"Sowing the Seeds of Love" is a song by English pop rock band Tears for Fears. It was released in August 1989 as the first single from their third studio album, The Seeds of Love (1989).
The song was a worldwide hit, topping the Canadian RPM 100 Singles chart and reaching the top 10 in Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In the United States, it reached No. 2 on the BillboardHot 100, becoming their fourth and last top 10 hit. It also reached No. 1 on both the Modern Rock Tracks chart and the Cash Box Top 100.
Background
The song's title was inspired by a radio programme that Orzabal had heard at the time about folk song collector Cecil Sharp. One of the songs was called "The Seeds of Love", which Sharp learned from a gardener called Mr. England (reflected in the lyric "Mr. England sowing the seeds of love")[4] in 1903. Sharp overheard John England singing the song, and was inspired to look more deeply into English traditional songs. "The Seeds of Love" was therefore the first song that Sharp collected, and the one that sparked the English folk song revival.[5]
"Sowing the Seeds of Love" incorporates a number of musical styles and recording techniques, with a number of reviewers considering it a pastiche of the Beatles, produced in a tempo and style reminiscent of their late 1960s output, even for the use of a brief trumpet line very similar to the one that can be heard in "Penny Lane".[6] It was written in June 1987, during the week of the UK General Election in which Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party won a third consecutive term in office. The election prompted Roland Orzabal to take an interest in politics, with a special interest in socialism due to Thatcher's attitudes towards the working class. At the time of its release in 1989, he considered this to be the most overtly political song that Tears for Fears had ever recorded. The lyrics refer to Thatcher specifically with the lines: "Politician granny with your high ideals, have you no idea how the majority feels?"[7][8] (Mrs Thatcher that year having had her first grandchild born.)[9]
Elsewhere, the song takes a dig at fellow musician Paul Weller with the line "Kick out the style, bring back the jam" as Orzabal felt Weller had lost touch with his working class political outlook after the dissolution of his previous band The Jam in lieu of the less political material he was writing with his current band The Style Council at the time. In the third verse, the lyrics mention a sunflower, which references a piece of graffiti that Orzabal found on a wall near his house in London.[10]
Orzabal took further inspiration from "I Am the Walrus" when developing the song, including the tempo changes. However, David Bascombe, who served as the engineer and producer for these sessions, recalled that the band instead derived the tempo from a parody of the song titled "Piggy in the Middle", which was created by The Rutles.[11][12]
Critical reception
David Giles from Music Week wrote, "They've pulled out all the stops here. There seems to be three or four different songs all competing for prominence, but it's the full-blown rousing chorus that wins through, and don't be surprised to see it hurtling number one-wards."[13]
The single was released in August 1989 on multiple formats, including a 7-inch single, a 12-inch single, a 12-inch picture disc, a cassette single, and a CD single. An abridged version of "Sowing the Seeds of Love" was included on the 7-inch single, which was trimmed to 5 minutes and 43 seconds in duration. The 12-inch single included the album version of "Sowing the Seeds of Love" with "Tears Roll Down", a largely instrumental non-album track as the B-side. Orzabal reworked "Tears Roll Down" into "Laid So Low (Tears Roll Down)" for the release of the band's Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 82–92) compilation album.[12]
In the United States, "Sowing the Seeds of Love" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 53 on the week date 2 September 1989. During its ninth week on the chart, it peaked at No. 2, where it was held back from the number one spot by Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much".[17] As such, the song became the band's highest charting single in the United States since "Shout".[10] It spent 15 weeks in the top 100; all but three of those weeks were spent in the top 40.[18][19] Orzabal commented that the song's failure to reach number one "gave the American record company an excuse to take their foot off the gas."[12]
"Sowing the Seeds of Love" debuted at No. 9 on the UK singles chart on the week dated 2 September 1989. Two weeks later, it peaked at number five. The song spent a total of nine weeks in the top 75.[20]
^Deggans, Eric (1998). "Tears for Fears". In Graff, Gary; Durchholz, Daniel (eds.). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. Detroit: Visible Ink Press. p. 1128.
^Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Tammi. ISBN978-951-1-21053-5.
