Song Lyric Sunday – “Hold Me Now” – Thompson Twins

This week Jim Adams has prompted us with choosing songs pertaining to Hold | Pause | Stop | Wait for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday.

I’m taking us back to the 1980’s again. My senior year in high school. Guess I’m reflecting quite a bit lately to those life-changing years. This was another song that reflected turmoil in my life as an 18 year old senior not knowing what I was going to do with my life after a huge breakup with my high school sweetheart. My heart was broken into a million pieces during these first months of 1984. This song was released in the United States the same month I was making the decision to enlist in the Marine Corps or self-destruct. Enlisting seemed like the best thing to do in February of that year. Another song that was in the MTV normal rotation.

The band name, Thompson Twins has nothing to do with anyone from the band, but was named after two bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson in the Belgium cartoonist Georges Prosper Remi’s (pen name Hergé) comic strip The Adventures of Tintin.

Thompson Twins is a British band that formed in 1977 as a new wave group, but switched to mainstream pop with their popularity in 1983. With a number of hits in the United Kingdom, United States and around the world, their image began to change. Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway were the 3 main group members during their most successful years. In 1993, they changed their name to Babble for their chill-out tunes but the band disbanded permanently in 1996 when Leeway left. Bailey & Currie performed as a duo for another seven years.

Tom Bailey continues to tour under the moniker “Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey”, performing in the UK and was in North America in 2016. In 2016, Bailey received the Classic Pop magazine’s “Best Live Show” award. Bailey toured the US with The B-52’s and Culture Club which was dubbed The Life Tour.

---

In a 2014 interview, Tom Bailey explained to Songfacts that “Hold Me Now” was written as the result of an argument between himself and Alannah Currie. He is quoted below:

We actually decided, well, this is an interesting emotional subject. What it feels like to get back together again after separation and the kind of ideas that come up and the way that emotion and physicality somehow are brought together.” – Tom Bailey

SONG FACTS

• Written by band members, Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie & Joe Leeway.
• Released on November 11, 1983 and became the band’s biggest selling single.
• The first single on their fourth studio album, Into the Gap.
• Peaked at #3 on Canada’s (RPM) chart & US Billboard Hot 100.
• Peaked at #4 on the UK Singles Chart.
• Certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in 1983.
• First top five song for the band in Britain.
• Released in February, 1984 in the US and was the band’s highest charting song in the United States.
• Reached #1 on the Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Play chart for one week in April, 1984.

“Hold Me Now”

I have a picture
Pinned to my wall
An image of you and of me and we're laughing, we're loving it all
But look at our life now
All tattered and torn
We fuss and we fight and delight in the tears that we cry until dawn
Oh, whoa
Hold me now, whoa
Warm my heart
Stay with me
Let loving start
Let loving start
You say I'm a dreamer, we're two of a kind
Both of us searching for some perfect world we know we'll never find
So perhaps I should leave here
Yeah, yeah, and go far away
But you know that there's nowhere that I'd rather be than with you here today
Oh, whoa, oh, whoa
Hold me now, whoa
Warm my heart
Stay with me
Let loving start
Let loving start, whoa
Hold me now, whoa
Warm my heart
Stay with me
Let loving start
Let loving start, whoa
You ask if I love you
Well, what can I say?
You know that I do and if this is just one of those games that we play
So I'll sing you a new song
Please don't cry anymore
I'll even ask your forgiveness
Though I don't know just what I'm asking it for
Oh, whoa, oh, whoa
Hold me now, whoa
(Hold me in your loving arms)
Warm my heart
(Warm my cold and tired heart)
Stay with me
(Stay with me)
Let loving start
Let loving start, whoa
Hold me now, whoa
(Hold me in your loving arms)
Warm my heart
(Warm my cold and tired heart)
Stay with me
Let loving start
Let loving start, whoa
Hold me now, whoa
(Hold me in your loving arms)
Warm my heart
(Warm my cold and tired heart)
Stay with me
(Stay with me)
Let loving start
Let loving start, whoa
Hold me now, whoa
(Hold me in your loving arms)
Warm my heart
(Warm my cold and tired heart)
Stay with me
(Stay with me)
Let loving start
Let loving start, whoa
Hold me now, whoa
(Hold me in your loving arms)
Warm my heart
(Warm my cold and tired heart)
Stay with me
(Stay with me)
Let loving start
Let loving start, whoa
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Tom Bailey / Alannah Joy Currie / Joseph Martin Leeway
Hold Me Now lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group