I haven't listened to Tears For Fears' Elemental in months. I primarily hear it on my bike-riding playlist. So, today, Day 2 of bike commuting, it seemed fitting to queue it up.
This was the album Roland made after a reportedly bitter falling-out with Curt Smith, with whom he started TFF when they were teenagers. I say bitter because, well, listen to the lyrics. The album, and this song particularly, is known as the anti-Curt material, and I think you can hear it without too much cagey connecting of dots.
You ain't a clue who or what you are
You're dreaming your life away
Fish out of water
The first thing I wondered was, what happened to Curt? He did well for himself, more or less, continuing to make music from his new base in the U.S. You can't ask for more as an artist, the ability to continue your work in new forms and collaborations when others end, whether they collapse in pain or burn down to embers naturally.
For being the self-professedly rabid TFF fan I am, it's weird that I didn't know that Curt and Roland actually reconnected, forgave, and reunited over a decade after their early 90s split -- and made a new album together.
It's called Everybody Loves a Happy Ending.
While I won't use Google to excavate the past (for once) to find out if they toured to Chicago and try to remember how/why I missed that show and didn't go (likely culprits: money or theatre, or both), I'm gonna download this baby and see what it's about.
I need to put together this year's biking playlist anyway, and while I'm listening to it, it might be good to think about connection and compassion. I do love a happy ending, and I know it's out there, someplace.
1 comment:
Not until today have I noticed how the image on the cover of ELEMENTAL is framed. There's empty space next to Roland. Not just empty space but...*negative space*. Showing the absence of something.
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