Modern Rock Tracks No. 1s - Tears For Fears and "Sowing The Seeds Of Love”

Tears For Fears benefits from its first album release after "Songs from the Big Chair" and conquers all the charts with a Beatles-esque rebuke of Margaret Thatcher and conservative politics.

Tears For Fears - “Sowing The Seeds Of Love”

Weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart: 1 (10/14/89)

Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers during this time:

• Janet Jackson - “Miss You Much” (second week)

I’m not sure what kind of amnesia potion I took sometime in 1988 that made me completely and utterly oblivious to music from the late ‘80s and into the early ‘90s, but outside of the most monster pop hits, my memories of this time period are fuzzy. I’ve talked about it before on the Substack and in my private life, but between listening to music from my father’s era, completely ignoring mainstream pop/rock hits, and not even remotely paying attention to MTV yet, so many of the songs I’ve covered thus far are new revelations for me.

In some cases, as it was with Love and Rockets, I may not remember much about the verses, but when it gets to the refrain, something clicks in the quiet recesses of my brain and I think, “Oh, OK. I know that one.” It took a couple of minutes to register, but when I listened to Tears For Fears and “Sowing The Seeds Of Love” for the first time in what I’m sure has been at least 30 years, there’s that moment in the refrain where the background vocal goes robotic/metallic and sings “sowing the seeds” before launching into the next verse. That was the a-ha moment for me.

I’m a little surprised this song never made it into regular rotation for me, but I think it’s probably because it’s not on regular rotation on most ‘80s channels I frequent, so without having heard it a bunch, it likely didn’t enter my consciousness enough to register as a must-have on my playlists. It’s weird, too, because it’s not like it’s an unpopular song; indeed, it’s had more than 75 million streams on Spotify through the end of May 2023, which is pretty great.

But there’s almost no chance it’ll ever compete seriously for precious rotation slots on ‘80s compilation stations with juggernauts like “Head Over Heels” (150 million streams, 2x more than “Seeds”), “Shout” (237 million streams, 3x more), and the absurdly popular “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” (more than 1.1 BILLION streams, nearly 15x more) stealing the show.

My theory is twofold on why “Seeds” lacks the resonance of the bigger hits that came before it. First, it just doesn’t seem to get the same level of airtime that megahits off the band’s 1985 monster “Songs From The Big Chair” get regularly. It’s certainly possible it slips into playlists every now and then, but you’d be far more likely to turn on your “I Love The ‘80s” list and hear something from 1985 long before you’d hear their late ‘80s hit. (And if I’m being honest, if I didn’t know the song already, the lead-in might be something that makes me change the channel before I hear the more-familiar refrain. But we’ll discuss that later).

Second, I think it’s because “Seeds” isn’t quite the all-time great song the charts at the time made it out to be. What I mean is, fans were *hungry* for some more Tears For Fears in the late ‘80s. They released “Songs From The Big Chair” in early 1985, and that album spawned back-to-back #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, with “Head Over Heels” notching a respectable #3 peak as the album’s third single. They also had been a phenomenon in their native U.K., notching top 5 British hits for the three aforementioned singles as well as “Mad World” and “Change” off their first album, “The Hurting.” But the band had released just two albums in the entire DECADE of the 1980s. Fans weren’t just hungry; they were starving. So it’s likely this massive chart boost came in much the same way you see artists today score big hits because of their fervent fanbases (think BTS or Drake).

So the question is this: Is “Sowing The Seeds Of Love” legitimately the powerhouse single on the level of its predecessors? Or did it benefit from a hungry fan base who eagerly purchased singles and devoured it on the radio to the great satisfaction of ratings-starved radio stations? I’d argue the song benefits from the deprivation aspect most of all, because for as deep and sonically interesting as “Seeds” is, it doesn’t seem to have that “it” factor that makes it a legacy hit decades after the fact.

