A Screw

The title track sees the band diving their furthest into the realm of industrial dance music, complete with dubby, distorted vocals and complex programmed rhythms, a distinct contrast to the naturalistic album version.^[1] The piano-driven ode to obsessive love, "Blackmail", was Jarboe's first Swans track as lead vocalist.^[1] A reworked version of "Blackmail" appears on the 1987 album Children of God.^[2]

Regarding his contribution to the single's title track, drummer Ted Parsons said:

"But you know the first recording I did with Swans, was "A Screw" on Holy Money? I get in there – I can’t remember what the studio was – and Michael Gira the singer said, "Well, you know what? There’s no drum kit here, we just want to set a snare drum up in the hallway and have you hit it." And I was like, "What? OK." So they set the snare up in this big hallway down this corridor, and I hit the drum, and that was it. They sampled it, and he said, "OK, that’s great, go home." That was it. That was "A Screw.""^[3]

Notes

• Track 1 and 3 were mislabeled on most original releases. Later issues like the "Greed/Holy Money" compilation corrected this.^[4]

• Michael Gira – vocals, samples, sounds, piano, bass
• Norman Westberg – guitar
• Harry Crosby – bass
• Algis Kizys – bass
• Jarboe – vocals, backing vocals, mirage
• Ronaldo Gonzalez – drums
• Ted Parsons – drums
• Ivan Nahem – drums
• Greg Grinnell – trumpet
• Keene Carse – trombone