The single was written by Midge Ure, Chris Payne and Billy Currie. Chris and Billy were part of Gary Numan's backing band and Midge was about to join Ultravox which was Billy's old band! The idea of the song came from Steve after looking over the Berlin wall to see how grey everything looked, Midge gave Steve singing lessons so he could be the voice and the face for the band. The single hit the charts early 1981, became an instant classic and peaked at number 8 in the UK but got to number 1 in Germany. It came off the album Visage which featured another 2 hits, Mind Of A Toy and Visage!
The song was helped by the now classic but simply made (by todays standards) video shot by Godley & Crème. It showed off the use of make up and how image could strongly be used to sell a product too as well as the music. Video was still in it's early stages but proved just how useful they could be. The single had a re-issue in 1993 as part of a greatest hits album but managed to scrape to number 39.
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