These are the types of posts I least enjoy writing. Famous songs, that everyone knows, about which loads has already been said…
Back for Good, by Take That (their 6th of twelve #1s)
4 weeks, from 2nd – 30th April 1995
Quite often, too, they’re not songs I particularly like. And I should, in the interests of full-disclosure, admit off the bat that I’m not a huge fan of this record… I can recognise it as a good pop song – a well-constructed, grown-up pop song far beyond your usual boyband fare – and admire it thus. From a distance. With one listen per year, at most.
It’s the Barlow Conundrum, again. He’s often trying, to my ears at least, to write the perfect pop song. To prove that he and his band had long since grown beyond their ‘British New Kids on the Block’ origins. That he is to be Taken. Seriously. And of course he should be. He’s a very capable, competent songwriter. ‘Back for Good’ won an Ivor Novello award, one of British music’s ultimate accolades, for a start.
But… Compare and contrast this with another recent blockbuster boyband ballad, on a very similar lyrical theme: ‘Stay Another Day’. The lyrics to that are simple to the point of almost being trite. But something – something in their universality, in the way Brian Harvey delivers them like a lost child, in the song’s hidden subject matter – hits home in a way ‘Back for Good’ never manages.
Take the second verse here, in particular. Unaware but underlined, I figured out this story… In the corner of my mind, I celebrated glory… In the twist of separation, You excelled at being free… It all sounds clever, but does it actually mean anything? The harmonies are lovely, the want you back hook burrows its way in and never leaves, but is it all a bit fur coat and no knickers?
Or maybe it’s just me. ‘Back for Good’ has cropped up in pretty much every ‘Best songs of the…’ list for thirty years now. I am fully prepared for comments on how very wrong I am on this… But this record leaves me, like a fair old chunk of the Barlow Songbook, cold. Luckily for Take That, I am (sadly) not the arbiter of popular music, and this was a massive, massive hit all around the world. Even on the Billboard 100, where it made #7.
My feelings aside, ‘Back for Good’ was clearly the moment that Take That were made credible. Everyone who had written them off as just another boyband, even those way too cool for school, liked this record. I think it’s fair to say that without this song’s success, the band would not still be filling stadiums and topping the album charts in 2023. Back in 1995, and one of those aforementioned converts who confessed himself a fan of this song was Noel Gallagher. Speaking of whom…
The UK Number Ones Blog 
(For some reason the comment box isn’t letting me in)
Several people I know said much the same thing as me (and Noel G). I’d previously dismissed Take That as photogenic lads for a younger generation, but when I (or we) heard this record, it really sounded like their coming of age. Ballads are rather like jokes – some people get them, some don’t. You and I both know that we agree to differ about another chart-topper some ten years earlier. I won’t say this record turned me overnight into a rabid TT fan, but it made me feel that they weren’t the lightweights I’d always thought. ‘Patience’ a decade later (all right, getting ahead I know), reinforced that view.
On another subject, there doesn’t seem to be space for it on the page (or is my browser misbehaving?), thanks for the kind comments on the last post, appreciated!
Cheers, John
>
Yes, sorry, I’ve heard a few complaints about comments over the past few weeks, on this blog and others… Not sure if I can do anything about it?
I enjoy ‘Patience’ more than this, and ‘Rule the World’, which came out a year or so later, even more. With ballads, you either have to go so far over the top that it doesn’t matter how genuine the emotions are (see Meat Loaf, or recent Celine Dion), or really mean what you’re singing. ‘Stay Another Day’ hits home in its simplicity, while this feels to me like someone sat down one day and thought ‘better write a ballad for the new album…’ A good ballad, but a slightly clinical one.
I’ve actually never heard this song (I think I haven’t anyway), but on the first few listens, it’s alright. It doesn’t really do anything for me – unlike the next No. 1 – but there’s nothing really I can find to complain about. The “Whatever I said, whatever I did I didn’t mean it” I like the most of the song. It’s a decent hook. It’s weird watching Take That music videos how unprominent Robbie Williams is compared to the lead singer considering Williams is far, far, far, far, far, far, far, FAR more famous than any of the other guys internationally. I always assumed he was the lead singer in Take That without hearing their music, like falsely assuming Timberlake is the lead singer in N’Synch. Like here in Australia, Williams solo can sell out stadiums. Take That I don’t think can half-fill an arena.
Yeah I’ve been thinking that too. I always knew Gary Barlow was the main man in Take That, but I didn’t realise just how in the background Robbie was. I think that contributed to his sudden departure, and the bad blood that remained between them for years… And for the first year or two, Robbie’s solo career didn’t set the world alight. Until ‘Angels’ changed everything. Take That remain pretty big in the UK, though they’re a three-piece these days, and Robbie seems to be semi-retired.
Like you…nice song but without a bite…
It’s a great song. Loved Relight My Fire and Pray, but this was only the second Barlow song as such that I rated (heard it today on the radio and it’s still classy), and there was only one more to go that I rated then (and now) before the Take That comeback showed that Gazza could write a pop gem again if he tried properly. Given Robbie and Guy were pissing all over Barlow by about 1998 in terms of quality songs, variety, passion, emotion, lyrical inventiveness and musical variety I’d already written Barlow off until Patience and the very unlikely comeback! By which time Mark had already proven he could knock off a great pop record too. Four Minute Warning was top notch. Maybe if Gary had given his bandmates more of a look-in for singles he might not have self-combusted his own career. Still, all worked out in the end for everybody!
That’s one thing I’ve noticed with each passing Take That #1… It really was the Gary Barlow show. Ok, Robbie and Mark got lead vocals on two of the weaker singles, but it really does feel as if he dominated a little.