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Versione 1
Rating: When playing chart-topping pop and blatantly striving to strike poses and looks that impress the eye even before the ear, there is only one way not to seem insignificant, if not unpleasant, especially to those who deeply love music and can barely stand the excessive superstructures that may accompany it: to still have great pieces, beautiful songs, well-made records.
This is the case for this album by the Thompson Twins: it contains good melodies, well-arranged and even better produced (in the style of the time, for we are in the full-blown colorful and synthetic eighties), disco-like but substantial, catchy yet intelligent, in which the few, but clear musical ideas of the group leader Tom Bailey, as well as his average yet competent voice, are brought out to the best by dynamic and particularly bright arrangements.
The credit for this goes to the producer, the talented and unfortunately prematurely deceased Alex Sadkin, who was based in the Bahamas and had cut his teeth in the seventies with people like Bob Marley, so he knew very well what to do to inject doses of brightness and rhythm into the British musical grayness of these three proletarian lads, all hailing from London's squat apartments, the occupied flats of the capital.
Thus, having quickly moved on from the makeshift solutions of illegally drawing electricity from a neighboring meter, and other similar tricks, to the joys of music charts across half of Europe, the three signed this, their third album in 1984, which can be identified as the peak of their career. The right wave would last another couple of years, after which one of the three friends, the mulatto keyboardist Joe Leeway, would leave due to the usual issues of underestimation and lack of adequate creative space. The two survivors, Bailey and the redhead Alannah Currie (who were also a couple in private at the time) would continue until 1993, with increasingly less extensive feedback until their final surrender.
Returning to Sadkin, he thus becomes the architect of a brilliant and agile electronic weave for all nine tracks on the list, based on the synthesis of percussive and ethnic sounds (marimbas, rattles, and guiros all the way), managing to convey warmth and naturalness to the sound output, despite the minimal role reserved for traditional instruments such as piano, some electric guitar arpeggios, and sporadic harmonica and melodica interventions.
"You Take Me Up" is the album's most striking track, featuring African-like choruses responding to Bailey's vocal line, as well as suggestive counterpoints from Leeway's melodica. "Day After Day" borrows a bit from the semi-spoken and whimsical vocal style of the Talking Heads. "Sister Of Mercy" mixes piano and Latin percussion with the traditional, danceable four-on-the-floor kick drum, for a funky yet as melodic as possible. "Hold Me Now" is my favorite, with a hypnotic and insistent, circular singing style.
However, there are no fillers; the musical quality remains constant throughout the album, supported by adequate variety. At the time, there were even better things to listen to in this genre (like Tears For Fears and Talk Talk, for instance), but on this occasion, the Thompson Twins were able to stand on par with the best.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Doctor! Doctor! (04:39)
I saw you there
Just standing there
And I thought I was only dreaming, yeah
I kissed you then,
Then once again
You said you would come and dance with me
Dance with me
Across the sea
And we could feel the motion of a thousand dreams
Doctor! Doctor!
Can't you see I'm burning, burning
Oh Doctor! Doctor!
Is this love I'm feeling?
Ships at night
Give such delight
But we all leave before the morning light
Please don't go
No, please don't go
Cause I don't want to stay here on my own
Oh Doctor! Doctor!
Can't you see I'm burning, burning
Oh Doctor! Doctor!
Is this love I'm feeling?
Doctor! Doctor!
Can't you see I'm burning, burning
Oh Doctor! Doctor!
Is this love I'm feeling?
Fever breathe your love on me
Take away my name
Fever lay your hands on me
Never be the same
Oh Doctor! Doctor!
Can't you see I'm burning, burning
Oh Doctor! Doctor!
Is this love I'm feeling?
Doctor! Doctor!
Can't you see I'm burning, burning
Oh Doctor! Doctor!
Is this love I'm feeling?
Come with me
And make believe
We can travel to eternity
03 Hold Me Now (04:46)
I have a picture
Pinned to my wall
An image of you and of me and
We're laughing and loving it all
But look at our life now
All tattered and torn
We fuss and we fight and
Delighting with tears
As we cry until dawn
Oh, whoa
Hold me now, whoa
Warm my heart
Stay with me
Let loving start
(Let loving start)
You say I'm a dreamer
We're two of a kind
Both of us searching
For some perfect world
We know we'll never find
So perhaps I should leave here
Yeah, yeah, go far away
But you know that there's nowhere
That I'd rather be
Than with you here today
Oh, whoa, oh, whoa
Hold me now, whoa
Warm my heart
Stay with me
Let loving start
(Let loving start)
Hold me now, whoa
Warm my heart
Stay with me
Let loving start
(Let loving start) whoa
You ask if I love you
Well, what can I say?
