DON'T GIVE UP (W/ KATE BUSH)

I consider "Don`t Give Up" as one of Peter Gabriel`s best songs, and this song has one of the best lyrics he has written. The lyrics talk about unemployment, and this theme is very well treated with very human lyrics about how a man tries to resolve this situation in his life supported by his wife and family. Unemployment is a situation that many people in the world suffers daily and so this song was a very good gesture to a more or less "universal theme". There are two very video clips for this song, both with appearances by Gabriel with co-lead singer Kate Bush.

The "B" side of this single, "In Your Eyes", was also released as an "A" side of a single in the U.S. It is another very good song by Gabriel, a love song with very good lyrics. Both songs in this single were taken from Gabriel`s "So" album, which for me is his best and most accessible album. There is a live versionof "In Your Eyes" from the "PoV" live concert video which is great, recorded in Athens in October 1987. There is also an edited version of this same live version which I watched on TV (and I also recorded it in a videocassette in 1989). The original unedited version is good, but I prefer a bit the edited version because it has more "natural flow" and more close to the original studio version in structure, in my opinion.

Two very good songs in a very good single from a very good album from 1986.

Random happenstance that I'm giving this single a chance, as the music video for the A-side, "Don't Give Up", unsurprisingly showed up in my YouTube feed. Being a fan of Kate Bush since my college years, and certainly forever significantly more than her one protégé of sorts, Mr. Gabriel here, I've been digging into her back catalog, listening to non-album B-sides and their respective singles and watching any remaining music videos of hers that I had missed (there are many). Speaking of music videos, the one for this song is as sweet as the song and lyrical content therein: simply a hilltop embrace by Peter and Kate lasting the entirety of the video. This song is very soulful, almost a duet gospel track. An expectedly humanist gospel tune, sung in gratitude to friendship. Kate takes the chorus and what I would consider the first bridge, the second so-called bridge sung by Gabriel. Pretty song. Very not progressive haha. That is, perhaps, until the very end. The beat picks up and shifts in a very peculiar way. The bass, for one thing, is phenomenal.

The B-side is the classic "In Your Eyes". Beautiful vocal performance by Peter here. He is, of course, one of the figureheads of what is now considered Post-Progressive music (the other most major figure being Japan's David Sylvian). As the A-side guest Kate Bush is always apt and willing, so too does Peter explore textures and sonic choices that may be somewhat unusual in the world of Western Pop. In the case of this track, as we might expect from him, specifically from this time, these sonic explorations result in a "World Music", equally popularized by another Post- Progressive voice, David Byrne. Lovely track. Expectedly lovely music video, featuring some old-school '50s(?) clips of a woman dancing, and with wonderful imagery, of course using Peter's and others' eyes blown up on various surfaces. Great stuff.