Spandau Ballet Songs - True Lyrics

Spandau Ballet - True

Spandau Ballet - True Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: True
Released: 1983

True Lyrics

Huh huh huh hu-uh huh

So True funny how it seems
Always in time, but never in line for dreams.
Head over heels when toe to toe.
This is the sound of my soul,
This is the sound.
I bought a ticket to the world,
But now I've come back again.
Why do I find it hard to write the next line?
Oh I want the truth to be said.

Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true.
Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true.

With a thrill in my head and a pill on my tongue
Dissolve the nerves that have just begun.
Listening to Marvin (all night long.)
This is the sound of my soul,
This is the sound.
Always slipping from my hands,
Sand's a time of its own.
Take your seaside arms and write the next line.
Oh I want the truth to be known.

Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true.
Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true.

I bought a ticket to the world,
But now I've come back again.
Why do I find it hard to write the next line?
Oh I want the truth to be said.

Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true.
Huh huh huh hu-uh huh
I know this much is true.

This much is true.

I know, I know, I know this much is true.

Writer/s: BELL,MARK/BULLYMENT,TIM/BIRCHALL,PAUL/YOUNG,LEO
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

True

The lyrics for this song were inspired by a crush Spandau Ballet's Gary Kemp had on Altered Images singer and Gregory's Girl star Clare Grogan: "I was infatuated with Clare Grogan," he told The Guardian. "I met her on Top of the Pops and, at one point, travelled up to Scotland to have tea with her and her mum and dad. Although my feelings were unrequited and the relationship was platonic, it was enough to trigger a song,"

Some phrases in the lyrics were adapted from the novel Lolita , a copy of which Clare Grogan had given Gary Kemp. "The lyrics are full of coded messages to Clare," Kemp told The Guardian. "I'm still berated for the line 'Take your seaside arms' but it's straight out of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, which she had given me as a present – although in the book, it's 'seaside limbs. The line 'With a thrill in my head and a pill on my tongue' is also a bastardisation of Nabokov."

One of the song's producers, Tony Swain, recalls in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, "We made the True album in the Bahamas and I am sure that a lot of that place got into the album. True was not a complicated song but it has really got something. There is something timeless about it: it has had over 2 million radio plays in America and it has been used in the wedding scenes for lots of films. It's very nice to have made a record that has lasted that long and I still feel good about it."

This was a huge worldwide hit, going to #1 in 21 countries.

The video for this song helped its chart fortunes considerably. Directed by Russell Mulcahy, it got lots of airtime on MTV, which was just two years old at the time.

There was plenty of production value, but no real storyline in the video, which was intentional. Gary Kemp explained: "I didn't want to dictate what 'True' should be like. I'm sure when people hear that record they've got their own idea of what it means and what it looks like. So we just performed it, and lit it well – shooting light through water and broken glass – and it worked."

P.M. Dawn sampled this on their 1991 hit "Set Adrift On Memory Bliss." It was also sampled on Nelly's 2004 song "N Dey Say."

This has been used in a number of movies and TV shows, including The Wedding Singer, Sixteen Candles, Wedding Crashers, The Office, Spin City and The Simpsons. (thanks, Fulu Thompho - limpopo, South Africa)

Gary Kemp wrote of the song on his website: "I wanted to write a soul song a la Al Green or Marvin Gaye. I still remember sitting on my bed at my parents' house writing it on guitar and calling Martin (his brother and Spandau Ballet bass player) in to listen to it. It became a song about trying to write a love song to someone who didn't know your true thoughts, but how difficult it is to spell out your feelings without seeming too foolish."

"We never realized the full potential of this song until we started to record it at Compass Point. On the ECD's home movie footage of Nassau you can see the moment where we're playing back the song, half finished, in the studio, and everybody, including the roadies, are singing along to it. It was at that moment that I knew we had something special."

The saxophone solo was by the band's Steve Norman. He told The Guardian: "The solo is actually a composite of two takes. I'd only been playing a year and was listening to Grover Washington Jr's 'Just The Two Of Us' with Bill Withers, over and over. The solo is a reply to that: at the key change things just lift off, giving the song a moment of elation."