Leave It

If there's one song that defines the sound of 90125, it's Leave It. Not because of its lyrics, but because of how it sounds: a bass that bounces like a spring, vocals that jump between choruses, and a violin that bursts in without warning, as if someone had opened a window in the middle of a recording studio. Trevor Rabin and Chris Squire crafted a groove unlike anything in the progressive rock the band had done before, and Trevor Horn gave it that artificial sheen that makes it sound futuristic even today. What's curious is that, despite being so different, it's still the same song the band recorded in 1983 with Squire, Rabin, White, and Kaye, before Jon Anderson rejoined. In fact, it's the only track on 90125 that didn't undergo any changes in its writing from that first version.

The song was released in February 1984 in the United States and a month later in the United Kingdom, just as the success of Owner of a Lonely Heart was still echoing on the radio. It reached number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 3 on the Top Album Rock Tracks, while in the British Isles it peaked at 56 in March. But the most striking thing wasn't the charts—it was how it became a visual experiment: the video, directed by Godley and Creme, was one of the first to use computer-generated imagery. They made eighteen different versions—from the band upside down and motionless to one featuring only Anderson—and the eleventh became the official one. There was even a half-hour MTV special about its production. Live, the band played it at all 113 dates of the 9012Live tour, always after Cinema, but never performed it again.