Martha & The Muffins - Black Stations-White Stations

The rock group, out of Toronto, consisted of Martha Johnson and Mark Gane. The name, Martha & The Muffins, was chosen to distance themselves from the aggressive names of many punk bands of the era. According to Mark, it was to be a temporay name until they could agree on something better, but, it ended up sticking for over 7 years.

Over the years, they had numerous personel changes. One member, Jocelyn Lanois, is the sister of Daniel Lanois who is a noted producer of U2 & Peter Gabriel.

In 1984, Martha & the Muffins shortened their name to M+M and released Mystery Walk. This LP gave them their biggest hit. (which is todays post.) It is an anti-racist anthem whose first verse took radio stations to task for refusing to play songs about mixed-race romances. It is ironic that radio stations of the time banned the song from being played on the airwaves. Clubs, however, kept playing the song over and over and it eventually reached #2.

Song taken from the original 12" single on RCA 13802
Black Stations/White Stations (Remix) 6:22
Song charted on May 12, 1984. Spent 16 weeks on the chart and reached #2