (2005), Collide (2009), Helalyn Flowers (2009), Scala & Kolacny Brothers (2010), Bebo Best, Evelins and Mr. Lova (2010), Studio-X (2011), Zed & Monsoon (2015), Johnny Marr (2015), and Chateau Pop (2017).
 * 'I Feel You ' has been sampled in the following songs by Depeche Mode and other artists:
 * 'My Joy' - Depeche Mode (1993)
 * 'Black Box (Pt. 1)' - Recoil (2000)
 * 'Who Wants Cake?' - Venetian Snares (2010)
 * 'I Feel You ' is featured in 2004 German-Turkish drama Head On and 2010 drama 8 Uhr 28. The Throb Mix of 'I Feel You' is featured in 2009 horror film The Collector.
 * 'I Feel You ' is also featured in a variety of television series, including season two episode sixteen and season three episode eighteen of Beavis and Butt-Head. The song is also featured in the season two finale of Netflix science fiction series Sense8 as well as a trailer for season two of fellow Netflix drama 13 Reasons Why.