June 2 – Ringo Got A Little Help From His Friends

It was a big day for North American music fans 56 years back. That day in 1967 kicked off the “Summer of Love” … and signified that the ’67 The Beatles weren’t your daddy’s Beatles. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band hit the stores here that day, about a week after they had over in Britain (which was earlier than the label had planned to release it there; a story for another day).

The album was a landmark, both musically and culturally and we’ve looked at it before, as well as its iconic cover picture. So today we’ll look at one of its iconic songs – “With A Little Help From My Friends.”

The song kicks in directly seguing from the opening title track (meaning radio usually played both together since they merge on the LP) and stands out from the rest of the album because it’s sung by Ringo Starr. Or “Billy Shears” in his Sgt. Pepper alter-ego. By then the band typically allowed Ringo one song per album to sing and take a bit of the spotlight on. Mind you, it wasn’t til their “White Album” that they actually trusted to write the song. So this one was a Lennon/McCartney one, although generally it’s believed to be more Paul than John. Lennon himself verified that. While at the time of the album he said it was about “fifty-fifty” writing, by 1980 he said the song was “Paul, with a little help from me.” Paul is believed to have written the lyrics but John tweaked them and helped compose it, on piano. He had an injured index finger, leading him to play primarily with his middle finger… which led to the band’s working title for it, “Bad Finger Boogie.” The title changed, but wasn’t wasted. Apple Records first non-Beatles stars took the name “Badfinger” from it. No matter whose words and whose finger may have been sprained, it was seen as one of the last songs John & Paul actually wrote together, no matter what the publishing credits might show.

They wrote it specifically for Ringo however, and he rose to the occasion. He sang it superbly, even the prolonged high note ending it, at about 5 AM after they’d already done 10 takes of the song. Interestingly, on those recordings John played piano, producer George Martin was on a Hammond organ and George played lead guitar. Paul’s bass and a bit of John guitar (and cowbell!) were added in later. And it was the perfect song for Starr. After the band broke up, the others had gigantic success for varying lengths of time, but Ringo did OK for a couple of albums then disappeared from the charts. But not from the stage or fans hearts; his All Starr Bands over the last 30 years or so have been live music highlights for millions and feature Ringo … with a little help from his friends who could range from Todd Rundgren to members of Men At Work and Average White Band to Joe Walsh. Everyone loves Ringo, and he traditionally closes his live shows with the song. Even Paul has joined him on the song at least three times, including a Grammy Awards Tribute to the Beatles with additional help from friends like Stevie Wonder, Dave Grohl and Miley Cyrus! Everyone loves Ringo.

So too must Joe Cocker. The Mad Dog Englishman made his version of it (with Jimmy Page on guitar) his first album’s title and it quickly became his only #1 song in the UK. As such, it ranks in the rarified air with another Sgt. Pepper song – “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” – as a Beatles song where a cover version not only exceeded the original in popularity, but actually hit #1.(The Lucy cover being by Elton John of course.)  Joe’s version was a hit in the ’60s, made his name known when he appeared at Woodstock and later was used as the theme song for the TV show The Wonder Years. Not everyone liked his gravel-road, bluesy rendition of it, but many did, including Paul McCartney. Cocker made it into an homage to Ray Charles and McCartney said “it was just mind-blowing. Totally turned the song into a soul anthem, I was forever grateful for him doing that.”

As many know, The Beatles didn’t release any songs off Sgt, Pepper as singles in ’67; relying instead on standalone releases of “Penny Lane”, “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “All You Need is Love” to keep them on the airwaves that summer. They did release it in 1979 (to capitalize on the … well, not quite “popularity”… but the presence of the Sgt. Pepper movie) but it failed to hit the top 40 in major markets. The album however, was another story.

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October 25 – Cliffs Notes On Sir Cliff

It’s often been mentioned, while some (Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Duran Duran etc) British acts translate very well across the ocean, others just don’t seem more a local taste there and don’t hit it very big in North America despite being huge at home (T Rex, Slade etc). Perhaps there’s no better example of that than Cliff Richard…who had a big day in 1995. In fact, it was a significant day in British history, as Cliff became “Sir Cliff”, becoming the first pop or rock musician to be honored with official knighthood in the UK.

