Monday Music "Its My Life" By Talk Talk

 I am still running my favorite songs theme, this will run for a few more weeks.  Then I will switch to songs that I flat out can't stand.  But for now these are songs that I will hit the "Repeat" button over and over again....because I can. 

     This song to me is really good when I am on my motorcycle, I will play this song over and over again...especially the extended version. The Band is part of what I call the 2nd British invasion, that was mostly the "New Wave" that defined the 80's music and the decade that is my favorite decade for music.  Don't get me wrong, I like the 70's and 60's also, but the 80's was my decade.  A personal preference thing.

"It's My Life" is a song by the English new wave band Talk Talk. Written by Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene, it was the title track on the band's second album and released as its first single in January 1984. It reached number 46 on the UK Singles Chart, but did better in several other countries, reaching number 33 in Germany, number 32 in New Zealand, and number 25 in France. In North America, it entered the Top 40 in both the United States (at number 31) and Canada (at number 30). It peaked at number 1 on the US Dance Club Songs chart. 

 

The single was re-released in the UK in 1985, but reached only number 93. In 1990, however, "It's My Life" was reissued again to promote the compilation album Natural History: The Very Best of Talk Talk. This time, the song was a hit in the UK, reaching number 13, the band's highest chart-placing single in its native country. 

 There are two versions of the video for "It's My Life". The first, envisioned by director Tim Pope as a statement against the banality of lip-synching, consists almost entirely of footage from the 1979 BBC wildlife documentary Life on Earth, interspersed with shots of Talk Talk lead singer Mark Hollis standing in various places throughout the London Zoo. He keeps his hands in his coat pockets and his mouth pointedly shut tight, the latter often obscured by hand-drawn animated lines that occasionally appear in the documentary footage sequences as well.

 The second version, recorded at the behest of EMI, consisted of the entirety of the original video projected on a green screen behind Hollis on guitar and vocals as well as his two bandmates as they lip-synched and mimed the song, deliberately poorly and with comic exaggerated gestures(I am unable to find this version on Youtube)