This Means Anything

The song This Means Anything by Paul Young is not just another track in his repertoire, but a moment where the clean and direct sound of his English pop-rock becomes intimate and sincere. With a duration of just over three minutes, the song is built on a melodic foundation that flows effortlessly, leaving room for Young’s warm voice — the one that took him to the top in the 80s — to unfold naturally. There are no gimmicks here: it’s a piece that sounds as if it were recorded in a single take, without excessive retouching, yet with enough precision for every note and every pause to matter.

This song appeared on The Secret of Association, Young’s second studio album, released in 1985. The record not only solidified his career in England — where it reached number one on the charts — but also crossed the Atlantic, peaking in the Top 20 in the United States. Among its most notable tracks, This Means Anything stands as one of the album’s original compositions, alongside other hits like the cover of Everytime You Go Away by Hall & Oates or I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down. The album sold over 600,000 copies in the UK (double platinum) and 500,000 in the US (gold), but beyond the numbers, what’s interesting is how this work marked a balance between the covers that launched him to fame and his own compositions that, like this one, gave him his own identity.