The Dream Academy “Life in a Northern Town” charted

Life in a Northern Town The Dream Academy

Writer(s): Gilbert Gabriel, Nick Laird-Clowes (see lyrics here) First Charted: March 30, 1985 Peak: 7 US, 4 CB, 4 RR, 2 AC, 7 AR, 2 CO, 15 UK, 7 CN, 4 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 11.6 video, 21.75 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The Dream Academy formed in 1983 in London, England. The new-wave trio was comprised of singer and guitarist Nick Laird-Clowes, multi-instrumentalist Kate St. John, and keyboardist Gilbert Gabriel. They released three albums from 1985 to 1991. Only their 1985 self-titled debut produced any charting singles, with “Life in a Northern Town” and “The Love Parade.” In 1986, they reached #83 in the UK with a cover of the Smiths’ “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” from the soundtrack of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. “Life in a Northern Town” is the song which the group is best remembered. It was written as an elegy to Nick Drake, a British folk musician. Laird-Clowes explained that it wasn’t specifically about Drake, but dedicated to his memory. “We had the idea…to write a folk song with an African-style chorus…When we got to the verse melody, there was something about it that reminded me of Nick Drake.” SF One of the guitars used in the song is the same one on the cover of Drake’s album Bryter Layter. SF David Gilmour, best known as the guitarist from Pink Floyd, co-produced the song. It took a year to record. WK The song also got an assist by Paul Simon, whom Laird-Clowes had befriended. He played it for Simon, saying it was called “Morning Lasted All Day.” Simon vetoed the title and Laird-Clowes came up with “Life in a Northern Town” instead, which Simon thought was a great title. SF In 2008, the country group Sugarland released a version of the song from their album Love on the Inside. It featured Little Big Town and Jake Owen. It was nominated for Vocal Event of the Year by the Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music. It also received a Grammy nomination for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for The Dream Academy SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia First posted 10/8/2022.

Tears for Fears chart with “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”

Everybody Wants to Rule the World Tears for Fears

Writer(s): Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley, Chris Hughes (see lyrics here) Released: March 18, 1985 First Charted: March 16, 1985 Peak: 12 US, 12 CB, 12 RR, 12, 2 AC, 2 AR, 1 CO, 2 UK, 11 CN, 2 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.6 UK, 0.69 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 6.0 radio, 236.98 video, 651.32 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: In the UK, Tears for Fears first made their impact with “Mad World” in 1982. The #3 hit was followed by two more top-five hits in support of their debut album The Hurting. Prior to the release of their sophomore album, Songs from the Big Chair, the band released “Shout,” (#4) and “Mother’s Talk” (#14). However, it wasn’t until that album’s third single, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” that Tears for Fears, well, ruled the world. The new wave single about “the quest for power and how it can have unfortunate consequences” SF went to the top of the charts in the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand and reached #2 in Australia, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The song was a last-minute addition to the Big Chair album. Roland Orzabal, who co-wrote the song, considered it “a lightweight that would not fit with the rest of the album.” WK Chris Hughes, who produced the song and was also one of the writers, said that “as a piece of recording history, it’s bland as hell.” WK However, he convinced Orzabal to record it and add a shuffle beat “in a calculated effort to gain American chart success.” WK The rhythm was inspired by the Simple Minds’ 1983 song “Waterfront.” WK Although this is “quite a jangly and catchy song” musically, SF it is pretty dark lyrically. Curt Smith, who sang lead, said the song, whose main line was originally “everybody wants to go to war,” was “about everybody wanting power, about warfare and the misery it causes.” WK Pitchfork’s Tal Rosenberg pointed out how the “lyrics could be applied in different scenarios such as the environment (‘Turn your back on mother nature’), short-lived financial success (‘Help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure/Nothing ever lasts forever’), dictatorial rule (‘Even while we sleep/We will find you’), and the Cold War (‘Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down’).” WK Spectrum Culture’s Kevin Korber said the song was a “perfect representation of its time.” WK Michael Roffman of Consequence of Sound praised it as a “timeless and influential composition.” WK Stanton Swihart of All Music Guide said the group “perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the mid-‘80s while impossibly managing to also create a dreamy, timeless pop classic.” WK Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Tears for Fears SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 8/7/2020; last updated 8/5/2022.

REO Speedwagon “Can’t Fight This Feeling” hit #1

Can’t Fight This Feeling REO Speedwagon

Writer(s): Kevin Cronin (see lyrics here) Released: December 31, 1984 First Charted: January 18, 1985 Peak: 13 US, 12 CB, 13 GR, 14 RR, 3 AC, 5 AR, 16 UK, 11 CN, 2 AU, 5 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.4 UK, 1.45 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 204.1 video, 297.02 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: REO Speedwagon had slogged their way across American venues for a decade before hitting big with 1981’s “lighters-up power ballad” SG “Keep on Loving You,” a #1 song from Hi Infidelity, which became the best-selling album in America that year. SG They also landed top-10 hits with “Take It on the Run” and “Keep the Fire Burnin’,” the latter from their 1982 Good Trouble album. While MTV threatened to derail “the old arena-rock battleships” SG REO rode the storm out and, when “the excitement over British art-school synthpop was starting to fade” SG they were right there again with more “pure prom-slow-dance grandeur” SG – “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” from their 1984 Wheels Are Turnin’ album. Lead singer Kevin Cronin started writing the song a decade earlier, even recording a demo when he left the band for a bit in the early ‘70s. WK While on vacation in Hawaii during a break from recording Wheels Are Turnin’, he thought of the song again and added a chorus and title. He explained how he had become attracted to a woman who was in his friend group, but he couldn’t say anything because she was dating one of the other friends. WK He finally finished the song when he realized he “couldn’t figh the feeling anymore and made the move to kind of go for it.” WK They ended up having a relationship and although it didn’t last, they stayed friends. WK He explained that the song is about “that moment in time where…it gets to be too painful to be where you are and you know you have to change…but change is hard…and you overcome that fear of change.” FB More specifically, it “is a song about giving in and admitting that you actually care about someone.” SG He said it was tough to express himself emotionally growing up, so when he does so in the song “he does it in the biggest possible way: Massed harmonies, screaming guitars, pounding drama-nerd pianos, overwrought metaphors about ships and candles and whirlwinds. He turns surrender into something ecstatic.” SG It is “adult-contemporary gloop. It’s dramatic and self-serious and massively catchy, with tremendous drunken-singalong potential.” SG Resources: FB Fred Bronson (2007). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (4th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 603. SG Stereogum (9/23/2020). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 12/25/2022; last updated 12/26/2022.