I was fifteen years old when this song was first released straight into the UK's number one single spot in May 1984. That summer the UK's newest and rawest new-wave pop band, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, were upsetting DJ's and the establishment right-wing (left right and centre) with their distinct and fresh brand of shock-pop dance music laden with provocative imagery and lyrics of an overtly sexual - and principally homosexual - nature for the time.
Following up their notoriously banned debut single, 'Relax' was always going to be a tough act but, in a track hauntingly heralded by the sound of nuclear attack sirens, their second single 'Two Tribes' comfortably achieved that distinction. I recall the Channel 4 show, The Tube, broadcasting a preview of the song's controversial video at 1am in the morning, such was the anticipation and concern it warranted with its chilling metaphorical depiction by two actors playing the parts of a pair of be-suited Cold War presidents Reagan and Chernenko (the Soviet premier at the time) pitched in a bloody hand to hand fist-fight to the death in a sand pit.
'Two Tribes' remained at the number one slot in the UK charts for nine weeks that year, effectively for the entire summer and was for many, me included, the one true anthem for the times, pitched perfectly as a backdrop to what was one of the most charismatic and unique years of the decade.
It represented an intoxicating and compelling cocktail of emotions for this fifteen year old at the time, mixing the classic teen-age symptoms of healthy distrust and angst combined with hardened desire for rebellion against establishment, and not least our parents, with the all-too-real anti-war fears and paranoia about the abyss into which that self-same establishment was threatening to lead its children, ultimately towards the prospect of a nuclear winter.
One of many twelve-inch single mixes of the song carried with it the recordings of official British nuclear attack public service tapes, the very instructions that would have been played over telephone lines and radio broadcasts to whomever was unfortunate to have survived long enough to make it past the initial nuclear attack, and who may require to know how to dispose of the bodies of their families. These recordings, ironically made by a well known commercial voice-over artist of the era, added a chilling and perverse dimension to the mood of the times.
Twenty years seems such a very long time when you hear this song played back today and in many respects, the world couldn't have turned out any more differently in the time that has passed since, apart from the sustained anti-war sentiments. But looking back in a personal context, it seems that it was a happy and exciting time for me as I found myself standing on the brink of adulthood in a confused world I was struggling to reach any real comprehension of.
'Two Tribes' remained at the number one slot in the UK charts for nine weeks that year, effectively for the entire summer and was for many, me included, the one true anthem for the times, pitched perfectly as a backdrop to what was one of the most charismatic and unique years of the decade.
It represented an intoxicating and compelling cocktail of emotions for this fifteen year old at the time, mixing the classic teen-age symptoms of healthy distrust and angst combined with hardened desire for rebellion against establishment, and not least our parents, with the all-too-real anti-war fears and paranoia about the abyss into which that self-same establishment was threatening to lead its children, ultimately towards the prospect of a nuclear winter.
One of many twelve-inch single mixes of the song carried with it the recordings of official British nuclear attack public service tapes, the very instructions that would have been played over telephone lines and radio broadcasts to whomever was unfortunate to have survived long enough to make it past the initial nuclear attack, and who may require to know how to dispose of the bodies of their families. These recordings, ironically made by a well known commercial voice-over artist of the era, added a chilling and perverse dimension to the mood of the times.
Twenty years seems such a very long time when you hear this song played back today and in many respects, the world couldn't have turned out any more differently in the time that has passed since, apart from the sustained anti-war sentiments. But looking back in a personal context, it seems that it was a happy and exciting time for me as I found myself standing on the brink of adulthood in a confused world I was struggling to reach any real comprehension of.