songs from the big chair

Tears for Fears ruled the world with the captivating catharsis of this sensational synthpop shout.  After the success of their debut album 'The Hurting', the band released the experimental single "The Way You Are", which, while a moderate hit, made them realize that they needed a change in direction.  They worked briefly with a new producer Jeremy Green before returning to Chris Hughes, who had helmed the recording of their debut.  The sessions for 'Songs from the Big Chair' took place at Wool Hall Studios, Beckington, Somerset with engineer Dave Bascombe and featured Roland Orzabal on guitar, keyboards, lead vocals, grand piano, vocal styling, bass synth, and LinnDrum Programming;   Curt Smith on bass guitar, vocals, and lead vocals;  Ian Stanley on keyboards, synths, LinnDrum programming, and arrangements;  and Manny Elias on drums;   with  Sandy McLelland, Stevie Lange, and Annie McCaig on backing vocals; Chris Hughes on drums aand MIDI programming; Jerry Marotta on percussion; Will Gregory and Mel Collins on saxophone;  Andy Davis on grand piano;  Neil Taylor on guitar;  and Marilyn Davis on backing vocals and operatic vocal.  

Orzabal remembers:  "It was [an easy time making the record], because we had cut our teeth and suffered so much making The Hurting. It was a very, very painful process. We were young kids, and we were spending a lot of time away from home. And it was just the way we were recording with Chris Hughes and Ross Cullum; there was so much analysis on every aspect of the recording, and it just became a little bit too tedious.   Then all of a sudden I had made a bit of money from the publishing deal I had, from the success of “Mad World” [and] bought a recording console. We put it in our keyboard player’s house. And then all of a sudden, we were back at home, going home every night, and we had this … not proper recording studio, but a studio that was good enough to make a record in—familiar surroundings, surrounded by our girlfriends, wives, whatever. It was just so much easier."

Smith says:  "When we record, I don't think we go in with any set idea of what we're attempting to achieve. Basically, we're just trying to go in and make the best record we can. "The Way You Are" was not the best experiment and certainly not the best way to start it. I think after that we realized that we are more of an album band, we want to put a project together as opposed to just one-off singles. There's no real direction in one song, it's when you get to play with a whole bunch of songs together that you get a sense of an album and a sense of a project as a whole. For us that was the big revelation I guess: 'You know what? We're an album band. We may have hit singles, but we're an album band.' Obviously, we had some disagreements; the record company back then wanted things done very quickly because The Hurting was successful. It wasn't as big in America as everywhere else but it was successful. They wanted us to follow up quickly and we kind of didn't. There were some battles to be had there ... The title was my idea. It's a bit perverse but then you've got to understand our sense of humour. The 'Big Chair' idea is from this brilliant film called Sybil about a girl with 16 different personalities. She'd been tortured incredibly by her mother as a child and the only place she felt safe, the only time she could really be herself was when she was sitting in her analyst's chair. She felt safe, comfortable and wasn't using her different faces as a defence. It's kind of an 'up yours' to the English music press who really fucked us up for a while. This is us now – and they can't get at us anymore."

'Songs from the Big Chair' became an international smash hit, going to number twenty-five in Sweden; twenty-two in Austria; twelve in France; six in Italy; five in Switzerland; two in New Zealand and the UK; and number one in Germany, the Netherlands, and the US.  Orzabal considers:  "We were obviously surprised. We weren’t really ready for it. I suppose our whole thrust, musically and philosophically, as Tears for Fears came out in The Hurting. When we finished that album, it was almost like, 'Okay, well, we’ve kind of said our bit. What are we going to do now?' But of course we were successful, and the record company was pushing us, pushing us, pushing us to come up with another single, come up with another single. And then we had a stuttering beginning to the whole Big Chair thing; we released a song called “The Way You Are,” which didn’t do very well. It was very sort of technical, very electronic, very muso. It got us a little bit worried, because it only got to No. 24 in the charts in England. And then we almost did the same thing with “Mothers Talk,” but the record company at that point said, 'No. Stop. You’re not doing this kind of music. We need more oomph, more of a human side than what you’re doing. We want more guitars, we want more force.' And it was like, 'Oh, Jesus.' We rerecorded “Mothers Talk” in a much more robust way, but that set the tone then for the songs that followed. We had sort of broken the back of, in a sense, a new direction, which was less precious, less shoegazing, less moody, less black, as in a black mood ... I don’t really think we’re trying to do much more with our music than sell a few records...Certainly many of our songs have a message. But ultimately people don’t listen.”

http://tearsforfears.com/









"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" hit the top of the charts in Canada, New Zealand, and the US. 
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20x5b_tears-for-fears-everybody-wants-to_music

