Broken Wings

The song begins with a whisper of reversed cymbals fading into a synthesized bass, as if the air itself is breathing before the voice arrives. That hypnotic introduction —a cymbal roll recorded backward— is no minor detail: it’s the signature of a sound that refuses to let the listener go. The lyrics, inspired by Kahlil Gibran’s novel, speak of broken wings that must learn to fly, but not as an empty metaphor: Richard Page sings them with an urgency that erases the distance between words and heart. The chorus, with its "take these broken wings" that sounds like a contained scream, sticks in the memory because it doesn’t ask to be remembered, but to be felt.

They recorded it in November 1984, when the band still didn’t know this track would be their gateway to the world. The album Welcome to the Real World was released in June 1985, but the song had already been resonating on the radio for months before reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in December. It wasn’t a stroke of luck: the track climbed to the top in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany, and in countries like Australia or Ireland it cracked the top ten. The video, in black and white with Page driving a Ford Thunderbird through the desert, reinforced the image of an emotional journey: a hawk flying into a church, a couple dancing tango without showing their faces, the car’s hood open at the end as a metaphor for something that opens and closes at once.