Paul Morley: “‘Relax’ had been number one so it was quite late in the day. So I started putting together the promotional material if you like, to wind Trevor up, to motivate him, to get him to see the picture. So I got the sleeves together, I got Anton’s photography that bore no relation really to what was going on but Anton had just been to Russia and had got these great pictures from the square in Moscow, Lenin on the wall and everything… and that whole Reagan thing, I just started gathering material to give to Trevor. That’s why a lot of words ended up on our records, Trevor liked that, it gave him a picture even before he had music.
I also tried to make every label different as well and I liked the bullet hole in Lenin’s head (on the original ‘Two Tribes’ 7″ and 12″). I liked the Reagan one with Thatcher (the back cover of ‘Two Tribes’) I liked the idea that there was a strange historical edge to it all as well, that it was of it’s time. That’s what (Peter) Saville neglected that we had, because of my sense that I was a journalist and that it was almost a reportage, documentary element, with the fiction there were also these factual things bursting through. I think that with Frankie, you know with 1984: the miner’s strike and everything, Frankie were so escapist and it was so far removed from the civil war in this country but there is an element in there because there is a social conscious.”
artist: Frankie Goes To Hollywood title: Two Tribes format: 7″ single design: XLZTT photography: Anton Corbijn cat. no: ZTAS 3 date: 04/06/84 art of notes: The single famously went to No.1 and stayed there for nine weeks whilst ‘Relax’ climbed back up the charts to No.2. Multiple remixes on vinyl, cassette and picture discs kept the song afloat as did the ‘Frankie Say…’ T-shirts.
