Songoftheday 6/11/14 - You think you've got it all set up, you think you've got the perfect plan...

Paul Young - "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down"
from the album The Secret Of Association (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Today's Song of the Day is from English singer Paul Young, who scores his first #1 pop hit in America in the summer of 1985 with his cover of Hall & Oates' "Everytime You Go Away". Paul's next single in the US (which was released before "Everytime" in the UK) was another cover version, but a song even more obscure - a moderate-level charting R&B hit from 1973 from soul singer Ann Peebles. "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down" reaches #31 on that chart, but failed to make the Hot 100 (it appeared on the "bubbling under" chart at #111)...

Now Young's sounded nothing like Ann's version except for the lyrics, with a faster, new wave-ish kind of a rock swing that transformed it into a dance number...

Paul's version of "I'm Gonna Tear..." made the US Pop Top 20 in November of 1985. It also crossed over to the R&B chart in Billboard, becoming his only hit there at #60. By far the biggest success of the record was in the disco, where it peaked at #8 on the dance club play chart. Over in England, where it was the lead single for The Secret..., it became his fourth top-10 hit.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Here's Paul live on tour behind the album at Rockpalast...

..and again a couple years later in concert...

Up tomorrow: an emo-new-wave group flips.