30 Years of World Outside

Happy Anniversary to The Psychedelic Furs' seventh album World Outside, which came out on this day in 1991. The album contains the two singles "Until She Comes" and "Don't Be A Girl" and was produced by The Furs and Stephen Street. An interesting thing I've heard recently is that the album was originally called Close, but at the last minute the band changed the name to World Outside.

Released two years after Book Of Days (1989) the music on World Outside is a little more lighter than its predecessor and the lyrics have a deep, emotional feeling to them. According to vocalist Richard Butler at the time, the songs are about involvement in relationships and said that lyrically speaking, World Outside was the most personal album The Psychedelic Furs had made.

World Outside has a collection of great songs but for me there are three tracks that are the highlights on the album: "In My Head", "Sometimes", and "There's A World". The music in "In My Head" is absolutely wonderful and makes you feel uplifted; "Sometimes" is incredibly beautiful and the words to the song show how talented and amazing Richard Butler is as a songwriter. Here's an example and this is one of my favorite PFurs lyrics:

"Under a moon

That shines like it's day

It hangs like a star, somedays

I'm getting blind

I see with your eyes

It's too dark, sometimes"

And then the third song, "There's A World", is one of my all time favorite Psychedelic Furs songs and I just love it a lot. "There's A World" was featured on the 2001 compilation Greatest Hits (along with "Sometimes" and "Until She Comes") and for some reason the song was titled "There's A World Outside". Honestly I like "There's A World Outside" better because it sounds more complete than "There's A World". Another highlight on World Outside is Stephen Street, and the reason is because he's my favorite music producer. Stephen did a great job producing the album and also on The Psychedelic Furs' single "All That Money Wants" from 1988, three years before World Outside.

When The Psychedelic Furs began working on World Outside they had a good time doing the demos but when they started to record the album things didn't go well, especially for former guitarist John Ashton. He said he lost interest and was uncomfortable during the recording sessions, and he felt it showed in his guitar playing on the album. I think John did an excellent job with the music and he shines on the three songs I mentioned, and on "Until She Comes", too. World Outside is the last studio album to feature John Ashton as guitarist and in 2008 he left The Psychedelic Furs after 30 years of being in the band. Besides forming his own band Satellite Paradiso in recent years, whatever John Ashton is doing right now, I hope he is happy and we will always remember his contribution to The Psychedelic Furs and everything he did for them. Thank you John.

Credits to photographer.

As we all know, before Made Of Rain (2020) came along World Outside used to be the last Psychedelic Furs album for a long period of time. Now this is something I had thought of on my own, but there's a difference between World Outside's final song "All About You" and "Stars", the last track on Made Of Rain. World Outside ends on a bleak note with "All About You" and from the sound of the music it's like you're wondering if The Psychedelic Furs would ever make another album or, sadly, if it would be their last, even though they reunited after a eight year hiatus (which isn't the case now that Made Of Rain is out but you get the idea). On Made Of Rain's "Stars" the ending is more positive and triumphant, like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, and in my view the music sounds like it's The Psychedelic Furs saying, "We are back". With the news that they are planning on working another new album I feel like "Stars" is giving out hints for a sequel, and the song ends in a cliffhanger way. I hope I explained what I talked about very clearly but I just thought it was interesting to mention that.

With World Outside's brilliant production, amazing music, and a fantastic selection of songs, happy 30th birthday to this great album!

"Why wait? There's a world outside..."

Photo: Sheila Rock