Once Upon a Time in the Top Spot: Spandau Ballet, “True”
32 years ago today, a certain bunch of soul boys from the western world ascended to the top of the UK Singles chart for the first – and, to date, only – time in their career with a track which is seen as their signature song by most of their mainstream fans.
Written by Gary Kemp and recorded in 1982, “True” was the third single released from the band’s third album, which – what are the odds? – was also entitled True. As its lyrics suggest, the song was at least in part designed as a tribute to the music of Motown, with specific mention made of Marvin Gaye, who was still alive at the time it was written. (We don’t know if he ever actually heard it, unfortunately, but we can’t imagine he wouldn’t have been pleased by the reference to “listening to Marvin all night long.”) The song was also partially inspired by the funny feelings Altered Images singer Clare Grogan caused in Kemp whenever she came near him, with some of the lines adapted from Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, a copy of which Grogan had given to Kemp. Although he never mentions her by name, Kemp wrote in his autobiography, I Know This Much, “I read it as though she were reading it to me. It slipped beneath my skin and the words bubbled up inside, percolating through me I would send them back in song.”
The song in question was effectively made a single by public demand, as radio stations were playing the heck out of it when it was still a mere album track, but when “True” finally made it onto a 45, it promptly went to the top of the charts…or, to quote Kemp’s remarks to lead singer Tony Hadley when the news broke, “Tony, you f***er! We’re number one!” (We’re not telling tales out of school here, either: that bit is in I Know This Much, too.) The song also proved to be the band’s biggest hit in the US as well, and by a considerable margin: it hit #4 in America, and the next closest success in the band’s discography was “Gold,” which made it no higher than #29.
“True” has never really gone away, but it’s continued to find further new life over the years thanks to sampling, which is how it kinda sorta did make it to #1 in America: you can hear its chorus featured prominently in P.M. Dawn’s 1991chart-topper, “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss.” Beyond that, though, it’s been featured in episodes of Veronica Mars and Modern Family, sung by Steve Buscemi in The Wedding Singer, and – lest we forget – it’s been heard in every concert Spandau Ballet has played since reuniting in 2014, not to mention every show they played prior to that. In short, it’s a stone cold classic, and it’s one that still holds up more than three decades after its initial release.
