The instrumental riff that forms the heart of "Treachery" was written in June 1986 at the home of Peter Hartley, who was then the chairperson of the Department of Communication at Sheffield City Polytechnic, Sheffield, England (now Sheffield Hallam University). I remember it was June 1986 because France and Brazil had played a cracker of a game in the World Cup and it was showing on Pete's telly. Pete had bought himself a drum machine and wanted me to help him compose some tunes using it. We laid down three tracks, two of which were used as background music to a student-produced video called "Steel City Boys." "Steel City Boys" was a documentary about the working class people of Sheffield struggling for the right to walk the moors of the Derbyshire Peak District. The third track, originally entitled "Wishbone" (because I thought it sounded like the band Wishbone Ash), contained the basis of the instrumental section that forms the heart of "Treachery."

Recorded circa June 1986
Gary Radford - Guitar; Peter Hartley - Drum Machine

The content of "Treachery" was inspired by a number of lines from the song "Forgotten Sons" by Marillion, which was released, and which I bought, in 1984 on the (then) LP entitled "Real to Reel." "Forgotten Sons" addressed the tensions in Northern Ireland and contained the following lyrics which have stayed with me since that time: "Asking questions, faking answers, from the nameless, faceless watchers that parade the carpeted corridors of Whitehall. Who orders desecration? Mutilation? Verbal masturbation in the guarded, bureaucratic wounds?" When I was trying to come up with words that would complement the Wishbone Ash instrumental riff, I kept coming back to the power of these words and based my own (less powerful) words around them. Marie Radford came up with the title "Treachery," which formed a natural center for the theme I was working with, and many ideas for the verses. The line "It's time for tea and meet the wife" is taken directly from "Good Morning, Good Morning" on the Beatles' "Seargent Pepper" album. This, again, seemed to capture the hopelessness of the situation that "Treachery" seemed to embody. "Treachery" debuted at the Princeton Jam on November 2, 1997, and an abbreviated acoustic version was broadcast live on WPSC-FM, the radio station of William Paterson University.

The rock-opera progressive feel of the song came out in this demo created by Gary, which finally brought together all of the themes and parts which had been lying around for the previous 12 years. These songs take a long time to gestate!

Demo recorded by Gary Radford, February 8, 1998.
All vocals and instruments by Gary Radford, with commentary at the end by Meg Radford, age 7.

The song became "Zombie* Treachery" at a rehearsal at Frankensound Studios, North Brunswick, New Jersey on April 8, 2011. I have always tried to add soundtrack music to the band's repertoire, usually in the form of short sections that serve as introductions to other songs. I had been playing with a theme from the soundtrack of "28 Days Later" (directed by the great Danny Boyle) entitled "In the House - In a Heartbeat." My dream was to have a zombie-themed medley, consisting of "28 Days Later," "Treachery," and ending with "This is Not the End" by The Bravery. Well, the medley didn't quite work out, but the zombie theme stuck and we changed the name to "Zombie Treachery." However, our drummer, Peter VanEmburg, being the science geek that he is, rightly pointed out that the people in "28 Days Later" were not zombies in the classic sense of being "dead people who come back to life." In these immortal words, captured on my ever present minidisc field recorder, VanEmburg (2011) states:

Actually, they're not zombies. They're virus infected people, they're not zombies. Let's not start that debate again. Technically, zombies are dead people that have been reanimated, not people who have been infected with viruses who are very, very, very sick. There's a big difference.

You can see what we talk about at our band practices. To satisfy Peter's concern, we added the asterisk to "Zombie*" to make the song consistent with its "28 Days Later" prelude. We don't do the prelude much anymore, but the asterisk lives on! - GPR

The Lyrics

These are the fragments of my life
"It's time for tea and meet the wife"
It's all I ever know
It's all I ever do
These are the fragments of my life
"It's time for tea and meet the wife"
It's all I ever know
It's all I ever do
It's all treachery, zombie treachery, aahhhhhhh

It's fading in, it's fading out
It makes me want to scream and shout
But I never do
They never told me to
It's fading in, it's fading out
It makes me want to scream and shout
But I never do
They never told me to
It's all treachery, zombie treachery, aahhhhhhh

Lack of candor
Petty slander
It's all just propaganda
It's treachery
Zombie treachery

Dereliction
Mass affliction
Just another market correction
It's treachery
Zombie treachery

No reflection
Fear detection
It's another knee jerk reaction
To treachery
Zombie treachery

Mutilation
Desecration
More verbal masturbation (thank you, Fish!)
It's treachery
Zombie treachery