Tears for Fears Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Celtiemama




"Shout" went to number one in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the US. 
http://vimeo.com/66364220

Tears For Fears - Shout (1985) from MTVClassic1 on Vimeo.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlj9lu_tears-for-fears-shout_music

Tears For Fears - Shout by remixeservice




"Head Over Heels"
http://vimeo.com/29807866

Tears For Fears - Head Over Heels from schmerzhaus on Vimeo.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x108mhq_1985-head-over-heels_music

1985 - Head Over Heels by tearsforfearsbrasil







'Songs from the Big Chair' 
full album:



https://myspace.com/tearsforfears/music/album/songs-from-the-big-chair-13618




00:00 "Shout"   (Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley) 6:32
06:25  "The Working Hour"   (Orzabal, Stanley, Manny Elias) 6:30
12:48 "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"   (Orzabal, Stanley, Chris Hughes) 4:10
16:56 "Mothers Talk"   (Orzabal, Stanley) 5:09
21:55 "I Believe"   (Orzabal) 4:53
26:45 "Broken"   (Orzabal) 2:38
29:23 "Head over Heels/Broken (Live)"   (Orzabal, Curt Smith) 5:01
34:25 "Listen"   (Orzabal, Stanley) 6:48




bonus tracks:



01 - The Big Chair
02 - Empire Building
03 - The Marauders
04 - Broken Revisited
05 - The Conflict
06 - Pharaohs
07 - When in Love with a Blind Man

08 - Sea Song



'Scenes from the Big Chair' documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJiLCZh4gZc

the seeds of love

Tears for Fears opened hearts and minds with the expansive organic sound of this soulful and sophisticated labor of love.  The massive success of their second album had left the band in a quandary over what direction they wanted to pursue next.  Roland Orzabal reveals:  "After we recorded 'Songs From The Big Chair', all around us there was a desire to recreate it. Everybody except me and Curt felt we were on to a good thing. I couldn't see it that way. I believe that to create you have to destroy. It's painful and it's difficult but it's the only way I can work...A lot of it was programmed on synthesisers and drum machines. There was no fluidity or expression.  After two or three months it was driving me mad because I was waking up to the limits of our own music - it had become a straight jacket."

After ten months of recording with producers Clive Langer, Alan Winstanley, and then Chris Hughes; the band decided to start over and produce the new album themselves.  Engineer Dave Bascombe would co-produce the sessions that took place over another seventeen months.  The duo went back to Kansas City where they had seen Oleta Adams performing at a hotel bar and asked her to take part in the new sessions, which became more focused on jamming and musical interplay.  At the same time, Orzabal built a studio at his home in Chalk Farm, London.  

Curt Smith considers:   "We just wanted to do something more musically expressive.  You can't do that by using machines. You need to get a bunch of players in and work them.  ... As a band, we came from the programmed pop era of the early '80s and we had inherited a sense of structure that permeated almost all our music. The way we were working was becoming too sterile. We wanted to do something more colourful, something that sounded big and warm. You cannot get that from machines. You only get that with real musicians and real players."

'The Seeds of Love' features Roland Orzabal on guitars, lead vocals, keyboards, and Fairlight programming;  Curt Smith on bass and vocals;   with Manu Katché, Chris Hughes, Phil Collins, and Simon Phillips on drums;  Pino Palladino on bass;  Simon Clark, Nicky Holland, Ian Stanley, and Oleta Adams on piano and keyboards;  Robbie McIntosh, Neil Taylor, and Randy Jacobs on guitar;  Carole Steele and Luís Jardim on percussion;   Jon Hassell on trumpet;  Peter Hope-Evans on harmonica;  Suzie Katayama on cello;  orchestral arrangements by Richard Niles;  and  Oleta Adams, Tessa Niles, Carol Kenyon, Nicky Holland, Dollette McDonald, Andy Caine, and Maggie Ryder on vocals and backing vocals.  

'The Seeds of Love' sprouted to number eighteen in Australia;  fourteen in Norway;  thirteen in Austria;  eight in Switzerland and the US;  seven in the Netherlands;  five in Canada, Germany, Sweden, and Italy;  four in New Zealand;  three in France;  and made its debut at number one in the UK.  





http://tearsforfears.com/





The pseudo-psychedelic centerpiece of the album "Sowing the Seeds of Love" became a worldwide smash hit, going to number eighteen in France, thirteen in Australia, eleven in Germany, five in the UK, four in Ireland and New Zealand, three in the Netherlands, two in Italy and the US, and number one in Canada.  Orzabal says:  "I wrote it on the back of the last general election.  I was angry and a bit upset that Thatcher had got re-elected and I wanted to write a protest song, but I didn't want to write a protest song that was angry and bitter and full of resentment 'cause that puts people off I wanted to write a song that was sweet but also sour...When it was alright to sing 'All you need is love'. There was a time when it was okay to be idealistic or, dare I say it, spiritual. I wanted to jog everyone's memory."
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20xjp_tears-for-fears-sowing-the-seeds-of_music

Tears for Fears Sowing the Seeds of Love by Celtiemama
http://vimeo.com/30517601

Sowing The Seeds Of Love By Tears For Fears. from OreOne on Vimeo.




