In Your Room

"In Your Room" is the fourth and final single released from English electronic music band Depeche Mode's eighth studio album, Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993). Released on 10 January 1994, the song reached number eight on the UK Singles Chart and peaked at number two in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden.

The original album version was produced by the band alongside Flood. However, for its single release, an alternative version of the track entitled the Zephyr Mix was released instead. This version was produced by Butch Vig of Nirvana and Garbage fame.

Alan Wilder was not very happy about the version chosen as the single edit as it was written in his Singles 86-98 editorial: "Convinced of the song’s potential as a single, [Alan] campaigned rigorously on behalf of the album version to the point where various different edits were tried, but was eventually out-voted in favour of a remix by Nirvana producer and current ‘grunge’ dahling of the press, Butch Vig. Unfortunately, as is often the case with outside remixers, Vig’s interpretation did not relate to many of the aspects of the original and the track lost much of it’s Depeche Mode character, falling short of it’s intended sensuality and intensity."Alan Wilder said in the May 1993 issue of Keyboard magazine:"'That song was quite difficult. We recorded the song three or four different ways. One was entirely as you hear it in the second verse, with the smaller drum kit and the 'groovy' bass line. But the whole song with that rhythm wasn't strong enough; it didn't go anywhere. We had the song structure from a fairly early stage. We knew where we wanted the verses, choruses, and middle eights. So [...] I went in and played drums along with the track in one particular style, then did it again in a funkier style, and so on. [...] [The cymbals after the word 'flames'] was a late addition. Since that's such an up part of the song, it felt necessary to add something at that point. We put it in at the mix. It's often not until you get to the mix stage that it becomes obvious that another part is required. When you're in the recording process, you've never got it sounding good enough to tell. So quite a few of those embellishments get put on at the mix stage, like backwards cymbals.'"Martin Gore in Rolling Stone issue #672/3 (December 1993):"'I think 'In Your Room' could be potentially bigger [as a hit single than 'I Feel You'], but it's six and a half minutes long. It could be edited down, but I think part of its beauty is its length. It'll be difficult to work with it.'"When Rolling Stone followed DM on tour in July 1993, they reported: "Gahan feels that his buddies art gradually coming around to his new-found [Los Angeles] philosophy, aside from occasional screw-ups like rejecting Butch Vig's well-crafted 'In Your Room' single remix."

However, Depeche Mode ended up not rejecting Butch Vig's mix, which was explained in an interview with Andy Fletcher for Drum Media in February 1994:"'Consider the issue of Gahan suggesting that Butch Vig (producer of Nirvana’s Nevermind and Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream) remix the third single from Songs, In Your Room. Vig brought his own guitarist to add a new track – at first crackling then bursting into sonic overdrive – to the emotive ballad, upping the drums and giving it an alt-rock treatment that's surprisingly controlled amidst classic Gore melodrama like Your favourite mirror, your favourite slave... 'It's an interesting mix, completely different to what we would have done, though we prefer our own original mix,' notes Fletcher, despite initial rumours that the mix at one stage was to be consigned to the vault never to be released. For Fletcher, it's a matter of their roots: 'We still like to consider ourselves European sounding and away from that American grunge sound, we’re not jumping on that bandwagon in any way.'"Martin Gore recalls the filming of the music video:"'The worst memory about In Your Room is the making of the video. We spent a whole day in the studio filming and I probably had lunch at some point, but it was just something really small, like half a sandwich. We finished filming at about 8 o'clock, and went back to the hotel and I forgot to eat. We went to the bar and I didn't eat ... We went out to a club, met some guy who gave me some stuff, so I was up all night until probably 9 or 10 in the morning. We had a band meeting at 12 o'clock and I managed to sleep for about an hour. Then I got up and I've never felt so dreadful in my life. I managed to literally crawl to this meeting, I had to lay on the floor just saying 'Yes' or 'No', that was all I could muster. And that was when I went into a seizure. So whenever I see this video, I just think, 'Oh, God' ... It brings back terrible memories.'"Dave Gahan said in the EPK for Exciter in 2001:"'[...] Often, with a lot of those sort of songs [bring out all these sad emotions and lost time], like 'In Your Room', that's kind of how it felt, you know, during those darker times for me, if you like. I was in my own little room. I felt very protected in my own little room for a while and I was invincible and I could come out when I wanted and go back in when I wanted and the room was a safe place, but now that room scares me and I don't really want to go in there any more. So, when I was singing that song on the last tour [Singles 86-98 tour], it was almost like I could sing it from outside the room, but go there for a little bit and look at it and peer in. It was a lot more fun than singing it like it was the last time I was going to sing it every night. For instance, on 'Songs of Faith and Devotion', on that tour, I really got off on the whole kind of darkness of that period of my life and it got really boring.'"Dave Gahan told Stirile Pro in 2016:"'[...] 'In Your Room', I think it's one of my favourites, actually, to perform.'"Notably, “In Your Room” was the last Depeche Mode single and video to feature member Alan Wilder, who left the band in 1995 after stating his work in the group “never received the respect and acknowledgement that it warranted”.

