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"Sowing the Seeds of Love" was a worldwide smash hit for Tears for Fears, second only to "Shout" and "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" for chart success. The song also charted in nine other countries besides the US and UK - most of those in the Top 10.The song is a throwback to '60s nostalgia (big in the late '80s) with a nod to The Beatles and a kind of Flower Power philosophy to it, including political lyrics starting with "High time we made a stand and shook up the views of the common man" and ending with "An end to need and the politics of greed."
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Written by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, the lyrics in this song are a byproduct of Orzabal's interest in psychology and philosophy - he cites Sartre's Les Mains Sales and Arthur Janov's Primal Scream as literary influences. The song is a call to action, asking us to reject the status quo: "High time we made a stand and shook up the views of the common man."
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The title was inspired by the English folk song "The Seeds Of Love," which Orzabal heard about on a radio program about folk tunes. As the story goes, Cecil Sharp (1859 - 1924), a noted scholar and collector of folk songs, overheard a gardener named John England humming the obscure tune as he mowed the lawn and persuaded him to recall the lyrics. The tale inspired Orzabal's own lyric, "Mr. England sowing the seeds of love."
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Early on in the video, one visual effect shows the iconic symbol from the back of a US $1 bill, the pyramid with the glowing eye on top. This spooky-looking occult symbol is called "The Eye of Providence," and it goes all the way back to ancient Egypt (look up the "eye of Horus") and Buddhism; the Freemasons didn't grab onto it until the 1700s, so it is not original with them, as is commonly misconceived. Other religious symbolism includes spinning Buddhas and Egyptian Ankhs, plus a sort-of Pagan-looking sun. The stylishly produced video was cutting-edge for 1989, which didn't hurt its popularity a bit.Director Jim Blashfield picked up two MTV Music Video Awards, for Breakthrough Video and Best Special Effects (an award he won the previous year for Michael Jackson's "Leave Me Alone").
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The lyric "I love a sunflower" was inspired by a piece of graffiti on a wall near Orzabal's home. "I see it every day. I didn't know what to sing on a guide vocal for the track so I sang that instead of 'dada dada dada,'" he explained. "Then all of a sudden, 'Sowing The Seeds' is just about to come out and the Ecology Party do really well in the Euro-elections and their emblem is the sunflower. I didn't know that, it all seems to be fitting in now. These things are synchronous."
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Orzabal on the criticism that "Seeds" is a naive song: "I don't have any problem with naivety. People, especially in England, have a tremendous problem with vision and creativity because it's intangible and because they may not themselves be able to materialize their vision, to earth their vision. So I don't have a problem with naivety or the archetype of love because from writing to recording, I'm turning the intangible into the tangible. So if something's naive and full of hope, then if you can make it happen it's fair enough."
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The UK-based Harmony Magazine sniffed of Tears for Fears in their Encyclopedia of Rock: "Pretentious pop duo who, on reflection, may be no more than the Peter & Gordon of the '80s." History has been somewhat kinder, magazine editors with an ax to grind notwithstanding.
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