“Suffer the Children” was the first song Tears for Fears did after the Graduate. It was written and sung by Roland Orzabal, it was the band’s first release, recorded in Bath, England shortly after the 1981 breakup of Orzabal and Curt Smith’s previous band Graduate. The song is included in the Tears for Fears’ debut LP The Hurting (1983). It was in the 52nd position in the UK Singles Chart in 1985.
The title of the song is like that of the passage in the Biblical book of Matthew 19:14, wherein Jesus Christ teaches about the innocence of children. According to Orzabal:
…We were really big on this at the time – we really thought children were born innocent and good and holy… When you’ve got kids of your own, you realize how bloody difficult it is. But it’s that kind of thing – saying look at what you’re doing with your child.
—Roland Orzabal
“Suffer The Children” was the first song we did together when we left Graduate. It was our very first experimentation with sequencers and drum machines, with a guy called David Lord, who worked with Peter Gabriel and different people down in Bath. So that was actually the first song we did as Tears For Fears.
—Curt Smith
The 7” version of the song is far off from the version in the album The Hurting with having Curt Smith singing some of the lyrics in the songs beginning. The 12” version on the other hand has both the instrumental and remix of the song.
“Wino” is a short, acoustic song that came out as the b-side to “Suffer The Children”. The songs style, not including the production or synthesizers or of any kind, is unusual of the band’s body of work as a whole. It remains unreleased on CD up to this day.
In the year 1985, after the huge success of the band’s second LP Songs from the Big Chair, Mercury Records reissued the single complete with a new picture sleeve. It barely missed the UK Top 50 after failing to chart altogether the first time around. This release featured the same track listings and format as the original.
Tears For Fears – Suffer The Children