Like I mentioned earlier, the song doesn’t really grab your attention with the first verse, as there is no big instrumental build, and lyrics about “making a stand” for “the common man” fall somewhat flat right out of the gate. If anything, you might get a bit of an “I Am The Walrus” vibe from the first verse, with the guitar riffs having a similar tonal vibe to the Beatles hit, but it’s not enough to keep the song rolling.

But then the refrain hits, and we go from “Walrus” to “All You Need Is Love” in a split second, and the haze of ‘60s “Summer of Love” nostalgia sweeps you into the song, along with the harmonizing between Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. The refrain nails a peaceful, mellow vibe, which acts as a stark juxtaposition to the cutting political commentary of the verses. Hard to go from sowing love seeds to “food goes to waste” and sharp allusions to then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: “Politician granny with your high ideals. Have you no idea how the majority feels?”

The dreamy bridge sequence leans into the experimental Beatles-era analogy strongly, with horn play, wispy studio effects and even more “I Am The Walrus” adjacent sounds. The horns that come in later give it a major orchestral boost, as the song builds to the ending, and echoes the chaotic ending of “A Day In The Life” to a degree. I don’t mean to make everything seem like a Beatles comparison, but it seems like the most apt comparison. (I wouldn’t be surprised if Oasis took this pastiche into consideration when composing their “Champagne Supernova” several years later. We’ll discuss it when I get there.)

If the song were all about those love seeds in the refrain portions, I’d argue it deserves a place in the pantheon of ‘80s music greatness, but the political side gives this an odd sense of being a song in its moment, and may explain its lack of prominence in today’s radio/streaming landscape.

“Seeds” not only topped the Modern Rock Tracks chart for a week, but also reached a respectable #2 on the Hot 100, while also scoring top-five accolades on several different charts around the world. The band was not able to build on that success with the subsequent singles off “The Seeds Of Love” album, however; second single “Woman In Chains” only reached #27 on the MRT chart (though it managed to break the top 40 of the Hot 100 and peak at #36), while “Advice For The Young At Heart” only made it as high as #89 on the flagship chart and didn’t make the MRT chart at all. Maybe it turns out those hungry fans got too full on love seeds and stopped themselves afterwards? Not sure, but it’s clear “Seeds” became the band’s final mainstream pop megahit.

Despite that dropoff in the Billboard charts, this isn’t the end of Tears For Fears in my Substack; they’ll be around again one more time, though not with the same personnel. Curt Smith would exit the band in the months following the release of “The Seeds Of Love” and Roland Orzabal would continue the band, and its name, into the early ‘90s. This new iteration of the band would net a couple more hits, including one more MRT chart topper.

Rating: 4/10

Chart notes: With a one-week chart topper, not many songs hit their peak, but there are a few.

• “James Brown” by Big Audio: It’s been quite awhile since we’ve talked about Big Audio Dynamite, now one year after charting under the name Big Audio (even though the YouTube video refers to them as Big Audio Dynamite … it’s all very confusing). Presumably a reference to the artist James Brown and his well-documented troubles with the law — including a late ‘80s high-speed car chase — Big Audio managed a #2 MRT peak with this odd ditty.

• “Sold Me Down The River” by The Alarm: I’m a little surprised this didn’t generate more airplay in the mainstream. There’s definitely a Bruce Springsteen vibe, but this feels strangely adjacent to some of the hair-metal bands of the late ‘80s as well. It peaked at #50 on the Hot 100, which means it reached an audience outside of the alternative niche, but never quite caught on. It finished its run on the MRT charts at #3, peaking behind “Sowing The Seeds Of Love.”

• “He’s Got A She” by Exene Cervenka: I like to highlight those occasions when punk rock makes its way into the Brit-heavy mish-mash of alternative in the late ‘80s, and this nugget from Exene Cervenka (who fronts a punk act called X) is pretty decent. She definitely rocks, and in a few years we’ll actually see some stuff from X appear in this portion of the Substack. “He’s Got A She” peaked at #17 behind Tears For Fears.