Songoftheday 4/19/13 - Desolate loving in your eyes you used to make my life so sweet...

Culture Club - "Church Of The Poison Mind"
from the album Colour By Numbers (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #10 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12

Today's Song of the Day is by the British pop group Culture Club, who brought the soulful and sexually ambiguous voice of Boy George to millions of American fans with their debut album Kissing To Be Clever, which spun off three huge top-10 singles with "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me", "Time (Clock Of The Heart)", and "I'll Tumble 4 Ya", becoming the first group since the Beatles to do that from a debut album. By the time that US-only third single had run its course in the States, it was time to release their second effort, Colour By Numbers. The first single released from the set was the Motown-resembling pop confection "Church Of The Poison Mind", written by the band and featuring heavyweight backup singer Helen Terry on riffs just as vital as the ones on Aretha's "Respect"...

"Church..." became the band's fourth straight top-10 hit, while reaching #2 in their native England (and Ireland as well), as well as going top-10 in the antipodean countries (Australia and New Zealand) and top-40 around the world.  The album would also top the chart in the UK, and was their only top-10 full-length in the US. It also was their biggest hit on the rock chart, peaking at #17, while the album as a whole went to #3 on the dance club play chart. Helen would go on to have a minor hit in America ("One Sunny Day") as well as a top-40 single in Britain ("Love Lies Lost", written by the Boy and Roy Hay

 It remains my favorite uptempo Culture Club song.

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...and here's the band live in 1983 with the song...

....while here they are a year later in Australia...

...and again in 1998 on British TV just as good as ever...

Up tomorrow:  Miss Escalera from the Bronx gets her first big non-movie hit.