"Advice for the Young at Heart"  features Curt Smith on lead vocals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1NP9aHqRGU




"Woman in Chains" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzkK3ZtI9SU





'The Seeds of Love'
full album:
https://myspace.com/tearsforfears/music/album/the-seeds-of-love-13484



1. "Woman in Chains"   Roland Orzabal 6:30
2. "Badman's Song"   Orzabal, Nicky Holland 8:32
3. "Sowing the Seeds of Love"   Orzabal, Curt Smith 6:19
4. "Advice for the Young at Heart"   Orzabal, Holland 4:54
5. "Standing on the Corner of the Third World"  Orzabal 5:30
6. "Swords and Knives"   Orzabal, Holland 6:20
7. "Year of the Knife"   Orzabal, Holland 7:01
8. "Famous Last Words"   Orzabal, Holland 4:25

b-side bonus tracks
9. "Tears Roll Down" (B-side to "Sowing The Seeds Of Love") Orzabal, Dave Bascombe 3:16
10. "Always in the Past"  (B-side to "Woman in Chains") Orzabal, Ian Stanley 4:38
11. "Music for Tables" (B-side to "Advice for the Young at Heart") Orzabal 3:32
12. "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams" (additional B-side to "Advice for the Young at Heart") Orzabal 4:17

the hurting

Tears For Fears poured their personal pain into the dark and primal psychological new wave textures of this daring and dramatic debut.  Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith met as teenagers and cut their teeth in bands like Neon and Graduate before forming Tears For Fears.  Orzabal reveals:    "If you listen to the very first Tears For Fears record, it was called 'The Hurting'. It was inspired by a California psychologist, Arthur Janov, who wrote about primal scream therapy and all of that kind of stuff. The record was accused of--at the time, I wasn't very happy about it, but it was absolutely right--as being very depressing. And as an adolescent I dropped out of school and became unemployed and yeah, I suffered from depression, big-time. And Tears For Fears for me was a journey out of depression and into mania. No--I became more of an extrovert, sort of masculine. Masculinity. So, again, I didn't want to write personally; I was tired of looking at my past and looking within and doing that kind of stuff. I had reached a part of my life where it was by far the most stable period, and all the volatility of my childhood seemed to be under control until last Tuesday. I mean, I always moved as a kid. That's one thing. Now, all of a sudden, I'm in my house 10 years, kids going to school doing the school thing...kind of all the things I really wanted."

'The Hurting' was produced by Chris Hughes and Ross Cullum with Roland Orzabal on vocals, guitar, keyboards, rhythm programming, and lead vocals on tracks 1, 4-7, and 10; Curt Smith on vocals, bass guitar, keyboards, and lead vocals on tracks 1, 2, 3, 8, and 9; Ian Stanley on keyboard programming and computer programming; Manny Elias on drumming and rhythm programming; with Chris Hughes on rhythm programming, tuned percussion, and conducting; Ross Cullum on jazz high and dynamic toggle; Mel Collins on saxophones; Phil Palmer on palmer picking; and Caroline Orzabal doing the child vocal on 'Suffer the Children'.  Orzabal remembers:    "We recorded that mainly in Abbey Road Studios, and we were working seven days a week till 2 or 3 in the morning, and it was very difficult to make. The first hit single, 'Mad World', did very well in Britain, and that was pretty much the start of things. And it was an album very much inspired by the writings of Arthur Janov's primal scream therapy. In fact, some of the songs, like, like 'Ideas As Opiates' and 'The Prisoner', we directly lifted from some of his chapters in his book."