Song details
The version of "In Your Room" used for the single release is the "Zephyr Mix", a radically different mix of the original album version, nearly completely redone by Butch Vig of Nirvana fame. Other official single remixes include Brian Eno's "Apex Mix", which sounds closer to the album version, and "The Jeep Rock Mix", produced by Jonny Dollar and Portishead, which appears on Remixes 81 - 04.

During concerts in 1993 and 1994, the album version was played live. From the 1998 Singles Tour onwards, the "Zephyr Mix" of the song has been played live instead. However, during the 2009 Tour of the Universe, a mixture of both versions was played live. During the "Global Spirit Tour" the band returned to the album version again.

The single was released in a special foldout digipak with room to hold three different versions of the "In Your Room" single: the original release (CDBong24), a live disc (LCDBong24) and a remix disc (XLCDBong24). The b-sides consist of a remix of album track "Higher Love", along with some live songs from the Devotional Tour.

Depeche Mode's first appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman", filmed during a stop on their "The Singles Tour", featured an abbreviated version of "In Your Room."

Critical reception
Larry Flick from Billboard wrote that the song "sees the band move further into dance-rock territory." He added, "Typically haunting vocals and intense lyrics are enhanced by rugged beats and a quasi-industrial guitar sound that will ring true in the hearts of alternative DJs." Martin Aston from Music Week gave it five out of five. Another editor, Alan Jones, picked it as Pick of the Week, saying, "Less obviously a rock record than some of their recent releases, the new Depeche Mode single is a fairly dark but nonethe less quite commercial record in which some dense guitar work is punctuated by a pleasant chorus."

Music video
The music video for "In Your Room" (using the Zephyr mix) was directed by Anton Corbijn and features references to the videos for "Strangelove" (a model posing in her underwear), "I Feel You" (a woman dressed as Dave Gahan, wearing a pinstripe suit, sunglasses, and a wig), "Walking in My Shoes" (the bird costume), "Halo" (the people wearing clown makeup), "Enjoy the Silence" (a woman dressed as a king, holding the folding chair while walking in the road), "Personal Jesus" (a woman wearing a cowboy hat like the band members did), "Condemnation" (the white dress with ribbons on it that one of the women wears) and "Never Let Me Down Again" (tea drinking). Corbijn described the video as a retrospective of the work he had done with Depeche Mode. He said he made it that way because he wasn't sure if he was going to do another Depeche Mode video after it. He later elaborated stating, that this video was made during the rise of band troubles and of Dave Gahan's drug addiction so it was uncertain whether the band would still exist for another video to be made.

The video features Alexandra Kummer, who sometimes is partially clothed. Because of the partial nudity and scenes of bondage, the video only aired after prime time on MTV in the US. Since the video had only limited screen play the single was not a hit in the US.

This is the last Depeche Mode single with Alan Wilder as a band member and the last music video he appears in.