Mothers Talk

“Mothers Talk” is the seventh single release of Tears for Fears. It was written by Roland Orzabal and Ian Stanley and sung by Orzabal. It garnered the fifth place in the UK Top 40 chart hit. The song was released well beforehand of the LP and showcased the edgier sound of the band, in comparison to their debut LP The Hurting (1983).

The song stems from two ideas. One is something that mothers say to their children about pulling faces. They say the child will stay like that when the wind changes. The other idea is inspired by the anti-nuclear cartoon book When The Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs.

—Roland Orzabal

This was a taster for Songs From The Big Chair, the second album, on which we unashamedly tried to become more commercial. I was against it, but I was swayed by some of the people that I was working with. They wanted to come out all guns blazing, but I wasn’t ready for that. It was from this point, though, that things really started to explode.

—Roland Orzabal

“Empire Building” was the songs b-side, “Mothers Talk” was one of the first Tears for Fears songs that demonstrated an inventive sampling use. The beginning strings of the song were culled from a record of Barry Manilow, while the drum sample around which “Empire Building” is created was taken from the song of Simple Minds called “Today I Died Again”. This was Tears for Fears second single for which Mercury Records used as a promotional tool the picture disc and vinyl colored gimmicks. It also featured numerous 12″ releases having different kinds of remixes of the track.

While “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” was seen by America as the first single released from the Songs from the Big Chair LP, “Mothers Talk” was finally released there as the fourth and the last single from the album in April of 1986. This songs version was re-recorded fully by the band after their Big Chair tour wrapped up and it was award-winning producer Bob Clearmountain who mixed it. In addition to a different picture sleeve, the single also featured a cover of Robert Wyatt’s “Sea Song” as the B-side.

“Mothers Talk” 7” version is the similar mix of the song set up on the Songs from the Big Chair LP, although in a form that was edited. Before the “US Remix” was released, the band did two other remixes of the song: the “Beat of the Drum Mix” and the “Extended Version”. These were both a featured track on its own 12″ single, with “Empire Building” as the b-side of each song.

A total of three promotional clips were done for the song. The original version was a clip set in a blue toned room and interspersed with pictures of a young girl being studied by scientists, the band didn’t like it and it was later disowned. A video replacement (directed by Nigel Dick) was then filmed in Curt Smith’s backyard with a limited budget. Both clips were released in the market in Europe and UK during the mid-1984. The third and last video was completed in the early 1986 for the “US Remix” of the song and showed a family making preparations for a bomb shelter for nuclear fallout, in keeping with the theme of When the Wind Blows, which was a Raymond Briggs’ graphic novel. An extended mix of the song, featuring an additional stanza at the start, is restricted to this version.

Chart Position

#14 UK Singles Chart

#23 Irish Singles Chart

#27 U.S. Billboard Hot 100

#50 New Zealand Singles Chart