More Than This

Album: Avalon (1982)
Charted: 6 102
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Songfacts®:

  • Written by Roxy Music lead singer Bryan Ferry, "More Than This" explores the end of a relationship through a tone of existential despair. In an interview with Vulture on August 16, 2022, Ferry explained why he believes the song endures.

    "It uses very few words, but it seems to get them in the right order," he said. "It's introspective. It's great when that type of emotion strikes a chord with people. Some of the other songs that I've done with the band and on my solo records have been a bit more obscure, but 'More Than This' really appealed to people."
  • This song, alongside the rest of the Avalon album, was written while Ferry was staying in Ireland, a place he says inspired the sound of the music. "People tended to like the overall mood of the album, which had a unique sound," Ferry told The Mail on Sunday on June 28, 2009. "I like to think that some of the dark melancholy of the album comes from that place. After the record was finished I returned to the west coast of Ireland to photograph the album cover."
  • Ferry's vocal ends at 2:45, leaving the last 1:45 as a synth-driven instrumental. This is unusual for pop music, which thrives on vocal-heavy hooks and arrangements.
  • "Veronica Veronese" by the British artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti was chosen as the cover art for "More Than This." The 1872 painting shows Pre-Raphaelite model Alexa Wilding in deep thought while strumming a violin. A representation of "the artistic soul in the act of creation," "Veronica Veronese" matches the luxurious romanticism of Avalon.
  • The video for this song begins with Ferry singing beneath a neon cross. It then cuts to him sitting in a movie theater, with the cinema screen showing footage of Roxy Music performing the song on a stage lit with fire. Ferry commented to Vulture: "We made a music video for 'More Than This.' That was never my favorite thing, making videos. Being in the studio and making records was exciting for me and still is."
  • Roxy Music performed "More Than This" during the first three dates of the Avalon tour in Ireland in 1982. However, the band struggled with the live arrangement and dropped the song from the setlist. Eventually, "More Than This" was brought back for the Roxy Music reunion tour in 2001. They also performed it when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 29, 2019.
  • This song appears in the 2003 film Lost in Translation, with Bill Murray's character, Bob Harris, singing it in a karaoke bar in Tokyo. According to director Sofia Coppola, Murray had no idea how high the notes went. She told Esquire on June 22, 2017: "When Bill does the shot and says, 'This is hard,' before singing 'More Than This,' that was an ad-lib."

    In the 2019 film Knives Out, Toni Collette's character, Joni Thrombey, dances to the song. Director Rian Johnson said Collette chose the song.

    Other films to use "More Than This" include 200 Cigarettes (1999), Matchstick Men (2003), and Book Club (2018). The song also makes several televised appearances in the likes of Community (2014), The Americans (2017), and Pam & Tommy (2022).
  • The 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City includes this song on the radio station Emotion 98.3. Hosted by the recurring radio personality Fernando Martinez, Emotion 98.3 describes itself as "the station for laughter and sorrow, heartbreak and tears, and those post-therapy session blues."
  • The American alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs covered "More Than This" on their 1997 album Love Among the Ruins. Mary Ramsey was their lead singer at this point, as previous frontwoman Natalie Merchant had recently left the group to pursue a solo career. The cover reached #25 in the US.

    The British pop singer Emmie released a dance version of "More Than This" in 1999. Produced by Mark Hadfield and Adam Ryan Carter, the cover was a hit single throughout Europe, peaking at #5 in the UK.

    Other artists who have covered the song include Norah Jones and Charlie Hunter (2001), Blondie (2006), and Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet (2013).
  • The title is quite durable and instantly associated with the band. In 1995, Roxy Music released a compilation album named after the song. Featuring a mixture of Roxy Music and Ferry solo hits, More Than This went Platinum in the UK.

    In 2008, the BBC aired a documentary called More Than This: The Story of Roxy Music. Directed by the Grammy Award-winning filmmaker Bob Smeaton, it includes interviews with all members of Roxy Music alongside the likes of Bono of U2, Nile Rodgers of Chic, and John Taylor of Duran Duran.
  • "More Than This" was the first single unveiled from Avalon. The single version, which features slightly different sound effects and guitar processing, was Roxy Music's last Top 10 hit in the UK, peaking at #6.
  • While it remains one of Roxy Music's most recognized songs in America, when "More Than This" was first released in the US, it had little impact on the charts, bubbling under at just #102. Many college radio stations played the song, but commercial stations stayed away for the most part.

    Roxy Music occupied just a small niche in America, where they hit the Top 40 just once ("Love Is the Drug" – #30 in 1975), but they were far more successful in the UK.
  • Avalon was Roxy Music's eighth and final album and their biggest seller, reaching #1 in several countries, including the UK, Canada, and Australia. The band started out as more of a glam-rock outfit, but they later turned to melancholy pop, with this song being the apotheosis of that sound. Ferry embarked on a successful solo career after Roxy Music broke up, but remained far more popular in the UK, where his 1985 album Boys and Girls went to #1.

