Everytime You Go Away

When Daryl Hall composed Everytime You Go Away, he envisioned a piece with gospel and soul undertones, a warm and spacious lamentation. Originally recorded by his duo Hall & Oates in 1980 for the album Voices, the song was never released as a single. The production at the time relied on a church-like organ resonance and a guitar figure that left plenty of room for Hall’s voice. He himself was proud of the craftsmanship of the piece. However, it was Paul Young’s version, released in 1985, that catapulted the song to international fame.

Paul Young’s reinterpretation for his album The Secret of Association introduced distinctive elements: a piano with echo, the Yamaha DX7 harp sound, Pino Palladino’s fretless bass, an electric Coral sitar, and a Spanish Ovation acoustic guitar, all played by John Turnbull. This new sonority, which retained the original essence but wrapped it in a more commercial pop sound, pleasantly surprised Daryl Hall himself. Young’s version reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1985, remaining his only number one and one of his two Top 10 hits on the U.S. pop chart. It also topped the Adult Contemporary chart for two weeks. In his home country, the United Kingdom, it peaked at number 4. The impact of this version was so great that it won the award for Best British Video at the Brit Awards in 1986. The album The Secret of Association, which included this hit, reached number one in the UK and the Top 20 in the United States, earning Double Platinum certification in the UK and Gold in the U.S.