A New Kind of Man
"A New Kind of Man" is Track Six on John Foxx's 1980 Metamatic album.
It features themes of personal renewal and change. The New Kind Of Man, like the Quiet Man, lives in the background of life. The human counterpart to Gary Numan's androids, Foxx's characters are earthy and human, yet enhanced by technology. The New Kind Of Man has achieved a kind of immortality through film, and much like the characters in Foxx's magical realist fiction, has a subjective life of his own beyond that of the subject. He steps out of one film and into another; he has feelings even though he is to some extent an artefact.
It seems to be more about life in a contemporary technological culture rather than in the future and may describe anything from watching a film of oneself to the new beginnings associated with changing one's mileau. It is very reminiscent of the Situationist concept of the Spectacle, consider:
He stepped out of the film again / Brushed off the dust and walked away The touch of a hand was fading from him / A different scene began:
"Don't forget me" fades in static - / Another scene began...
He waved out of the film again / He turned and he flickered and he walked away / He felt a distant kind of longing / Another scene began...