Primal Therapy, Anyone?

I was rummaging (again!) through my old cassette tape collection and found my copy of Tears For Fears' debut album, The Hurting.

Geez, was it that long ago when I first got hooked on the primal therapy pop/rock of these boys from Bath? I mean, I was still in high school when The Hurting first came out. Back then (and I guess, even now) the songs from the album exuded a freshness and quirkiness that no other act before or since has quite been able to emulate. By laying down lyrics that might have come from your Arthur Janov-educated shrink over layer after layer of synthesizers, percussions, and ambient sound effects, Tears For Fears presented music that would be like what rock n roll would be if it finished high school, joined the Ivy League, and graduated with top honors. I mean, its rock n roll with brains, man. A nice change of pace after getting used to rock lyrics that deal with sex and violence and drugs and parties and politics.

I followed the band throughout their first three albums (The Hurting, Songs From The Big Chair, and Seeds Of Love), which means I still have copies of those things on cassette. While I consider all the songs from the above albums as superb works, certain songs do stand out for me: from The Hurting, it's gotta be "Watch Me Bleed" (which I consider as one of the more underappreciated songs in the collection); from Songs From The Big Chair, it's "The Working Hour" (everything just gels so perfectly together; gotta love those sax passages); and from Seeds Of Love, I'd go for the title track "Sowing The Seeds Of Love" (which convinced me that Seeds Of Love is Tears For Fears' "Sgt. Pepper").

Of the three aforementioned songs, however, I really can't shake off "Watch Me Bleed". So here's a video of TFF's live take on the song. Better call your shrink. He might want to see this.