You know that I do
And that this is just one
Of those games that we play
So I'll sing you a new song
Please don't cry any more
I'll even ask your forgiveness
Though I don't know
Just what I'm asking it for
Oh, whoa, oh, whoa
Hold me now, whoa
(In your loving arms)
Warm my heart
(Warm my cold and tired heart)
Stay with me
(Oh, won't you stay with me)
Let loving start
Let loving start
Hold me now
(In your loving arms)
Warm my heart
(Warm my cold and tired heart)
Stay with me
(Oh, won't you stay with me)
Let loving start
Let loving start
05 No Peace for the Wicked (04:09)
There's a scandal in the city, lots of rumors flying round
I gave them all my money, what I lost they found
Sometimes I think they're madder than hatters having tea
Setting up the situation to destroy the scenery
(chorus)
(There's no peace) No peace for the wicked
We're dancing till we drop
(There's no rest) No rest for the wicked
And we're all too scared to stop
Oh can't you see the trouble?
It causes me much pain
Cause I don't understand
Why should I stand out in the rain?
Sometimes I think they're madder than hatters having tea
Setting up the situation to destroy the scenery
(REPEAT CHORUS x 2)
Satellites spin through the air, suffragettes are everywhere
When the headlines hit the streets they're gonna knock you off your feet
Satellites spin through the air, acrobats of atmosphere
Maybe love will disappear
I wonder if you really care
There's two people on the wire
Making fun of what you said
Say you're looking for affection
Won't you look at me instead?
No peace for the wicked
We're dancing till we drop
No rest for the wicked
And we're all too scared to stop
(REPEAT CHORUS x 2)
06 The Gap (04:44)
Wake up in a strange land, one of forty thieves
And I see for the first time just what you believe
I go down to the market where I can buy or sell
And listen to the chanting and all the lies the wise ones tell
They say
East is east, west is west
Two diff'rent colors on the map
We say break the line, chew the fat
a keep moving out into the gap
Beggars in the back street, there for all the world to leave
It's you that's begging for attention
Well it's all the same to me
And I won't ask permission, not from teachers or from kings
Cause I can see for myself all the pain that you will bring
They say
East is east, west is west
Two diff'rent colors on the map
We say break the line, chew the fat
a keep moving out into the gap
They say
East is east, west is west
Two diff'rent colors on the map
We say break the line, chew the fat
a keep moving out into the gap
They say
East is east, west is west
Two diff'rent colors on the map
We say break the line, chew the fat
a keep moving out into the gap
Can you smell the perfume of a hundred thousand years?
Dare you look into the eyes that hide a hundred million tears?
And there's no need to be so fightened of all the figures in the night
Cause we share the same emotions and no one's wrong and no one's right
They say
East is east, west is west
Two diff'rent colors on the map
We say break the line, chew the fat
a keep moving out into the gap
They say
East is east, west is west
Two diff'rent colors on the map
We say break the line, chew the fat
a keep moving out into the gap
They say
East is east, west is west
Two diff'rent colors on the map
We say break the line, chew the fat
a keep moving out into the gap
07 Sister of Mercy (05:09)
She lives in a big white house
The rooms are lemon and she's devoted to life
of keeping this house just right, ooh, ooh
The weekends are perfectly nice ooh, ooh
And she doesn't talk when he comes home at night
Twenty five years she's just the same
She's a lonely woman, quiet in her ways
Then he comes home one night
She kills him with a knife
Now she's the one who's a living in paradise
(chorus)
(Sister of mercy) No sister of mercy
Oh don't cry for me
(sister of mercy) No sister of mercy
It's all alright for me
Now she sits in a big white chair
In a room that's not so different to the one back there
She turns her face to the light
But she is blinded by her life
You can hear her cry alone at night
(REPEAT CHORUS)
So have mercy on that woman you don't know the way it's been
You don't know the trouble her eyes have seen
Can you feel the kiss of life when you come home at night?
Well, you better not turn your back on a paradise
(REPEAT CHORUS)
Sister of mercy (Sister of mercy)
Sister of mercy oh, oh
Sister of mercy (Sister of mercy)
Sister of mercy oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
(REPEAT CHORUS x 2)
09 Who Can Stop the Rain? (05:17)
I was dancing in heaven, you were keeping time
Then I read your letter, sent shivers down my spine
Said our love was over, I was not the one
If it lasts forever, forever wouldn't be much fun
(chorus)
Who can stop the rain?
Who can stop the rain from falling?
Who can stop this pain that's drowning me?
I could hear the sound of laughter
I thought that love was in the air
I was drowning in that golden age
You really seemed to care
I'm haunted by a dream, a giant human beings
I wait alone for hours
Love is never what it seems
(REPEAT CHORUS)
(REPEAT CHORUS)
You always had fantastic plans, that I always knew
And now you want to leave me out, so it's raining just for you
Those changes that you wanted make you ten feet tall
I tried to move those mountains but mountains never move at all
(REPEAT CHORUS x 3)
Who can stop the rain? (can stop the rain?)
Who can stop the rain from falling? (can stop the rain?)
Who can stop this pain that's drowning me?
Submitted by Michael Hack
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