Over their 34 years of existence, XTC built a reputation for writing songs that were both catchy and idiosyncratic. Much of that probably has to do with the sound of their 1979 breakthrough hit “Making Plans for Nigel.” The opening track from XTC’s third album Drums and Wires is filled with vivid images and strange noises, yet it became a radio hit in both the UK and the U.S.
In its original form as written by bassist Colin Moulding, “Making Plans for Nigel” was a much more straightforward song. Once Moulding brought the song to the band, it began to take on the quirkier form that we all know. It was a lyric he selected randomly that ultimately shaped the sound of the song. Had Moulding decided on a different fate for his character Nigel, the song could have easily ended up with a very different feel.
Creating a Mood to Fit the Lyric
When Moulding first played “Making Plans for Nigel” for the rest of XTC, it was a slow acoustic guitar number. The band’s primary songwriter and vocalist Andy Partridge told Louder that Moulding’s rendition of the song reminded him of The Spinners. In an interview that appeared on the XTC blog Andy’s Take with his friend Todd Bernhardt, Partridge explained the sound of “Making Plans for Nigel” began to progress when he suggested to Moulding they should experiment with its rhythm. Specifically, Partridge wanted to alter it in the same way Devo tinkered with the rhythmic pattern on their cover of The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Instead of a typical rock pattern where a steady beat is played on the hi-hat, drummer Terry Chambers pounded out the rhythm on the floor tom, while only using the hi-hat for accents.
Chambers intentionally made the beat sound industrial, because Moulding had written the lines We’re only making plans for Nigel / He has his future in a British Steel. The band leaned even further into the industrial theme by adding a loud mechanical sound throughout the verses. Partridge told Uncut the noise was supposed to resemble that of “sheets of metal being struck,” and it came from “a white noise patch on a monophonic Korg synth we had.”
Injected into a Real-Life Labor Dispute
Between the British Steel reference and the noisy, rhythmic ambience of the music, “Making Plans for Nigel” evokes images of a busy factory. Yet Moulding did not intend to write a song for that setting. He simply chose to have Nigel’s domineering parents set him up for a job with British Steel because the nationalized firm was frequently in the news due to labor disputes, so they were top of mind. He also said the line felt like “a bit of naughtiness” and he essentially picked British Steel randomly.
Moulding did not set out to write a song about someone facing a life of factory work, and he certainly wasn’t trying to inject himself into a labor dispute. Yet it easily could have turned out that way. “Making Plans for Nigel” was sufficiently popular in the UK—and inspired sufficiently negative associations with the nationalized steel giant—that an official from a labor union at British Steel contacted Moulding to see if he wanted to “join the cause” of the workers’ strike. British Steel themselves reacted to “Making Plans for Nigel,” getting four workers named Nigel to talk about their jobs for a trade publication called Steel News.
The Impact of “Making Plans for Nigel”
“Making Plans for Nigel” received airplay on FM rock and college radio stations upon its release. However, it came out 18 months prior to the introduction of Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, so we can’t know for certain if it achieved similar levels of airplay to XTC’s early ‘80s hits “Generals and Majors” (No. 28) and “Senses Working Overtime” (No. 38). It was XTC’s first Top-40 single in the UK, reaching No. 17 on the UK Official Singles Chart. Its 11-week stay on that chart was the longest for any of the band’s singles.
We can make a strong case that, regardless of how popular “Making Plans for Nigel” was upon its release, it has been XTC’s most-popular song in recent years. It has been streamed more than 57 million times on Spotify, which is by far the most streams of any XTC song on the platform. It is also XTC’s most covered song, with Primus, The Rembrandts, and Robbie Williams among the artists who have performed their own version.
The offbeat quality of “Making Plans for Nigel” distinguished it from other songs on the radio in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, but that could be part of what has helped the song to remain relevant today. Moulding noted in a 2015 interview for Louder the song was still strongly tied to seemingly anyone who shared the name of its titular character. He remarked, “There’s not a week goes by without it being associated with some Nigel or another.” Even for those of us who may not have a Nigel in our lives, “Making Plans” is still a highly memorable tune and a great listen.
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