Magazine’s debut album Real Life is one of the defining moments of post-punk. The original Buzzcocks singer tired quickly of the primitive pop that brought us the brilliant Spiral Scratch EP and went off in search of pastures new as early as February 1977.

Those pastures turned out to be populated with a far more diverse fauna and flora than before, as demonstrated by the new band he created.

They included the classically trained composer Bob Dickinson on keyboards and it was he who invested this song – co-written with Devoto – with the spirit of Eric Satie.

From the stately and ominous intro – those keyboards, the stately drum rolls, those slashing power chords – to the urgent thrashing of the central section and back again via McGeoch’s plaintive guitar solo, it’s like a miniature movie.

All of it filled with Devoto’s sinister and dramatic vocals – “In the back of his car / Into the null and void he shoots” – accentuated by his snarling, serpentine stage performance in this clip from the OGWT.

Sadly, it would be Bob Dickinson’s only contribution to Magazine. Having been one of the group’s founder members, he was dismissed without warning before the end of the year.

Devoto invited him back to play with the band at the start of 1978 but by then Dickinson was deep into his postgrad research into electronic music at Keele University and declined the offer.

Most of the Real Life album is co-written by Devoto and guitarist John McGeoch, though the final track (Parade) is by Dickinson’s replacement, Dave Formula, and bassist Barry Adamson.

It’s a great album that has lost none of its appeal, nor its capacity to surprise with its invention, over the 45 years since its release. For me this remains its highlight.

For years the song was interpreted as being about JFK’s assassination but Devoto later said that was never in his mind, and that Motorcade was inspired by an article about “a South American dictator who threw money out of the window of his limousine.”