1982 was really the year that my star and Tears For Fears rapidly ascending one aligned. Mad World, their breakthrough single which made the Top Five. A concert at Hammersmith Palais, my first, supporting The Thompson Twins and playing the ten to fifteen songs they would prune into their debut album the following year which would take them from a cult concern into genuine chart contenders. From there to conquer the States and everywhere else. Everybody Want To Rule The World apparently. Not me. I went off them. I preferred obscure, sensitive literary guitar bands who were lucky to have a Top 40 hit in their entire careers.
But I did like Tears For Fears in 1982 and 1983. They fitted my ever changing moods. Going from spotty and awkward to vaguely presentable and enigmatic. At least that's how I felt about myself. The Hurting was a good soundtrack. I wasn't particularly angsty. I'd had a pretty untroubled life so far. But Roland and Curt let me pretend that I was. Deep even. They also had the best tunes of the band's entire career for me. Closer in spirit to Joy Division and Teardrop Explodes than anything they produced from that point on. I still think The Hurting is a great record and still play it from time to time. I don't relate to the lyrics anymore.
* Rather than Change or Pale Shelter, their bigger hits from earlier in the year I've chosen The Way You Are, their non-album transitional single from the Autumn. It was a bit of an oddity in the band's career. The last detectable influence of Remain in Light which had been all over their first album. They never sounded remotely like Talking Heads again.
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