"Living on the Ceiling" | ||||
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Single by Blancmange | ||||
from the album Happy Families and Happy Families Too... | ||||
B-side |
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Released | 15 October 1982 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 4:02 | |||
Label | London | |||
Songwriter(s) |
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Producer(s) | Mike Howlett | |||
Blancmange singles chronology | ||||
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Music video | ||||
"Living on the Ceiling" on YouTube |
"Living on the Ceiling" is a song by English synth-pop band Blancmange. It was released as the band's third single in 1982, taken from their debut studio album Happy Families . It became the band's first (and biggest) UK Top 40 hit, peaking at No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart [4] and being certified Silver by the BPI for sales in excess of 200,000 copies. [5] The single also reached No. 5 on the Australian Singles Chart. [6]
Blancmange performed the song on Top of the Pops , but for broadcast on the show as well as on BBC Radio, the track was edited to replace the lyric "Up the bloody tree" with "Up the cuckoo tree". However, in a subsequent episode of Top of the Pops where the song was used as the 'play-out track' without the band in the studio, the original "bloody" lyric was left in and was clearly audible.
The song was used in an episode of Limmy's Show in 2011, where Limmy looped the "up the bloody tree" lyric for comedic effect. In an interview with The Quietus in 2020, frontman Neil Arthur joked that Limmy's version was "better" than the original. [7]
Reporting a 2011 interview with lead singer Neil Arthur, Sarah Nixey suggested that ".. it was the Indian influences of Pandit Dinesh on tablas and Deepak Khazauchi on sitar who had both given 'Living on the Ceiling' its alluring flavour" describing the single as "Middle Eastern tinged". Of the album from which it was drawn Nixey wrote: "Fusing the rhythmic dash of Talking Heads with the intensity of Joy Division plus the melodic framework of OMD and Yazoo on top, Arthur and Luscombe won critical admiration and respectable sales for their debut." [8]
The promotional video, made to accompany the song, was set in Cairo, Egypt, and was directed by Clive Richardson. [9] [10]
Chart (1982–1983) | Peak position |
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Australia (Kent Music Report) [11] [6] | 5 |
Ireland (IRMA) [12] | 8 |
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ) [13] | 41 |
South Africa (Springbok Radio) [14] | 3 |
UK Singles (OCC) [4] | 7 |
US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play [15] | 52 |
Chart (1983) | Position |
---|---|
Australia (Kent Music Report) [11] | 58 |
Blancmange are an English synth-pop band formed in Harrow, London, in 1979. The band were a duo for much of their career, composed of Neil Arthur (vocals) and Stephen Luscombe (keyboards). They came to prominence in the early 1980s, releasing four UK top-20 singles: "Living on the Ceiling", "Waves", "Blind Vision" and "Don't Tell Me". They released three studio albums during that decade: Happy Families (1982), Mange Tout (1984) and Believe You Me (1985).
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Happy Families is the debut studio album by the English synth-pop band Blancmange, released on 24 September 1982 by London Records. It peaked at No. 30 on the UK Albums Chart, aided by the success of the album's third single, "Living on the Ceiling", released the following month, which became Blancmange's breakthrough hit, reaching No. 7 in the UK Singles Chart. A re-recorded version of the album, titled Happy Families Too..., was released in 2013.
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"Don't Tell Me" is a song by English synth-pop duo Blancmange, released in March 1984 as the third single from their second studio album Mange Tout (1984). Written by Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe, and produced by Peter Collins, "Don't Tell Me" reached No. 8 in the UK and remained in the charts for ten weeks. A music video was filmed in Valencia to promote the single.
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