Holding On To You

Album: Vibrator (1995)
Charted: 20
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Songfacts®:

  • A UK hit for Terence Trent D'Arby in 1995, "Holding On To You" finds him flush with excitement brought on by a tangerine girl with tambourine eyes. It's a very poetic love song culminating with the line, "Holding on to you means letting go of pain."

    His music tends to be very spiritual, so the song's subject is likely more of an idea than a terrestrial being. Reporters who have asked were usually met with elliptical answers evoking philosophy and the divine.
  • The song is part of D'Arby's fourth album, Vibrator. His 1987 debut album, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby, made him an international star, but his next two underperformed considerably. Instead of pivoting to the trends, he held course, which earned him a solid fanbase in Europe (he relocated to the UK from America in 1986), but mostly forgotten in The States. In 2001 he changed his name to Sananda Maitreya.

Comments: 3

  • Mary L. from Tutwiler Ms.I live this song!! Was it really originally written for Rod Stewart?
  • Dawn Vitale from New OrleansThis Song Saved My Life
  • Alan from London, EnglandIt is about entering a new exciting relationship full of hope and optimism. The word play used in such phrases as 'Goodbye Picasso, Hello Dali (Dolly)' is wonderful
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