Time (Clock of the Heart)

Album: Kissing To Be Clever (1982)
Charted: 3 2
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Songfacts®:

  • This song provides a great answer to the proposition, "just give it time." As Boy George explains in the lyric, time doesn't always make a relationship work. Staying together might make you feel like you have a real love, when really all you've done is log some hours as a couple. Time is precious, and it's too valuable to waste on something that isn't working.
  • The members of Culture Club didn't know how to write songs when they got together, so they learned by practice, with each member contributing and sharing in the writing credits. Their guitarist Roy Hay explained in Musician magazine how this one came about: "That song came from me and Mikey (Craig, bass player) getting some music together, and George getting excited and putting lyrics to it. At first, it was horrible, really bland. Then Mikey had this idea to use a staggered beat. I said, 'Yeah, let's do it with the Moog.' So we did that, got the great snare sound and it came together."
  • In America, this was the follow-up to Culture Club's debut single "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?," and it also did well on Adult Contemporary formats and MTV - not a traditional combination, but one that proved very successful for the band.
  • The music video, directed by Chris Gabrin, takes us inside a book with a clock on the cover to show the band performing in a studio. They're also seen sitting in a living room, sharing coffee (out of personalized mugs) and a clock-shaped cake while watching themselves on TV.

    Gabrin told Boy George Fever about the making of the video: "I found an old vacated recording studio, just outside London, I had five men spending many hours working on creating a recording studio for us. It went on for almost a week to just get it ready for filming. We had a few instruments and microphones set up. I guided the camera up and down, capturing the group's faces from every conceivable and inconceivable angle I wanted people to get a warm feeling of this super new group called Culture Club."
  • Backing vocalist Helen Terry makes a rather frumpy cameo appearance in the clip as the curler-wearing housekeeper who serves them cake, a scenario that bothered lead singer Boy George. He said: "I hate the fact that Helen Terry is cruelly dressed looking like a Molly Mop, I'm slightly upset of how Helen Terry is presented in this video. It was a wrong decision made by the director."
  • Saxophone solos were big in 1982. The one on this song was performed by Nick Payne.

Comments: 2

  • Thekeel from Se UsaAlternately the lyrics can be read as the singer trying to convince a partner (or potential partner) to overcome their hesitation about committing to the relationship, saying that all this time you're taking to be reluctant and think about it is costing us the one thing that could give you everything you want, which is time to be together, get to know each other, and create something real.
  • Shawn from Green BayThis is probably my favorite Culture Club song with Karma Chameleon being a close #2. Mistake #3 is also a favorite, though not as big a hit. Boy George was an amazing singer. It really didn't matter what you looked like. In the 80's, if you had the talent, you could make it. And his lyrics were always very poetic, not only melodious, but always meaning more than they said. Great band.
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