Richard was sometimes referred to as the “British Elvis”, and with good reason. His career started around the same time as Presley’s and like “The King”, his early persona was something of a rebel. Like Presley, he had a bit of a career in film as well during the early-’60s. And like Presley, he was massively popular in his homeland. By 1970, he’d racked up three dozen top 10 hits in the UK, seven of them #1s (some with his early bands the Drifters and the Shadows); he’d go on to add 29 more to that including five #1s and a total of 30 gold or platinum albums. His first big hit, “Move It” was in 1958; his last “Thank You For a Lifetime”, a #3 hit in 2008. Over here however, he only scored occasionally in the ’70s and beginning of the ’80s, with just three top 10 hits, “We Don’t Talk Anymore”, “Dreamin’” and his first and biggest, “Devil Woman”, his only gold single on this side of the Atlantic.

However, for all his popularity on the radio, his knighthood was based on his charitable work, not his music. The crown cited his “contributions to charity” for the reason they bestowed the honor on him. Early on in his career, Richard had decided to “tithe” or give away at least a tenth of his income to charity. He says he’s guided by the principle “to be a good and responsible steward of what has been entrusted to us.” He set up his own charitable foundation, has been a big supporter of Alzheimer’s research and of an organization called Tearfund, which helps alleviate poverty in the Third World. And, as a tennis buff, he also set up a charity to build courts and teach British kids the sport.

So with his three sisters there to witness it, Queen Elizabeth made Cliff “Sir Cliff.” It started a trend. While he was the first rocker to get the official title (earlier she had given an honorary title to Bob Geldof for his Live Aid work, but as an Irish person, he wasn’t eligible for official knighthood) since then she’s similarly decorated a number of other rock stars for their charitable work. They include Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Mick Jagger, Roger Daltrey, Tom Jones and Elton John. In 2011 she made Annie Lennox a member of the order as well, which makes her “Dame Annie.” George Martin was awarded knighthood, but unlike the others, his was for his musical work and “contribution to popular culture.”

Of course, there always has to be a renegade. She wanted to award David Bowie with knighthood in 2000, but he turned her down. “I seriously don’t know what it’s for,” he told the press. “It’s not what I spent my life working for.”

October 22 – When Paul Thought Writing Movies Was More Fun Than New Songs

Ambition is a necessary quality for an artist. Big ambitions often result in big, bold results…unless they are overshadowed by even bigger egos. This might well be the case in one of the ’80s oddest musical projects – Give My Regards To Broad Street. The album arrived this day in 1984.

Give My Regards To Broad Street was a huge multi-media vision of Paul McCartney. He wrote a screenplay, starred in it and made the soundtrack to boot. Which, one might think could’ve been great. Yet few would argue that it was anything but.

The film is a somewhat confusing to even read about thing with Paul, his wife Linda and even Ringo Starr all playing themselves. But he’s got to deliver some master tapes to the record company and they’re missing and we go through a “day” of Paul’s including various dreams. We won’t say what herbs might have inspired the dreams. As allmusic put it, it was a “disastrous 1984 film …a nearly impenetrable ‘farce’ involving stolen tapes, ghosts and funny moustaches.” The film flopped, losing money and scoring a rating of 21% at Rotten Tomatoes.

Still, there was the music…and it was Paul. It couldn’t be bad, right? Especially when he’s supplemented by a veritable All Star team of musicians including David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Dave Edmunds, several members of Toto, Eric Stewart of 10CC and Anne Dudley of Art of Noise, among others. Not to mention Ringo Starr. Well, actually it wasn’t bad so much as pointless to the ears of most fans. It was a collection of songs leaning heavily on older, existing ones from his catalog including Beatles gems like “Good Day Sunshine” and “Eleanor Rigby” and ones from his past glories like “Silly Love Songs”. But rather than use the originals, he re-recorded them all, trying to sound very close to the originals. As allmusic noted about that, “if he reinterpreted them, this would at least be interesting.” Ultimate Classic Rock point out that the “affable Ringo…refused to drum on any of the reworked Beatles songs.” Paul did create a few new songs for it; “No Values”, “Not Such a Bad Boy” , the moderately well-received, retro-sounding  “Goodnight Princess” which only showed up on the CD (the LP contained shorter versions of several songs plus lacked this one due to time limitations of vinyl) and “No More Lonely Nights”, the album’s single and to many, one redeeming point.

