80’s at 8: December 19, 2022- The Alarm & The Cult
On tonight’s 80’s at 8 I started off with the title track to the Alarm’s second album from 1985 Strength. The title track Strength was released before the album was released and reached #61 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and #40 on the UK Singles chart.
The music video for Strength did get some airplay on MTV but it never could really break through in the US or in their Native UK. It’s a shame cause it is a great song and the album has some good tunes on it. In a 2020 interview with Song Facts frontman, Mike Peters said “‘Strength’ arrived to me in the middle of the night,” he said. “It was a bit of a dream song. I woke up in a hotel room after we played a gig in Newcastle, and I had the melody of the chorus and the words in my head. I was rooming with a friend who now works for Bob Dylan [John “Redeye” Edwards]. I woke him up in the middle of the night and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get my guitar out of the band van and bring it up here, because I’ve got a song.’
Per Songfacts website – After Mike Peters was diagnosed with cancer in the mid-’90s, this song took on new meaning for him, particularly the line, “Who will be the lifeblood coursing through my veins?” “I didn’t realize how prophetic that was going to be for my own life as a leukemia survivor now who one day might have to have a transplant and have a donor to give me their life’s blood to stay alive,” he told Songfacts. “I didn’t really know what I was singing when I wrote those words, but they stayed in the song and they were just straight out of the imagination.”
Check out the music video for Strenght by The Alarm here:
The Second track comes from The Cult’s debut album from 1984 titled Dreamtime. Spirit Walker was the first single released from the album. It was released five months before the album was released. Spiritwalker” was written while the band was still called Death Cult. It was never recorded by the group but was integrated into their set list during their second United Kingdom tour in late 1983. The song, musically, was much different, but, lyrically, it was nearly the same as the final recorded version. The song has its origins in Ian Astbury’s earlier group, Southern Death Cult.
On 29 October 1981, at the group’s second live performance ever, Southern Death Cult played Queen’s Hall in Bradford, England. During their set, they performed an untitled song (later referred to as “The War Song”) that featured many of the same lyrics as “Spiritwalker”. The song was never performed by Southern Death Cult again. Apparently, Astbury incorporated the lyrics of “The War Song” into the creation of “Spiritwalker” but no credit was given to the other members of Southern Death Cult and it is unknown whether they contributed to the writing of the original version.
Spirit Walker reached # 1 on the UK Indie Chart and #77 on the UK Singles Chart. Dreamtime album reached #21 on the UK Albums Chart and was certified Platinum in the UK. The music of the album is characterized as dramatic, moody, dark psychedelic, with “crystalline guitar not that far off from what U2 was going after”.[3] In 1985 Ian Astbury noted that The Cult was “like Big Country and U2, only better!”. Check out The Cult performing Spirit Walker on the UK TV Show The Tube in1984 Here:
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