That guitar, that doppler-like shhhhrang hits your heart like a hammer. And like so much 80's music, especially coming out of Britain, it is deadly serious and dryly humorous. It leaves enough gaps to bring you in. When I was 13 or 14, this song used to feel like it came from another world.
We used to have the radio on to a station that played the "Hits of the 80's, 90's and Today" in my dad's car and often around the house. I used to dread hearing this song. I remember being a very emotional kid, and when you're that age, things get all knotted up inside of you. Anything that stirs something up inside you has to be wrong somehow. Sadness was supposed to sound like a monster ballad, like Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" or Aerosmith's "What It Takes." It was on display but it wasn't necessarily shared. This song was just upsetting. It seethed with a dire darkness I just couldn't cope with. I needed to shut it out. But there I'd be, in the car, and hearing "I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar ... I am human and I need to be loved just like everybody else does" made me grit my teeth. And music like this, maybe not even this song specifically, but further exposure to music like this, eventually helped me put the world in better order.
I'd like to say listening to music like this made me deep or something. The truth is more like I was confronted with something I didn't understand and I didn't like how it felt, which is fitting since growing up is pretty much nonstop that. Eventually you change piece by piece, guided by little factors: songs you hear, people you meet, places you go. I wound up as someone prepared to deal with whatever a song like this stirs up. And it's a remarkable piece of music that retains that magic.
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