Rolling Stone, allmusic and Q are in agreement with their ratings of 2-stars for it, a rather across-the-board bad score. Ultimate Classic Rock decided it stalled McC’s career and suggested “to say it didn’t work is an insult to anything that’s ever worked.” For all that, “No More Lonely Nights” with Herbie Flowers taking over the bass from Paul himself and David Gilmour on guitar, was a fine song and to allmusic a “lovely mid-tempo tune” that saved the record from being an “unmitigated disaster.”

And the public agreed, the single getting to #2 in Britain, #6 in the States, and #11 in Canada, making it one of his last notable real “hits”. The album did go to #1 at home but made lacklustre appearances on North American charts – #21 in the U.S., and #23 in Canada. The UK was the only market where it went platinum, and it hastened his departure from Columbia Records whom he’d been with for a few years on this side of the ocean. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, George Martin never worked on a McCartney record again either.

October 18 – Picture When Ringo’s Star(r) Was On The Rise

Picture this : at one time it seemed like Ringo Starr might have had a decent shot at having as good a, if not better than, post-Beatles career than the other three. In both 1971 and ’72 he’d had a sizable hit single (“It Don’t Come Easy” and “Back off Boogaloo”) and on this day in 1973 he bolstered his resume with a single that Billboard magazine raved about, declaring it “has to be a #1 single this month. Right?” that single was “Photograph”, the first single off his third album, simply called Ringo. The single was released in Britain and Europe 49 years ago today, a week or two after it had come out in the U.S.

If Ringo was seen as not having the voice of Paul or the writing chops of any of the other three, he could still hold his own against many of his pop contemporaries in those areas and was a very good, under-rated drummer. But perhaps his greatest skill is in being a nice guy everyone seems to like. That was reflected in the fact that each of the other three Beatles helped out on this album, albeit not all together. “Photograph” was written by George and Ringo together, and in fact they’d recorded a demo of it while George was recording an album two years earlier. Ringo decided to revisit it and record a new version, with none other than Harrison coming back to play the 12-string guitar on it and sing backing vocals. Among the other talents who played on the song were saxophonist Bobby Keys and Nicky Hopkins on piano. They recorded it in L.A., opting for a full sound reminiscent of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, something not coincidentally helped along by using some studio engineers who oft worked with Spector. Ringo – well ahead of his time – later made a video (or “promotional film” as he would call it then) for the song back in England, at Tittenhurst Park, the famous estate that he’d just bought from John Lennon.

The song managed to sound fairly upbeat despite having forlorn lyrics about the guy who couldn’t forget a love from the past who was gone, leaving him with only a photograph. And it sounded good, something that would have sounded right at home on a number of Beatles albums. Record Mirror upon its release also predicted it would be a “giant smash,” admiring how it sounded big but “nothing’s overdone so as to take away from the song.”

“Photograph” hit #1 in New Zealand and Australia (where it would be his only #1) and Canada, where it was his second, and proving Billboard right, also in the U.S., where it got him a gold record. His native land was a bit of an exception though, with it only getting to #8 in the UK.

July 23 – Baseball Has Its All Star Game; Music Its All Starr Band

What’s a great drummer with years of hits behind him but no band to play them with anymore to do? Well, if you’re Ringo Starr and it’s 1989, you “went through my phone book, rang up a few friends and asked them if they’d like to have fun in the summer.”

Ringo needs no introduction of course, but by then he’d fallen into the realm of “what ever happened to?” shows. He’d last put out an album in 1983, and last hit the charts two years before that with the song “Wrack My Brain,” which only barely scraped into the North American top 40. But he wanted to play and realized there was a huge market wanting to see him play some of his own hits as well as Beatles music. Thus was born the idea of his All Starr Band, which premiered this night 33 years back at the Park Central Ampitheatre in Dallas.

Rolling Stone once noted “ultimately what’s most impressive about Ringo Starr isn’t what he’s been, but rather who he is – the man’s great heart and soul, his wit and wisdom.” A fair assessment (one might also add in his astounding energy even to this day!), and no doubt made it very easy for him to round up some friends who indeed wanted to have some fun with him that summer. His idea was rather a clever and new one. Instead of just recruiting new members to replace John, Paul and George and play Beatles and Ringo songs, why not get friends who are great musicians in their own right and let them play some of their own material in the show as well? It would be difficult for any musician to turn that down, when asked by someone like Ringo. But still, apparently Todd Rundgren and Peter Frampton did say no, but only because of prior engagements. Both joined later editions of the All Starr Band.