Comments: 21

  • Phil From Dallas from Dallas Txthe perfect 80's song, the tastiest guitar fills, been on a search to replicate that tone. the extended instrumental was both brave and genius. will never leave my playlist
  • Zed from Shanghaiangel olsen’s cover is…. gasp… better than the original…
  • Marty from Santa Barbara"More Than This" capably concludes the 2018 Norwegian TV series "Lykkeland" (English version: "State of Happiness.") The last three minutes of the final episode of season 2. Check it out.
  • Bob from Los Angeles I first heard RM’s “More Than This”, on then L.A. soft rock and pop Station “94.7 ~ The Wave” back in the ‘82. It was off their “Avalon” album, and since that time, I have had at least a dozen iterations of that album starting with vinyl, then cassettes, and finally CD’s. While Bryan Ferry has stated that the song was written following the breakup of a relationship for him, it became more of an ethereal and cathartic anthem for me. I derived no greater aural pleasure from it - than when I drove windows-down, westward, on California State Highway 70 - through the stunning Feather River Canyon. As the namesake river churned alongside you, late on a warm summer’s day, your rejuvenation was completed with the omnipresent fragrance of Ponderosa Pine (certainly nothing more pleasant in the olfactory sense), proved there was no better revelation for the love of life itself.
  • Rich from Port Townsend, WaGreat song by a great artist(s). Love this album, I always think of the old mansion in wiesbaden I lived in at the time I got this album. This song, Avalon and especially My Only Love, which in many ways is a perfect complement to MTT. I always thought the song was about a an perfect affair, but that was all it was. Not marriage, kids, mortgage, just this, nothing more!
  • Sofia from ColombiaOh this song is so nostalgic! I love it, but I don't know why transmits that blue atmosphere.. anyway it's a great song! Like this band as well
  • Alicoy from Long Beach, CaFavorite song of all time
  • Seventhmist from 7th HeavenSusannah Hoffs (with Matthew Sweet) did a great cover of this song a few years ago.
  • Rubylake from CanadaI'm with Camille on this one, as i think the lyrics are speaking about finding love so perfect that there was nothing more to be found. "More than this, there is nothing." Romantic rock and roll :)
  • Camille from Toronto, OhI'm more familiar with the 10,000 Maniacs version and prefer it to the one by Roxy Music. Hauntingly beautiful, and the vocals from Maniac's Mary Ramsey are sublime. The joy in the song is the feeling that I get when I hear it. It lifts you up and out of your environment to a lovely place. I always thought the lyrics were speaking about finding love so perfect that there was nothing more to be found. "More than this, there is nothing." Sort of like being totally and completely saturated by satisfying love with no need to look further, complete; a sentiment similar to the lyrics of "I Could Not Ask For More."
  • Esskayess from Dallas, TxRM had finally grown up when the Avalon album came out. Their 70s songs nauseated me and this was Ferry's final fling with them before striking out on his own -- with far better results.
  • Jack from Mesa, AzIan i thought this might be some sort of atheist thing too. If you think of it that way it is profound. We are both idiots i guess.
  • Ian from Stockton, CaMan I'm an idiot, I always thought this song was about being an atheist or something.
  • Yuri from Moscow, Russia FederationHow many more times will I listen this song in future? Can't say. But I listened it maybe tens of hundreds or thousands times on a tape and then "in digit". Now I'm on my search of that unique sound which I try to find in another songs. "More Than This" very means to me. I wonder to know what thing motived Ferry to create so beaut. sound and why do I like it?
  • Jim from Long Beach, CaClassic Roxy!!..I just love this lush song...
  • Charlotte from Santa Barbara, CaMike, let it go. This song and video are epic and you can say whatever you like about the instrumental but as a 15-yr old in Mormon reform school, this song AND album saved my life.
  • Robert Campion from Galway, IrelandAwesome song...the lyrics are actually pretty simple and sparse.. but its a very atmospheric song and its Ferry's vocal that send shivers down your spine. Probably my favorite Roxy Music/Bryan ferry song ... "Oh Yeah" and "Slave to Love" being the others... Never seen the Video...I don' pay too much attention to vidoes anyway...the artists often have very little input. Have always loved the cover art on Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry Albums though !!!

  • Mike from Santa Barbara, CaMadison Park covered this song in 2005.
  • Joe from Perth, Australiathis song has a timeless connection to people and i think decades from now this song will still connect with people
  • Luke from Manchester, EnglandThe vid isn't "creepy", it's 80s and garish
  • Mike from Santa Barbara, CaThis is a great song, but the video is creepy. And the ending insturmental goes on too long.
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