{"id":601321,"date":"2026-08-22T15:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T15:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/601321\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T15:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T15:38:12","slug":"tears-for-fears-songs-of-pain-after-17-years-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/601321\/","title":{"rendered":"Tears For Fears\u2019 songs of pain after 17 years away"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once darlings of the 80s pop scene but always powered by prog, Tears For Fears made a bold return with 2022\u2019s The Tipping Point<\/a>, their first new album in nearly 18 years. At the time of its launch, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith told Prog about the ambition that kept them going \u2013 and how their difficult reunion led to a rediscovery.<\/p>\n

Curt Smith has a framed picture of King Crimson<\/a> on his bathroom wall. It\u2019s not just any old photo. The occasion is April 30, 1981, in the confines of Bath\u2019s Moles club, where a fresh iteration of the band \u2013 tentatively called Discipline \u2013 is returning to the stage for the first time in seven years. Bassist Tony Levin<\/a> dominates the foreground, while the 19-year-old Smith stands directly in front of him, utterly transfixed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cA friend of mine got Tony Levin to send that picture to me,\u201d explains Smith, who
went on to form Tears For Fears<\/a> with Roland Orzabal later in \u201981. \u201cApparently, Tony used to have this side-stage camera that he\u2019d take pictures with during a gig, using a footswitch. So it\u2019s taken from slightly behind him, with me watching him play a Chapman stick. In the picture I\u2019m like, \u2018What is that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

To the uninitiated, it may come as a surprise to discover that Tears For Fears are big prog fans. After all, they became synonymous with the new breed of British synthpop with 1983 debut, The Hurting, before conquering the rest of the 80s with platinum-selling monsters Songs From The Big Chair and The Seeds Of Love. But there was always something much deeper going on.<\/p>\n

The Hurting was a concept album about childhood dysfunction and trauma, with allusions to Arthur Janov\u2019s primal scream therapy \u2013 dark themes cloaked in mainstream pop. The title track was an inventive mini-suite, while songs like Memories Fade boasted the forceful complexity of the best prog. Even King Crimson veteran Mel Collins popped up on sax.<\/p>\n

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\"King\n<\/p>\n

Curt Smith, right, watches Tony Levin in 1981 (Image credit: King Crimson (with attentive Curt Smith, front row). Pic: Tony Levin courtesy of DGM)<\/p>\n

And while 1985\u2019s Songs From The Big Chair yielded the mega-hits Shout and Everybody Wants To Rule The World, its sense of ambition was far more attuned to the world of prog. There\u2019s a clear Crimson feel to the knotty precision of Broken; the fragile I Believe betrays the influence of Robert Wyatt<\/a> (to whom it\u2019s dedicated); and Listen is nearly seven minutes of gorgeous futurist abstraction.<\/p>\n

By the time they returned with The Seeds Of Love in 1989, Tears For Fears had assimilated prog, pop, jazz and post-psychedelia into a richly organic vision, the questing spirit of late-60s rock dressed in late-80s luxuriance. Even the guests \u2013 Phil Collins<\/a>, Simon Clark, Jon Hassell and Simon Phillips<\/a> among them \u2013 had serious prog credentials.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve always been drawn to a certain kind of music,\u201d says Orzabal. \u201cComplicated music, if you like; whether it\u2019s My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts by David Byrne<\/a> and Brian Eno<\/a>, Peter Gabriel<\/a> 3 [aka Melt<\/a>], or whatever. In the days when everyone would go to school with the name of a band on their rucksacks, mine was Uriah Heep<\/a>. I was absolutely obsessed with them. And then Foxtrot<\/a> and Genesis<\/a> Live. And Led Zeppelin<\/a>\u2019s Houses Of The Holy<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always more of a Peter Gabriel fan than Genesis,\u201d adds Smith. \u201cRenaissance<\/a> was another one: Scheherazade And Other Stories<\/a>. When I look back at the albums I listened to, they were all very lyrically intense and musically a little weird. Pink Floyd<\/a>\u2019s Wish You Were Here<\/a> and Animals<\/a> were two albums that I loved. Wish You Were Here, particularly, was just so daring and different. Floyd were a huge influence for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back then, as teenagers in Bath, school friends Smith and Orzabal were inspired to form a band of their own. Mod-leaning quintet Graduate were duly founded in 1978, but ground to a halt three years later, after a solitary album that didn\u2019t sell. Undeterred, Smith and Orzabal pressed ahead as a duo.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Tears For Fears – The Tipping Point (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Tears<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cCurt and I were almost like students, trying to get to that fucking level of the music we really loved,\u201d Orzabal recalls. \u201cBut you never can; it\u2019s always slightly out of reach. My God, you can have a lot of fun trying to get there, though. So we had that sort of united quest for the gold bars coming out of the speakers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Smith: \u201cWe listened intently to other records. We knew we could never be that good, but at least we could aspire to get closer. I think we\u2019ll always be in a position where we feel like that. And I think that\u2019s a good place to be in, because then you continue to strive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Intriguingly, Tears For Fears returned to their teenage selves to kickstart their new album. The Tipping Point, their first for 18 years, had a troubled and lengthy gestation. Their management team had initially suggested that Smith and Orzabal write and produce with younger artists in order to snag a more commercial, more youthful demographic. What the duo now dismissively refer to as \u201cspeed dating\u201d was a failure, the upshot being a set of recordings devoid of Tears For Fears\u2019 core identity. Not for the first time in their career, it also led to tension between Smith and Orzabal.<\/p>\n

