Curt Smith – The Delete Bin

Listen to this track by multi-platinum one-time primal screamers and pop song craftsmen Tears For Fears. It’s “Sowing The Seeds of Love”, the title track from their 1989 record Sowing The Seeds of Love.

The immediate reaction to it at the time was to acknowledge its tie to the Beatles, particularly the “All You Need Is Love” era. This song certainly references that earlier song thematically, as well as sonically, with a bit of “I Am The Walrus” thrown in for good measure.

I think too it was a reaction against the loss of political conscience of nations, and their people. This was also a marker of the era, when songs on the radio were no longer making comment on the state of the world. This one was a notable exception.

So what made a big-selling pop band turn in a statement that ran so contrary to the approach of most pop bands looking to trouble the charts? Read more

Listen to this track by proto-emo duo and Arthur Janov-reading hit-makers Tears for Fears. It’s ‘The Hurting’, the lead track off of their exemplary 1983 debut record The Hurting, an effective concept album about dealing with childhood trauma in adulthood from two guys who were only barely adults themselves when they recorded it.

I should open this by saying that the Hurting is one of those records that I absolutely ate up when it came out in 1983. I was fourteen, and while my childhood up to that point was not traumatic exactly, I found that the sentiments to be found in the songs on this record resonated with me, and with most of my friends too. Perhaps it’s because the band’s authors, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, were writing with their own fourteen-year old selves (and younger) in view, although they were in their very early twenties at the time. Read more

The Delete Bin

Tag: Curt Smith

Tears For Fears Play “Sowing The Seeds of Love”

Tears For Fears Perform ‘The Hurting’