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Tears for Fears “Head Over Heels”

sfilzen — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 19:35:10 +0000

Tears for Fears “Head Over Heels” 1985. 10″ single, limited edition (UK release). The fourth single released from their LP Songs from the Big Chair and, like the other singles, a huge synthpop hit. “Head Over Heels” went to #3 in the US and to #12 in the UK. Like the singles “Shout” and “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (both #1’s in the US), the video for “Head Over Heels” was on MTV constantly the summer of ’85 (it was released in June). I was glued to MTV around that time so I think I must have seen it a million times – I can actually see most of it in my head (I’ll pull it up on YouTube in a minute but I haven’t actually seen it in probably 30+ years). From Wiki: “A lighthearted video in comparison to the band’s other promos, it is centred on Roland Orzabal’s attempts to get the attention of a librarian (Joan Densmore), while a variety of characters (many played by the rest of the band), including a chimpanzee wearing a Red Sox jersey, engage in shenanigans in the library. The final scene shows Orzabal and the librarian as an older married couple.” You can probably see it in your mind now, too.

The b-side on this 10″ is “When in Love with a Blind Man” – it’s a string heavy brief atmospheric ballad with “a synthesized shakuhachi flute, a popular musical motif for pop music in the 1980s” (that and saxophone which thankfully is NOT on this track). It’s really short and it’s fine but definitely b-side material; pre-dating the Songs from the Big Chair album.

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Tears For Fears “Shout”

sfilzen — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 16:10:09 +0000

Tears For Fears “Shout” 1984. 12″ single. Today, June 24th, is Tears For Fears co-founder/singer/bassist/keyboardist Curt Smith’s 60th birthday (b. 1961). “Shout,” from their second album Songs From the Big Chair, went to #4 in the UK and went all the way to #1 in the US in late summer ‘85. The song and video were inescapable and I eventually got heartily sick of what one critic calls “the most recognizable song from the 80′s.” Fortunately this 12″ has two remixes of the smash single. Side A is “Shout (US Remix),” an great extended remix with an industrial/Depeche Mode sound and beat. Side B has “Shout (UK Remix)” which a little more closely resembles the radio-single version, though twice the length, more organ effects and some extended world-music flavored instrumental sections. The other track on Side B is “The Big Chair,” an instrumental, also very Depeche-flavored. From Wiki: “the track contains dialogue samples performed by actors Sally Field and William Prince from the 1976 television film Sybil, from which the song (and the album Songs from the Big Chair) takes its name.”

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Tears for Fears “The Hurting”

sfilzen — Wed, 24 Jul 2019 15:37:34 +0000

Tears for Fears “The Hurting” 1983. A melancholy new wave/synthpop masterpiece, Tears for Fears’ debut album was an instant smash, going to #1 on the UK album chart within two weeks of its release. A couple of my favorite early 80′s songs are on The Hurting including “Suffer the Children,” (first released in ‘81, re-recorded for The Hurting, then re-released in ‘85 when it charted at #52 in the UK), “Mad World,” (released as a single in ‘82, #3 UK chart), “Change,” (#5 UK and #73 US) and my absolute fave “Pale Shelter” (#5 UK). At the time of The Hurting’s release, some critics found it “terrible, useless sort of art that makes self pity and futility a commercial proposition…just the sort of doom laden dross you’d expect from the lyrics: rehashed and reheated hollow doom with a bit of Ultravox here, diluted Joy Division poured everywhere, and the title track sounding suspiciously like one of the old pompous outfits with a welter of mellotrons” (NME). I think that opinion is terribly wrong: The Hurting has stood the test of time and 35+ years later it’s recognized as complex, groundbreaking and influential on such artists (who, like Tears for Fears, lean towards dark wave) as Trent Reznor, Smashing Pumpkins and Arcade Fire (PopMatters).

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Tears For Fears “Shout”

sfilzen — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:34:45 +0000

Tears For Fears “Shout” released 1984 in the UK, 1985 in the US. 12″ single, US and UK Remixes, plus “The Big Chair.” From Tears For Fears’ album Songs from the Big Chair, “Shout” was a massive hit, reaching #4 in the UK and #1 in the US. I remember the video being on very heavy rotation on MTV and admittedly got a bit sick of it that summer. The remixes, however, are a bit of fresh air, dusting off the overplayed and “most recognizable song from the 80′s.”

The poignant urgency of the matra-like lyrical delivery is punctuated with non-pop heavy industrial effects on the US remix version, adding more complexity to the simplicity of the song’s words. (The UK version more closely resembles the radio-single version, with organ effects and extended world-music flavored instrumental sections.) Roland Orzabal says the song “is actually more concerned with political protest. It came out in 1984 when a lot of people were still worried about the aftermath of The Cold War and it was basically an encouragement to protest.” Curt Smith describes it as a “protest inasmuch as it encourages people not to do things without actually questioning them. People act without thinking because that’s just the way things go in society. So it’s a general song, about the way the public accepts any old grief which is thrown at them.”

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