We went out for lunch and reconnected, then we got together with a couple of acoustic guitars. It was the first time since we were 18<\/p>\n

Roland Orzabal<\/p>\n

They decided to change management, scrap the collaborative album and switch labels. Just before the pandemic hit, the pair got together in Smith\u2019s adopted city of Los Angeles for a crisis meeting. \u201cWhen we\u2019d come off the last tour in 2019, I\u2019d gone into my second rehab and Curt had gone off into the sunset,\u201d Orzabal explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tend to be at loggerheads when we go on tour a lot, because touring is very stressful. And like a marriage, if something goes wrong, you immediately blame your partner. So we went out for lunch in early 2020 and sort of reconnected. Then we got together in Curt\u2019s house with a couple of acoustic guitars.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first time we\u2019d really done that since we were about 18. And I became aware, probably from sobering up, that something occurs between the two of us, like a third force. And that third presence is very creative. Curt had a riff and we came up with a piece of music that was really unusual. Then I took it away and just ramped the whole thing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tears For Fears – No Small Thing (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Tears<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

The result was No Small Thing<\/a>, the opening track on The Tipping Point. Smith says: \u201cRoland went back to England after that writing session and sent me this song that was just completely different. It went from an acoustic guitar thing into this grandiose track. And I was like, \u2018Yes, that\u2019s what we do!\u2019 Initially, I was wondering whether this project was ever going to work or not. But that song led us on the way. That was the point where I realised we could make this record.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tipping Point is a majestic and fittingly mature work. Prog-pop songs soar, borne up by strings. Acoustic hymns glow amid layers of quivering synths, while guitars churn and ballads stir. It\u2019s also deeply affecting. Tears For Fears have been through a lot to get here, particularly Orzabal. The album is heavily informed by grief, loss, mental anguish and healing, among other things.<\/p>\n

Some of its most moving moments \u2013 the title track and Please Be Happy \u2013 were written about Caroline, Orzabal\u2019s wife of 35 years, who died in 2017. Already on medication for depression, the onset of alcohol-related dementia meant that Orzabal spent five years as her prime carer.<\/p>\n

Roland went home after that writing session and sent back a song that was completely different\u2026 I was like, \u2018Yes, that\u2019s what we do!\u2019<\/p>\n

Curt Smith<\/p>\n

\u201cThat song is really about clinical depression, where the person you love can\u2019t get off the sofa,\u201d he says. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to go out for a meal. In fact, they don\u2019t actually want to eat. With Caroline, her depression and anxiety was off the scale. Like The Tipping Point, it came from a long period of time. We\u2019re talking many, many years of decline. I wrote more songs about that whole scenario, but those were the two that made it onto the album.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orzabal developed his own related problems at the same time. \u201cI was also in the grip of addiction,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd my first instinct was denial. We were on tour in the States when Caroline passed away. I flew back, arranged the funeral, did the wake, got back on a plane and continued with the tour. Even towards the end of that year, we were still working. It was only when we stopped that the wheels came off for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first Christmas without her, at our family home with our sons, I was absolutely done in. And then I had my own health issues, where I ended up in hospital four times. I ended up on the same fucking psychoactive drugs as she did. So I know exactly what happens if you drink with them and suddenly stop. Thankfully, I had the support and wisdom to put myself into rehab. Caroline tried so many times, but she just couldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tears For Fears – Please Be Happy (Official Audio) – YouTube
\n\"Tears<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the profoundly personal nature of parts of The Tipping Point, the songs also work on a universal level. Smith and Orzabal examine love, devotion, loss, sorrow and redemption throughout. Anger and compassion too. The ruling patriarchy is lambasted on Break The Man, while the sublime Rivers Of Mercy addresses Black Lives Matter and societal unrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe care a lot about what\u2019s going on in the world,\u201d Orzabal says. \u201cEspecially in this day and age, where the myths we\u2019re being sold by governments are so powerful. Within that, someone\u2019s got to step forward and start speaking about the reality. That\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do. Not libertarian, but more sort of social commentary.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tipping Point is way better than anyone might have expected from two 60-year-old men who\u2019ve been together (on and off) since they were kids. Tears For Fears have their own unique, sometimes combustible chemistry \u2013 and an intensity and sense of adventurism that continues to align Smith and Orzabal to the artists they adored in their formative years.<\/p>\n

I had a sense there was something important we had to do \u2013 a sense of mystical purpose<\/p>\n

Roland Orzabal<\/p>\n

With a stack of live dates coming up in 2022 they\u2019re in a very good moment right now. Past experience, however, has taught them not to get too far ahead of themselves. \u201cGoing on tour will be step one,\u201d says Smith. \u201cIf there\u2019s a step two, that will either present itself or not. Roland and I are old enough and wise enough to realise that. Anytime we make plans further ahead, they tend to never materialise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orzabal, meanwhile, seems to be reawakened. \u201cAt the end of 2019, I had kind of a shift, personally and emotionally,\u201d he concludes. \u201cPartly being with my new wife [writer and photographer Emily Rath] and being in a far better place, mentally. And I had a sense that there was something important that Curt and I had to do. A sense of mystical purpose, if you like, to ring in a new era for Tears For Fears.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd for us \u2013 as people who\u2019ve known each other since the age of 14 \u2013 to turn 60 together, and to be still working together, is really something. This has been a bit of a dream, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

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