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Unbelievably this is Chris De Burgh's first Top 40 single in Britain. It had raced to No. 10 by 15th July 1986.
Of course, it doesn't seem so surprising now because this has gone on to become by far his most famous song (and only of only two Top 20 hits for him) but at the time I can understand the confusion. He only had a couple of minor (UK) chart singles to his name by 1986, and yet he'd charted several albums including two best-of sets so I have to presume his records were getting played on the radio somewhere, but not anywhere I'd have heard them.
It all changed with this track. Now, when I write on this blog I try to avoid following received opinion - but I can't deny that I've long disliked this and even when I was timing the record I took my headphones off for the duration. I did of course make myself listen to it once for the purposes of this post, and I can, if generous, see what people liked about it. There aren't many songs about appreciating the partner you've been with for a long time, and in theory there really ought to be more: if somebody you knew had written this for his wife, it'd be quite a touching gesture. But in reality, this song seems to prove how difficult it is to actually express that kind of emotion in words - and the words are probably the best of this record, which suffers from a dull melody and awful leaden production, complete with Pino Palladino on that fretless bass that easily dates this to within a decade. Of course it feels tailor-made for the last song at a disco and it must have been one countless times. Like I said, I'm not surprised this was successful, just disappointed.
The Guinness Book of hits always used to point out that De Burgh was the first act ever to enter the Swiss album chart at 1, but they didn't mention hismystical healing powers.
Available on: Notes From Planet Earth - The Ultimate Collection
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