Song Review - Tears For Fears - “NO SMALL THING”
REVIEW BY: Peter Moreman
It has been an unreasonable 17 years since we last had an album from Tears For Fears and now we have a date. The Tipping Point will be dropped 25th of February, 2022, and on that album is to be No Small Thing, their newest song with an entirely new sound.
No Small Thing is so very different to what we’re used to hearing from them.
Tears For Fears made such iconic songs such as: Mad World, Everybody Wants to Rule the World and Shout. They were very sort of… pop-rock, using a multitude of instruments and experimental sounds; something that you would expect to come out of the UK in the 80s. However, upon listening to No Small Thing, I don’t think most people could guess who it was (I certainly couldn’t). There are strumming’s of acoustic guitars, slight trembles in the vocals, and the lyrics mention Mexico and America quite a lot, making it the motif; it’s a country western song, but with a dash of folk in there to keep you on your toes. Listening to it the first time and knowing their sound, had me standoffish, I wasn’t too keen on it, but I stuck with it. I listened to it a second time and completely kept their other songs out of my mind. I focused on the lyrics and how they mixed them with the acoustic strumming, and that is when I really heard No Small Thing.
It has some more painful and sad themes about it but overall, it is kind of a soothing song. The vocals are calming and have the capacity to really relax the mind, which funnily enough connects us with the overall theme, freedom. Freedom of escaping the humdrums of day-to-day life, leaving the pain behind, and simply moving on is what they sing of. Furthermore, when watching the music video, it further reinforces that idea by using horses running in a field and people running from the things that are terrorising them. The song does of course have its crazy points (the end mainly), although it’s controlled and used in a way that works.
Simply put, it’s a peaceful song with a simple meaning and I can’t wait to find out what else they have to share with us when The Tipping Point drops.
ABOUT TEARS FOR FEARS
Tears For Fears - Roland Orzabal (vocals, guitar, keyboards) and Curt Smith (vocals, bass, keyboards) formed in Bath, England 1981. With 30 million albums sold worldwide, performing to countless sold-out audiences, and winning various awards, the band represent an inimitable intersection of pop palatability, clever and cognisant lyricism, guitar bombast, and new wave innovation. Their 1983 debut The Hurting yielded anthems such as “Mad World,” “Change,” and “Pale Shelter,” reaching RIAA Gold status in the United States. 1985’s Songs from the Big Chair became a watershed moment for the group and music at large. Boasting the signature BRIT Award-winning “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” “Shout,” “Head over Heels,” “Mothers Talk” and “I Believe (A Soulful Re-Recording),” it went quintuple-platinum and captured #1 on the Billboard Top 200. Slant dubbed it one of, “The Best Albums of the 1980s,” it was featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, and Consequence of Sound awarded it a rare A+ rating in a 20-year retrospective.1989’s Seeds of Love proved to be Orzabal and Smith’s last collaboration together until Everybody Loves A Happy Ending in 2004, which rekindled the creative fire between them. The band engaged in a three-year touring whirlwind across North America, Japan, South Korea, Manila, and South America beginning in 2010. 2013 saw them return with their first recorded music in a decade: a cover of Arcade Fire’s “Ready to Start.”
The band returned once more in 2017 with the Rule The World best of collection which once more catapulted the band back to the upper echelon of the UK album charts. The duo’s DNA remains embedded within three generations of artists on both subtle and overt levels. Quietly casting a shadow over rock, hip-hop, electronic dance music, indie, and beyond, Kanye West interpolated “Memories Fade” on “The Coldest Winter” from the seminal 808s & Heartbreak, The Weeknd infused “Pale Shelter” into Starboy’s “Secrets,” David Guetta sampled “Change” for “Always,” and Drake utilized “Ideas as Opiates” as the foundation for “Lust For Life,” while Ally Brooke Hernandez, Adam Lambert, and Gary Jules recorded popular covers of “Mad World” and Disturbed took on “Shout,” and that’s only to name a few. Lorde cut a haunting cover of “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” for the Soundtrack of the blockbuster The Hunger Games – Catching Fire, which Tears For Fears gleefully would use as intro music live and thus bring everything full circle.
Meanwhile, classic songs figure prominently everywhere from The Wire and Donnie Darko to Straight Outta Compton and Mr. Robot. Long before they became a cultural cornerstone Tears For Fears simply consisted of two school friends growing up in Bath, Somerset UK.
With The Tipping Point and comprehensive touring plans on the horizon Orzabal and Smith remain as loud as ever, while yet another generation gets ready to “Shout” with them all over again.
