{"id":2441724,"date":"2019-03-14T12:34:07","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T18:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=808118"},"modified":"2019-03-14T12:34:07","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T18:34:07","slug":"flashback-mike-and-the-mechanics-hit-number-one-with-the-living-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/flashback-mike-and-the-mechanics-hit-number-one-with-the-living-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: Mike and the Mechanics Hit Number One With \u2018The Living Years\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thirty years ago this month, one of the most profoundly sad songs in pop music history hit Number One on the Hot 100. It was \u201cThe Living Years\u201d by Mike + the Mechanics, which forced everyone within earshot of a radio throughout much of 1989 to consider that fact their parents will inevitably die and leave them with profound regret. \u201cI wasn\u2019t there that morning\/When my Father passed away,\u201d Paul Carrack sings in a typical verse. \u201cI didn\u2019t get to tell him\/All the things I had to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many things in the Eighties, the existence of the song can be traced back to Phil Collins. His successful solo career forced Genesis<\/a> to take long breaks between albums and tours throughout much of the decade. Genesis guitarist Mike Rutherford used the break following the 1983 Mama Tour<\/em> to form Mike + the Mechanics with singers Paul Carrack and Paul Young. (In a very confusing twist, this is a different Paul Young than the guy that sang \u201cEvery Time You Go Away,\u201d but it\u2019s the same Paul Carrack that sang \u201cHow Long\u201d in Ace and \u201cTempted\u201d in Squeeze.)<\/p>\n

Their first two singles were \u201cSilent Running (On Dangerous Ground)\u201d and \u201cAll I Need Is a Miracle,\u201d both of which became enormous worldwide hits. Rutherford took them back in the studio after the 1986\/87 Invisible Touch<\/em> tour to cut their second record. Not only did Rutherford\u2019s own father die the previous year, but his co-writer B.A. Robertson had just lost his own dad just three months before his son was born. The complex emotions surrounding all of this gave birth to \u201cThe Living Years.\u201d<\/p>\n

It became the title track to the album and the first single. Within a matter of months, it was Number One, and a generation of children were forced to confront some very serious issues while listening to Casey Kasem\u2019s countdown. It also had some longterm ramifications for Mike + The Mechanics. \u201cWe were on rock radio before that,\u201d Rutherford told Rolling Stone<\/em> in 2014.<\/a> \u201cThat song moved us away from that and sort of dwarfed everything else we did. It\u2019s sort of like what happened to Foreigner after \u2018I Want to Know What Love Is.’\u201d<\/p>\n

They continued to score hits in England throughout the Nineties with songs like \u201cWord of Mouth\u201d and \u201cOver My Shoulder,\u201d but in America they were basically over after \u201cThe Living Years\u201d fell off the charts. No other single got even the tiniest bit of traction on radio. Paul Young died suddenly of a heart attack in 2000 and the group briefly continued under the awkward name \u201cMike + The Mechanics + Paul Carrack,\u201d but Carrack bolted back to his solo career after their 2004 LP Rewired<\/em> bombed.<\/p>\n

This seemed to doom Mike since he was out of Mechanics, but in 2011 he hired Tim Howar and Andrew Roachford and over the past eight years they\u2019ve cut three albums and toured heavily in Europe. There comes a night at every show where they sing \u201cThe Living Years\u201d and the audience has to either remember when their own parents died or face the prospect that it\u2019s going to happen one day. But then a few songs later, it\u2019s time for \u201cAll We Need Is a Miracle\u201d and those unpleasant thoughts can be pushed aside.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirty years ago this month, one of the most profoundly sad songs in pop music history hit Number One on the Hot 100. It was \u201cThe Living Years\u201d by Mike + the Mechanics, which forced everyone within earshot of a radio throughout much of 1989 to consider that fact their parents will inevitably die and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2441724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 11:48:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2441724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2441724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2441724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2441724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}