Spins: Tears for Fears • Songs from the Big Chair 40th Anniversary 2xLP
Tears for Fears
Songs from the Big Chair 40th Anniversary 2xLP
(Mercury/EMI/UMe)
Tears for Fears emerged with a milestone debut album in 1983’s The Hurting, but the band’s rapid creative evolution soon exceeded that success. 1985 sophomore effort Songs from the Big Chair would become one of the decade’s best-loved albums and cement Tears for Fears’s status as one of the era’s emblematic groups. The album yielded two tracks that topped the Billboard Hot 100, led by the anthemic, guitar-infused synth-rock of the cathartic “Shout.”
The deceptively sublime shuffle of the critical “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” also went to #1. The song described humanity’s unhealthy desire for power and control during a time of Cold War fears and drew melodic inspiration from the Clash’s Sandinista! track “Charlie Don’t Surf.” The alluring “Head Over Heels” reached the #3 position with its longing portrait of unreciprocated attraction.
Singer/songwriter Roland Orzabal revealed Talking Heads as a source of sonic inspiration during the creation of the driving rocker “Mothers Talk.” “It’s not that you’re not good enough, it’s just that we can make you better,” sings Orzabal in the song’s cutting lyric. “Only we can work it out,” answers Curt Smith in a memorable chorus accompanied by strident string strikes.
The album was originally titled after the heady, saxophone-laden “The Working Hour,” but was later changed to reference the telefilm Sybil and its story of a psychoanalysis patient undergoing treatment for multiple personality disorder. The eponymous character played by Sally Field felt most safe when ensconced in her psychiatrist’s “big chair.”
Smith sings atop Robert Wyatt’s mellow jazz-ballad piano on the tribute “I Believe,” serenely expressing the song’s inherent contradictions and uncertainties. Orzabal sings “Broken,” underpinned by guttural bass and slashing electric guitar. The album concludes with the moody “Listen.”
Arriving to mark the album’s 40th anniversary, this 2xLP reissue features a second platter with a track-by-track “shadow version” of the main album. A raw prototype of “Shout” repeats Orzabal’s chorus as a sing-along mantra, without the expressive verse vocals that completed the song. “The Working Hour (piano version)” is reimagined with reverb-drenched vocals and a minimalist, two-note synthesizer soundtrack. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is represented by an alternative single version, marked by a synthesized horn line that answers the song’s familiar two-chord keyboard foundation, along with various mix alterations. The song’s timeless outro solo by guitarist Neil Taylor is from a different take. “Mothers Talk” appears as an arresting instrumental track with an aggressive early mix. For those willing to abuse their vinyl and stylus, the backmasking at the end of the track is more distinct than the echo on the album version. Spoiler: it’s a slowed and reversed clip of Orzabal singing “Broken.” “I Believe (A Soulful Re-Recording)” is built from a captivating live performance featuring Orzabal’s potent vocal and Will Gregory’s bristling saxophone leads. There’s a demo for the urgent “Broken” with avant-garde saxophone by Gregory that didn’t make the final arrangement, an edit of “Head Over Heels,” and a “clean” version of “Listen” that omits the crowd noise from the crossfade following the live reprise of “Broken.”
All of these differences point to the painstaking craft and meticulous decision-making that went into the perfection of the finished Songs from the Big Chair.
The inner sleeve holding the bonus album includes the advertising material that was originally used to promote the album in 1985. The info describes the forthcoming Songs from the Big Chair as a 10-track album. It’s a curiosity which two songs were dropped to sequence the classic eight-song version that eventually arrived in record stores on February 25, 1985. These phantom songs may have been among the single B-sides, including sample pastiches “The Big Chair,” “Pharaohs,” and “Empire Building,” the Robert Wyatt cover “Sea Song,” or the Smith feature “When in Love with a Blind Man.” Although these B-sides are not included on the 2xLP set, they are among the 45 tracks on the 3xCD 40th anniversary version of Songs from the Big Chair. The B-sides mentioned also appeared on the 1996 odds and sods collection Saturnine Martial & Lunatic. In any case, Songs from the Big Chair maximizes the vinyl record’s side length. Adding two more songs would have hampered the audio quality, given that the format was still more popular than CD in 1985.
The anniversary reissue arrives on translucent red vinyl, housed in a new cover that reflects the colorful hand-drawn art concept originally planned, before opting for Tim O’Sullivan’s iconic black-and-white close-up of Orzabal and Smith.
– Jeff Elbel
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Category: Spins
