Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Hrishikesh Hirway. This episode of Song Exploder is brought to you by Booking.com. My wife and I have been thinking about visiting some of our friends in Philadelphia this summer. And so while we've been daydreaming, I've been looking on Booking.com to check out places where we might stay in Philly. I put in our dates, and there are over 100 options listed. So I'm gonna start narrowing things down. I'm gonna choose places that have an eight or higher rating and a king bed available. And then I'm gonna focus on hotels in one of my favorite neighborhoods, the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood. And look, there's a hotel here with a 9.0 rating, and there's a note on the site that says, "Couples in particular like this hotel. They rated it a 9.5 for a two-person trip." All right, so look at that. That sounds pretty awesome. You can find exactly what you're booking for. Booking.com, booking.yeah. Book today on the site or in the app. Song Exploder is sponsored by Quince. They have so much great stuff on their website, from basics like socks and underwear to jeans and sweaters, all the way up to cashmere overcoats. Well, now that it's spring, I'm looking to get some stuff that feels appropriate for the weather. And so I just ordered a linen utility shirt. I'm very excited to get it. I know, because I have other Quince stuff, that it's gonna look sharp and be comfortable. Plus, I love that Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, responsible manufacturing practices. Refresh your every day with luxury that you're actually gonna use. Head to quince.com/songexploder for free shipping on your order and three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day returns. It's now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E .com/songexploder for free shipping and three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day returns. quince.com/songexploder. [upbeat music] Any song from the 1980s that you hear on Song Exploder was most likely one that I first heard through my sister Priya. She is the older sibling, and her favorite songs from her childhood were the soundtrack to my earliest memories. That's definitely the case with "Hold Me Now" by Thompson Twins. Thompson Twins originally formed in 1977 in Sheffield in the UK. "Hold Me Now," their iconic hit, came out as a single in November 1983 and eventually on their 1984 album, Into the Gap. That album went to number one in the UK and went platinum in the US. And the song spent 21 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. So for this episode, I talked to the founding member of Thompson Twins, Tom Bailey, and he told me how he and his bandmates, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway, made "Hold Me Now".

Oh, hold me now. Whoa, warm my heart. Stay with me. Let love install. Let love install.

Hi. Hello, I'm Tom Bailey from the Thompson Twins. Thompson has gone through several histories with different lineups, and by the time we got to writing "Hold Me Now," my co-writers were Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway. This was our fourth album we're talking about. And on the previous one, on the third album, which was very kinda purist