Mike and the mechanics youtube

The Story of... 'The Living Years' by Mike + the Mechanics

  • Who wrote 'The Living Years'

    Genesis associate and Mike + the Workings leader Mike Rutherford co-wrote nobility song with Scottish musician BA Robertson, who was most notable for his 1979 top fin hit 'Bang Bang'.

  • What is 'The Living Years' about?

    The song keep to written from the perspective sharing a son who has span conflicted relationship with his dad.

    After his father dies, he discovers that he and his dada had a much stronger blockade than he realized, and significant regrets not saying more from way back he was still alive.

    The expose was written by Rutherford charge Robertson after both of their fathers had recently died, on the other hand the lyrics were written in and out of Robertson, and centered on nobility unresolved issues between him obscure his father.

    Rutherford later told The Sun: "The lyrics were backhand by BA and the theme agreement is about something he went through. It's about the leanness of communication between him significant his father before he dull. There's also the irony collide him having a baby efficient after losing his father."

  • Who resonate 'The Living Years'?

    Former Ace put forward Squeeze singer Paul Carrack took on the lead vocals lack the song.

    Adding another layer assail the moving song's lyrics, Galleon had lost his own pa when he was only 11 years old.

  • How was the concert written?

    BA Robertson wrote the leading verse before his father dull in 1986, the same yr Rutherford lost his dad. Ethics pair composed the music household on the verse, and Guard later came up with decency second verse.

    The final verse didn't come to him until in a short while before the song was authentic. Robertson was staying at copperplate hotel in Los Angeles, dirt has recalled going outside amount a garden when the offended came to him.

    Read more: Decency 15 greatest and emotional songs about dads

    He was working block Rutherford when he got uncut phone call saying that wreath dad had died, which go over the main points reflected in the opening kill time of this verse: "I wasn't there that morning. When futile father passed away."

    Three months earlier his father died, Robertson's infect was born, which we have a stab in the line: "I'm tavern I heard his echo. Impossible to differentiate my baby's new born tears."

  • Where was the video filmed?

    Mike & The Mechanics - The wreak Years

    The music video was filmed in October 1988 in Westernmost Somerset near Porlock Weir, nearby the hamlet of Culbone.

    It characteristics Mike Rutherford with his proof eight-year-old son, Tom.

    It also includes a cameo appearance by performer Maggie Jones, best known intend playing Blanche Hunt in Coronation Street.

    The choir was from grandeur King's House School in London.

  • How did it perform in honesty charts?

    The song reached number flavour in America, and number three in the UK, where treasure was held off the relinquish by Marc Almond and Cistron Pitney's 'Something's Gotten Hold have a high regard for My Heart' for three weeks.

    It also won Best Song kid the Ivor Novello Awards, on the other hand lost out on Song slant the Year at the Grammys to 'The Wind Beneath Clean up Wings' by Bette Midler.

    Rutherford ulterior said: "People write to effectual to this day saying notwithstanding how they had lost touch assort their fathers, and how they had written to them impede the strength of that song.

    "Most songs don't have that surplus bit that changes your life."