But he had plenty of star talent with him for the ’89 tour. Although there were one or two occasional fill-ins for a night or two, the opening night lineup was pretty much the standard for the tour : “fifth Beatle” Billy Preston on keyboards and acting as “music director”, Dr.John on piano, drummer Levon Helm and bassist Rick Danko from The Band, well-respected session drummer Jim Keltner (who’d played with the likes of John Lennon, Roy Orbison and the Bee Gees before), guitar legend Joe Walsh, and the E Street Band’s “big man,” saxophonist Clarence Clemons as well as its guitarist Nils Lofgren. Of course, in the spirit of having fun, several of the artists got to change instruments for a song or two; Helm played the mandolin at times, Lofgren the accordion and Walsh did a tasteful piano bit on “Desperado.” That being typical of the non-Ringo songs covered (it should be noted that while Ringo sang his own songs, obviously, and Beatles ones, he let the other guys step up to the mic to sing their own hits) ; the fourth song of the night was “such A Night” by Dr. John, who also did his ’70s hit “Right Place, Wrong Time”. Walsh closed the main set with an odd “Rocky Mountain Way” which included some of the traditional “Amazing Grace.” Nils Lofgren sang “Shine Silently,” while fans found that Clemons can sing when he’s not blowing on the sax. Along with Billy Preston, the “big man” sang “You’re A Friend of Mine,” a tune he’d done with Jackson Browne in ’85. The Band were represented by songs like “The Weight” (Levon helm singing) and “The Shape I’m In” (Rick Danko.) But doubtless the highlight for most was Ringo doing his thing. He opened the show with “It Don’t Come Easy,” followed by the “No No Song” and then the first Beatles number of the night, “Yellow Submarine.” He’d run through others like “Act Naturally,” “You’re Sixteen” and “Back Off Boogaloo” and come on back with “Photograph,” “You’re Sixteen” again and “With a Little Help From My Friends” as an encore.

The show was by all accounts a major hit, and he continued on doing 34 shows in 29 cities by September 4, when he finished it in L.A. Among the cities were six Canadian ones. They resumed at the end of October and played a number of shows in Japan, including two at the famous Budokan Theater.

While his setlist stayed reasonably constant through the tour, he added in “Get Back”, with Billy Preston singing, for the Japanese shows. Along the way, he periodically had other friends drop by. For instance, at a Holmden, NewJersey show in August, two more E Street Band members showed up. Roy Bittan played some keyboards for Joe Walsh and none other than Bruce Springsteen himself came by to play guitar on four songs. Paul Shaffer came to the final L.A. show to play keyboards and their finale saw actors John Candy and Chevy Chase singing backup!

No doubt it made it even harder for other musicians to resist when Starr came calling in future years. Among the long and talented list of musicians who’ve worked in his All Starr Band through the decades are the aforementioned Frampton and Rundgren, plus Randy Bachman, Dave Edmunds, Mark Farner of Grand Funk, Greg Lake, Graham Gouldman from 10CC, Howard Jones and one female All Starr – Sheila E.

Ringo’s back at it this summer, his age of 82 not standing in the way of a good show. This time he’s joined by Men At Work’s Colin Hay, Edgar Winter, drummer Gregg Bissonette (David Lee Roth’s band among others), Hamish Stuart of the Average White Band and Warren Ham of Kansas who plays everything from keyboards to flutes. By all accounts the show’s are wonderful and high energy, and they resume Sep. 5 in Massachusetts and work their way west through the East coast then the Canadian mid-section, to L.A. On Oct. 16 and then two shows in Mexico.

“I love being in a band,” Ringo declares brightly. And we love you being in a band, Ringo, I’m sure we agree.

July 7 – Nothing Opaque About Summer Of Love Anthem

Happy birthday to Ringo Starr, who turns 82 today. We hope he’ll be having a happy day and perhaps taking it easy…because 82 or not, he’s back on the road this fall with an extensive tour set to play North American places as far-flung as Clearwater, Florida, Laval, Quebec and Mexico City! No surprise given the international adoration and respect the Beatles earned. Speaking of which, The Beatles were on top of their game this day in 1967.