'The Hurting' made it to number seventy-three in the US, thirty in the Netherlands, sixteen in France and New Zealand, fifteen in Germany, and number one in the UK.   Smith explains how commercial success was not their priority:    "I think that was the record company people saying, 'Yeah this is going to be a single. This is going to be a hit.' We probably disagreed with them. I don't think you can have that mentality or, I should say, we can't have that mentality. That's just not the way we can work. The only way we can work is to go into a studio and record the best music we can. So in that sense there's no point to worry whether its going to be a hit or not. We just make the music we love making and do it to the best of our abilities. We're lucky enough that that ended up creating some hit records. It's sort of more by chance than anything else...I wasn't necessarily aware of that at the time. As most people know from the amount of time it takes us to make records, we do spend a lengthy amount of time to make a record the best that we can make it, and in the end it's really for our own satisfaction. We want to feel that we've done the best we can do in songwriting, craft, production and in performance, There's always room for improvement unless we reach that point in time where we feel that's the best we can do for now. If we're left with that feeling, then we're done. If you think you can still improve, then you're not done yet." 











http://tearsforfears.com/















"The Hurting" – 4:20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiFV3QQmOZ0


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahz_laxM6PU





"Mad World" – 3:35
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFsHSHE-iJQ
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1vz6i_tears-for-fears-mad-world_music#.UTbcgxw4HaE

Tears For Fears - Mad World by jpdc11




"Pale Shelter" – 4:34
http://vimeo.com/30169563
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zmg0_tears-for-fears-pale-shelter_music#.UTbdiBw4HaE

Tears For Fears - Pale Shelter by val6210

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccx0Iukv1qg





"Ideas as Opiates" – 3:46
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlD2jA_UO8A





"Memories Fade" – 5:08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtHjY3K5g1E


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=728o3osYo3o





"Suffer the Children" – 3:53
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTcIB0p5_Ms





"Watch Me Bleed" – 4:18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdvVkumBTuc





"Change"  – 4:15
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzphZSVYdY0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsQ7iA14ss0
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20x3l_tears-for-fears-change_music

Tears For Fears Change by Celtiemama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZWAqZN-uJo





"The Prisoner" – 2:55
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hJH9iyku-M





"Start of the Breakdown" – 5:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ofV0oJSxm4




'The Hurting' 
full album:




All songs written and composed by Roland Orzabal, except "The Way You Are" written by Orzabal, Curt Smith, Ian Stanley, and Manny Elias. 

1. "The Hurting"   4:20
2. "Mad World"   3:35
3. "Pale Shelter"   4:34
4. "Ideas as Opiates"   3:46
5. "Memories Fade"   5:08
6. "Suffer the Children"   3:53
7. "Watch Me Bleed"   4:18
8. "Change"   4:15
9. "The Prisoner"   2:55
10. "Start of the Breakdown"   5:00
bonus
11. "Pale Shelter (Long Version)"   7:09
12. "The Way You Are (Extended)"   7:43
13. "Mad World (World Remix)"   3:42
14. "Change (Extended Version)"  

head over heels

twenty five years ago i attended my first rock concert. it was a pivotal event in my life that almost didn't happen.

it involved waiting outside of a jc penney at the mall and running with my friends through the store for the ticket outlet upstairs. i bought tickets before asking my parent's permission, knowing that they would not approve. the show sold out that morning; but i waited until the week of the show to broach the subject with my mother. she finally relented when she heard my final plea: "but i already bought the tickets."

i had an emotional response to the music of tears for fears when i first heard them on the radio. the entire album resonated with me as it did with so many at the time. songs from the big chair was sophisticated, cathartic, insightful, and a number one smash. my friends and i had spent many nights listening closely to discern the lyrics.

the concert was an invigorating experience. the teaming mass of people, the smell of dry ice, and the dark quiet all combined to create a heightened sense of awareness. when the music washed over me, i was enthralled. i lost my voice shouting along from our seats on the first tier opposite the stage at the hartford civic center. it was therapeutic and inspirational and the beginning of a long love affair with live music.

http://tearsforfears.com/

broken 

between the searching and the need to work it out
i stop believing everything will be alright
broken
we are broken
Iim walking uphill being turned around and round
secret in motion when my feet are on the ground
broken
we are broken
in my mind's eye
one little boy anger one little man
funny how time flies


head over heals

i wanted to be with you alone
and talk about the weather
but traditions i can trace against the child in your face
won't escape my attention
you keep your distance with a system of touch
and gentle persuasion
i'm lost in admiration could i need you this much
oh, you're wasting my time
you're just wasting time

something happens and i'm head over heels
i never find out till i'm head over heels
something happens and i'm head over heels
ah don't take my heart
don't break my heart
don't throw it away

i made a fire and watching it burn
thought of your future
with one foot in the past now just how long will it last
no no no have you no ambition
my mother and my brothers used to breathe in clean air
and dreaming i'm a doctor
it's hard to be a man when there's a gun in your hand
oh i feel so...

something happens and i'm head over heels

and this my four leaf clover
i'm on the line, one open mind
this is my four leaf clover

in my mind's eye
one little boy, one little man,
funny how time flies.