Dust Bin Fun Boy Three - Our Lips Are Sealed
posted by on January 24 at 12:59 PM
Sometime, probably around mid to late 1981 Fun Boy Three frontman Terry Hall co-wrote this song with then Go-Go guitarist Jane Weidlin for their debut album, Beauty and The Beat. The Go-Go’s released the song as their debut single in 1982. The song peaked at 20 on the US charts that year, and though it never reached a higher spot, it stayed popular enough through single sales and radio airplay to stay on the Top 100 for nearly the entire year.
Well, 1983 rolled around and Terry thought he’d let his band, Fun Boy Three have a go at the song. He released it as the first single off Fun Boy Three’s second album, Waiting. Waiting is an interesting album, if not just for the fact that it’s procuced by Talking Head frontman, David Byrne, but the backing band for the entire album is nearly all female (keyboardist/arranger Nicky Holland, trombonist Annie Whitehead, cellist Caroline Lavelle,original girl punker and drummer June Miles-Kingston, and chillout vocalist Ingrid Schroeder). I wonder if this wasn’t a nod to his friends, The Go-Go’s.
Fun Boy Three’s version did better right off the bat then the version by The Go-Go’s. It peaked at number 7 in the UK charts, beating the Go-Go’s UK peak at 47. However it failed to do anything in the US at all, and to this day remains a bit of an anomaly and mystery to the ears of many stateside listeners.
The original 12” to this single is interesting. God knows why, but Terry decided to try an Urdu version of the song on the b-side. There are two rumours about this version, one is that it’s just Ingrid Schroeder reading phonetic Urdu as the vocal line, which seems fairly plausible, due to it’s spirtless reading. The other rumour is that they actually picked an old Pakistani woman from one of Coventry’s (where Terry lived at the time) markets and had her translate and read the lyrics. It’s interesting, but whichever way it was done, this version lacks any punch the original had.
They also put a Special Remix Version on the single, which has some interesting spoken word bits in it. You can check out some samples on my blog, here.
Here’s the video for the original single version.
The Go-Go's toured the UK opening for Madness, as well as Terry's original band, the Specials, circa 1979 and early 1980 (before signing to IRS in America). Allegedly, Terry and Jane enjoyed a brief romance, which was part of the lyrical inspiration for the song.
as a 15 year old, i wanted to live in the dorms at the UW just so i could live at Terry Hall.
a few years later, i saw the final london performance from madness at the brixton academy in 1986 and was absolutely thrilled that terry hall was in attendance. he, along with a bunch of other notable british ska figures, performed that evening. it was pretty damn great.
fun boy three's version destroys the go-go's.
Thanks for this post. I dig both versions. Another fun UK/US one-two punch is "Going Down to Liverpool." Both the Katrina & the Waves original (written by ex-Soft Boy Kimberly Rew) and the Bangles cover are pretty nifty. Highly recommended to anyone who likes "Our Lips Are Sealed." Kerri, sounds like I lived in London at the same time as you. I caught the Smiths at the Brixton Academy in 1986 (and Miles Davis at the Hammersmith Odeon).
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