The Living Years

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Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
The Living Years
  DE 13 04/03/1989 (10 weeks)
  UK 2 01/14/1989 (11 weeks)
  US 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 07/01/1989 (20 weeks)

The Living Years is a 1988 song by Mike & the Mechanics written by Mike Rutherford and BA Robertson. It appeared on the Living Years album. Paul Carrack sings the song.

history

The song is about unresolved conflicts of a son that he had with his father (during his lifetime). In an interview, composer Mike Rutherford said:

“The text was written by BA Robertson and is about an incident he went through. He lost his father and it is also about the lack of communication between the two of them before his father died. The irony about his prospective fatherhood after the death of his father also plays a role. "

Carrack, too, had lost his father at the age of eleven.

It was released on December 27, 1988. The soft rock song became a number one hit in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia and Japan . At the Ivor Novello Awards 1989, the song won the Best Song Musically and Lyrically category . For the 1990 Grammy Awards , the song was nominated in three categories: Single of the Year , Best Male Vocal Performance - Pop, and Best Music Video . In 1996 Burt Bacharach said in an interview about the song: "The Living Years' is one of the finest lyrics of the last 10 years." (German: The Living Years is one of the songs with the best lyrics of the last 10 years). The Broadcast Music recorded the song for the sale of over 4 million copies.

Music video

The music video was directed by Tim Broad and was released in January 1989. It was shot in the summer of 1988 in West Somerset , near Porlock Weir and the hamlet of Culbone . The video shows Mike Rutherford and his then eight-year-old son Tom, as well as actress Maggie Jones, known as Blanche Hunt from the soap opera Coronation Street . The other band members can also be seen singing the song with a choir.

Cover versions

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chart placements: chartsurfer.de . Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  2. ↑ Mike Rutherford. Internet Movie Database , accessed December 8, 2009 .
  3. ↑ Do you know the ways to Monterey? Santa Fe? Whitley Bay? .. In: Mojo. March 1996, accessed October 7, 2009 .
  4. ^ BMI London Awards: Song List. BMI, October 5, 2004, accessed December 8, 2009 .