I Was in Chains

The first time I heard I Was in Chains, I was hooked by that sound that seems to come out of an old speaker but with a clarity that doesn’t lose strength. It’s not a song that moves in a straight line: it has a rhythm that stretches in the choruses and contracts in the verses, as if it were breathing. The bass sets the pace with a line that doesn’t let go, while the drums hit with a cadence that isn’t common in mid-80s pop. It’s not a song you hear on the radio every day, but when it comes, you can tell it’s different from the rest.

This track is part of The Secret of Association, the second album by Paul Young that in 1985 topped the UK charts and reached the Top 20 in the United States. The album didn’t just sell over 600,000 copies in the UK — double platinum — and 500,000 in the US — gold record — but it also cemented Young as an artist who blended covers with original songs. In fact, five of the album’s tracks were co-written with his keyboardist Ian Kewley, something that hadn’t been as evident in his debut, No Parlez. The recording wasn’t aiming for a polished sound: the result has that warmth that sometimes only comes when the equipment isn’t the most modern but the band is in sync.