Riding high on the album charts with Sgt.Pepper… they released the “Anthem of the Summer of Love” this day as standalone single. “All You Need Is Love” would go on to hit #1 in the UK, U.S., Canada and many other countries and become their 17th gold or platinum single in the States. The song had been premiered on TV in June as part of the ambitious Our World. That was an unprecedented six hour show taking place around the world and broadcast via satellite to over 20 nations. While things like Marshall McLuhan being interviewed in Toronto and subway construction taking place in Tokyo were interesting, The Beatles were the highlight to most and wrote the song especially for it. Due to the international nature of the show, they wanted something easy to understand and got it. As Brian Epstein says, “the nice thing about it is that it cannot be misinterpreted.” John Lennon had written the lyrics, saying “I’m a revolutionary artist. My art is dedicated to change.”

His hand-written lyrics were sold for 1 million pounds (about $1.75 million today) in 2005. Although it was only a single at the time, the song later found its way onto their Yellow Submarine soundtrack and Magical Mystery Tour in North America.

May 15 – Fab Three Remembered John

Tragedy can put things in perspective. Not exactly a consolation, but a fact and an explanation for a great song that came out this day in 1981. George Harrison gave us his first single off the Somewhere in England album, “All Those Years Ago” , not only a tribute to John Lennon, but the closest thing we’d get to a Beatles reunion.

Harrison had remained friends with Ringo Starr, and was in 1980, both working, slowly, on his own album, and helping Ringo put together his Stop & Smell the Roses album. Harrison added some guitar work to the record and wrote a song for it, “Wrack My Brain.” He also wrote a version of “All Those Years Ago”, and they did the preliminaries, with Ringo doing the drumming of course. However, Starr didn’t really love the song, and turned it down.

Meanwhile, through rather good fortune that seemed anything but to Harrison originally, Warner Bros. – who distributed his own Dark Horse Records – refused to put out the version of Somewhere in England he turned in late in ’80. They noticed that George had only had one minor hit (the under-rated “Blow Away”) in years and thought the album he finished was rather bland and totally lacking commercial appeal. They even rejected the cover photo.

Harrison was upset, but grudgingly agreed to go back, rework a track or two and add a couple of new songs. Then, of course, John Lennon was murdered. Harrison remembered the old song he’d written for Ringo, and quickly rewrote the lyrics as a love song to John, with lyrics like “we’re living in a bad dream” and “you point to the truth when you say ‘All You Need Is Love’.” He kept the recording of Ringo doing the drums – session superstar Herbie Flowers did the bass by the way – and then, in an act of generosity, called up Paul McCartney. McCartney, along with his Wings bandmates (at that point just his wife Linda and Denny Laine) came by and recorded backing vocals, making it the first time the three had been together on a record since they finished Let It Be some 11 years earlier. Harrison finished it off with a touching video, a slideshow of pictures highlighting John.

It was a good song, and a timely one, and it helped put George back on the musical map, briefly at least. In his UK, it only got to #13 surprisingly, but elsewhere it was very well-received. In Canada it got to #3, in Ireland, #4; it also made the top 10 in Australia and several European lands. In the all-important U.S. market, it was a chart-topper on Adult Contemporary stations (an indication of the aging of the Beatles fans perhaps) and got to #2 on the singles chart, only kept from the top by Kim Carnes mega-selling “Bette Davis Eyes.”

It didn’t help the album out that much though; Somewhere in England peaked in the teens (#11-19) almost worldwide and quickly disappeared, it became George’s first post-Beatles album to not get a gold record (or better) in the U.S. Harrison would be almost invisible in the music world until his big comeback in 1987, Cloud Nine, which had another look back at the Beatles, “When We Were Fab.”

February 11 – Apparently That Wasn’t All For Genesis

Just there biggest hit to date, that’s all. That would describe Genesis and their growing American fanbase; on this day in 1984. “That’s All” hit #6 on Billboard, making it their biggest single to that point in the U.S.

The self-titled album from which it was drawn had been different from previous ones for the Brit trio, in that there was more collaboration and improvising in the studio on songs. It also continued the slow drift away from Prog Rock into pure pop territory that had begun in the ’70s after they’d become a trio. “That’s All” was essentially a simple song written by Phil Collins as an homage to the Beatles, him emulated Ringo’s drumming style on it. The album went on to be their third straight #1 in the UK (notably, it was the fourth studio release since Peter Gabriel left the band and essentially turned the show over to Collins) but opened new doors Stateside for them. As Kerrang put it, Genesis had “traded technical complexity and ingenuity for …more stunning simplicity” .Allmusic liked the “sleek, pulsating pop tune” but Rolling Stone didn’t approve. It gave the album a 2-star rating in a review which found the album “particularly appalling in light of what Genesis shows this trio is capable of.” They did approve of this single though, calling it “engaging” and “pushing the band to new heights of rhythmic expression.”

