Happy 40th anniversary to The Psychedelic Furs' fourth studio album, the wonderful Mirror Moves. It was originally released in the UK in May 1984, but it seems to me that people only remember the North American release date, which was August 21, 1984. Mirror Moves was produced by Keith Forsey, who was the producer of Billy Idol's Rebel Yell and Pat Benatar's 1988 top 20 hit "All Fired Up." Mirror Moves became The Psychedelic Furs' second album to hit Gold in the US after selling 500,000 copies. In 1985 Robert Smith of The Cure mentioned that Mirror Moves was one of his favorite albums.
The music is similar to the previous album Forever Now, but in my opinion, it is more commercial sounding but it still has the Psychedelic Furs sound. It is the most eighties sounding out of all their albums, but not in a dated way; I like how the music sounds in all of its eighties glory, and to me it is uplifting, positive, and enchanting.
When Mirror Moves came out The Psychedelic Furs were a trio, because after the release of Forever Now in 1982 original drummer Vince Ely left. The only members remaining were Richard Butler (vocals), Tim Butler (bass), and John Ashton (guitar). They didn't have an official drummer at the time, so Keith Forsey played the drums on Mirror Moves; although the drums on "Heaven" and "Here Come Cowboys" were played by session musician Tommy Price.
Mirror Moves is best known for having the singles "The Ghost In You" and "Heaven". "The Ghost In You", which opens the album, is one of The Psychedelic Furs' most beloved songs. The iconic synthesizer sound was played on the Fairlight keyboard, and what's funny is I read somewhere that the band called it the "Chipmunk in the Bath" sound.
"The Ghost In You" is my parents' favorite Psychedelic Furs song and for me there's two special moments connected to the song. At my second PFurs concert Richard Butler held my hand and was singing to me during the "Stars come down in you" part, and at my fourth show guitarist Rich Good was looking at me while doing the backing vocals on the first chorus and waved at me.
Last October while I was working in retail the radio actually played "The Ghost In You" and I was ecstatic. I had a feeling the reason why the song was played was because it was during the Halloween season (they also played Oingo Boingo's "Dead Man's Party" and the Ghostbusters theme), and with the word "ghost" being in the title they probably thought it's a scary, spooky song. Personally, I don't think of "The Ghost In You" as a Halloween song and there's nothing spooky about the lyrics.
"Heaven" is another beloved track and despite the song being called "Heaven" there isn't anything spiritual or religious about it. It's about planes dropping nuclear bombs. According to Richard Butler in a 1984 interview with Smash Hits: "The words are like clues to what it's really about, which is nuclear war, but you need to think about them to realize that."
After reading that quote, what Richard said was so true, especially when you pay attention to the hidden meaning in the lyrics. Here are four examples:
"And a world at the window gone underground."
"There's a hole in the sky where the sun don't shine."
"And a clock on the wall and it counts my time"
"And I'm standing on ice when I say that I don't hear planes."
Tim Butler once said that he always gets amused whenever people would dance to "Heaven" at concerts because while the music's light and poppy, they're dancing to a song that's about a heavy subject and probably the majority of them think "Heaven" is a happy tune. "Heaven" is actually the second Psychedelic Furs song to reference nuclear war, with the first being the 1982 b-side "Aeroplane".
One of the songs that's more on the rock side is "Alice's House", and it is about an insane asylum. The song was recorded during the Forever Now sessions but it didn't make it on the album because The Psychedelic Furs were unhappy with it. But then later they re-recorded it for Mirror Moves. The early version of "Alice's House" is available to listen to and it is really good. It first appeared on the Should God Forget compilation in 1997, and then as a bonus track on the 2002 remaster of Forever Now.
There are other great songs on Mirror Moves as well. "Here Come Cowboys" is a cool song, "Heartbeat" is so energetic and fun, "My Time" has one of the most beautiful opening lines ("You got rain in your eyes and a head full of stars"), plus "Like A Stranger", and "Only A Game". Every time I listen to "Like A Stranger" I always think about a video I saw of The Psychedelic Furs performing that song at a concert in England back in the late 2010s. In the video a British man in the audience was loudly singing the whole song off-key, and the funny thing is you could barely hear Richard Butler. I don't know if the man was drunk, but it's so hilarious. My favorite song on Mirror Moves is the final track, the fan favorite "Highwire Days", and it is one of Richard Butler's favorite songs to perform live.
Mirror Moves has one of the most iconic album covers of all time, with the photo of Richard Butler on the front cover (plus Tim Butler and John Ashton on the back), taken by photographer Brian Griffin. There are actually a few minor differences to the album cover in some territories. With the UK and European releases, the band and album names and the outlines of the stars have a light purple/blue color, and with the US and Canadian releases the band name, album title and stars are yellow, and "The Psychedelic Furs" is repeated again above but in a different font. The design of the album artwork was a tribute to Colin Fulcher, aka Barney Bubbles, who passed away a year before Mirror Moves came out. Colin designed many album covers, with one of them being Forever Now (the original UK artwork, not the US one).
There's one more thing about Mirror Moves that I want to discuss, and it is the introduction of an important and great musician who became a member of The Psychedelic Furs. The one and only Mars Williams.
Mars Williams first joined The Psychedelic Furs during the Forever Now Tour after when his former band The Waitresses (known for their hits "I Know What Boys Like" and "Christmas Wrapping") split up. The interesting thing is that Keith Forsey was at one of The Psychedelic Furs' shows and when Keith saw Mars, he wanted Mars to play on Billy Idol's song "Catch My Fall" on Rebel Yell, because Billy wanted a saxophonist to play on the song.
On Mirror Moves, Mars played saxophone on the songs "Here Come Cowboys", "Heartbeat", "My Time", and "Like A Stranger". I absolutely love the intro of "Heartbeat" and I'll never forget when The Psychedelic Furs opened with that song when I first saw them in 2015. It was so incredible. "My Time" and "Like A Stranger" have great saxophone solos and I feel lucky to experience the latter song live in 2016. I wish The Furs played "Here Come Cowboys" and "My Time", I bet they would be amazing live.
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| Mars Williams during "Like A Stranger", 2016. Photo by me. |
After Mirror Moves Mars would eventually play on the 1986 rerecording of "Pretty In Pink", and two more PFurs albums, Midnight To Midnight (1987) and Made Of Rain (2020). He also played on two b-sides, "Another Edge" (b-side of "The Ghost In You") and "New Dream" (b-side of "Heartbreak Beat"), and in the 2010s worked with Satellite Paradiso, John Ashton's band.
The way Mars Williams played the saxophone on Mirror Moves and those two albums was magical, and I like to imagine there were stars, sparkles and glitter coming out of the saxophone every time he played. And after hearing Mars he made me appreciate and become interested in the sound of the saxophone. But out of all the saxophonists I've heard so far (and that includes original PFurs sax player Duncan Kilburn), Mars Williams was the one who truly shined for me, like a shining star.
I know I already had written a tribute to Mars Williams back in November when he died but I wanted to talk about him again for Mirror Moves' anniversary because that was the first appearance of Mars and his brilliant music with The Psychedelic Furs. I want to keep his memory alive and I want people to know more about him and the impact he made in the music world.
I'm getting teary-eyed right now typing this because it hit me pretty hard when Mars Williams passed away, especially when it happened a month after I saw The Furs in concert. Even though it's almost a year it still doesn't feel real. This October I will be seeing The Furs for the sixth time but sadly it will be my first concert without Mars being there. I honestly don't know how the show will be like, but the best things I can do are having a good time and keeping Mars in my thoughts.
In closing, I would like to say thank you so much for reading, and happy anniversary Mirror Moves. <3