The song not only hit the American top 10, but rose to #2 on mainstream rock charts there. to the north though, it peaked at #14 in Canada, only their fourth biggest hit of the decade at that point, while in their homeland it got to #16. Of course, it wasn’t all for the band. Genesis would later go on to finally nab a U.S. #1 single three years later with “Invisible Touch” and presently are trying to get a world tour completed – one which has been stalled several times due to the pandemic.

October 19 – Picture This : Ringo Was A Big Star

Picture this : at one time it seemed like Ringo Starr might have had a decent shot at having as good a, if not better than, post-Beatles career than the other three. In both 1971 and ’72 he’d had a sizable hit single (“It Don’t Come Easy” and “Back off Boogaloo”) and on this day in 1973 he bolstered his resume with a single that Billboard magazine raved about, declaring it “has to be a #1 single this month. Right?” that single was “Photograph”, the first single off his third album, simply called Ringo. The single was released in Britain and Europe 48 years ago today, a week or two after it had come out in the U.S.

If Ringo was seen as not having the voice of Paul or the writing chops of any of the other three, he could still hold his own against many of his pop contemporaries in those areas and was a very good, under-rated drummer. But perhaps his greatest skill is in being a nice guy everyone seems to like. That was reflected in the fact that each of the other three Beatles helped out on this album, albeit not all together. “Photograph” was written by George and Ringo together, and in fact they’d recorded a demo of it while George was recording an album two years earlier. Ringo decided to revisit it and record a new version, with none other than Harrison coming back to play the 12-string guitar on it and sing backing vocals. Among the other talents who played on the song were saxaphonist Bobby Keys and Nicky Hopkins on piano. They recorded it in L.A., opting for a full sound reminiscent of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, something not coincidentally helped along by using some studio engineers who oft worked with Spector. Ringo – well ahead of his time – later made a video (or “promotional film” as he would call it then) for the song back in England, at Tittenhurst Park, the famous estate that he’d just bought from John Lennon. Strangely, that video currently seems to be one of the rare ones not found on Youtube.

The song managed to sound fairly upbeat despite having forlorn lyrics about the guy who couldn’t forget a love from the past who was gone, leaving him with only a photograph. And it sounded good, something that would have sounded right at home on a number of Beatles albums. Record Mirror upon its release also predicted it would be a “giant smash,” admiring how it sounded big but “nothing’s overdone so as to take away from the song.”

“Photograph” hit #1 in New Zealand and Australia (where it would be his only #1) and Canada, where it was his second, and proving Billboard right, also in the U.S., where it got him a gold record. His native land was a bit of an exception though, with it only getting to #8 in the UK.

February 11 – Genesis Were Big In America, That’s All

Just there biggest hit to date, that’s all. That would describe Genesis and their growing American fanbase; on this day in 1984, “That’s All” hit #6 on Billboard, making it their biggest single to that point in the U.S.

The self-titled album from which it was drawn had been different from previous ones for the Brit trio, in that there was more collaboration and improvising in the studio on songs. “That’s All” was essentially a simple song written by Phil Collins as an homage to the Beatles. He emulated Ringo’s drumming style on it. It offered a stark contrast to the album’s first single, the eerie, Peter Gabriel-esque “Mama.”

The album went on to be their third straight #1 in the UK (notably, it was the fourth studio release since Peter Gabriel left the band and essentially turned the show over to Collins) but opened new doors Stateside for them. As Kerrang put it, Genesis had “traded technical complexity and ingenuity for …more stunning simplicity” .Allmusic liked the “sleek, pulsating pop tune” but Rolling Stone didn’t approve. It gave the album a 2-star rating in a review which found the album “particularly appalling in light of what Genesis shows this trio is capable of.” They did approve of this single though, calling it “engaging” and “pushing the band to new heights of rhythmic expression.”

The song not only hit the American top 10, but rose to #2 on mainstream rock charts there. to the north though, it peaked at #14 in Canada, only their fourth biggest hit of the decade at that point, while in their homeland it got to a middling #16. Genesis would later go on to finally nab a U.S. #1 single three years later with “Invisible Touch”.