If you haven't noticed already, November is a busy month in The Rats' calendar for record releases - and today's anniversary isn't the last!! The runes tell us that November 20th was the day in 1981 that Never In A Million Years was released.
OK – the bare facts. This was the twelfth UK single release by The Boomtown Rats and was the first Rats’ single not to feature Gerry Cott. It first charted in early December 1981 and stayed in the charts for four weeks, maxing out at a lowly No 62.
If this video was meant to get you thinking, it certainly works for me. I’d love to know what the connection is between the different bits – the ship at sea in a storm, the white-painted faces, the Japanese-style room and the dancing poodles? According to "Is That It?", Bob started to write the song in India during the Asian phase of the Mondo Bongo world tour and it was all about defiance and unrealised dreams.
“And now I’m always dreaming of dreams that lie in state, waiting for me to wake and make a life for them.”
Many of the people around the band were convinced it would be a hit but as the chart history shows, this wasn’t to be. As I think I've mentioned before, when The Rats’ back-catalogue was released on CD in 2005, the reviewer for Q Magazine thought Never in a Million Years as one of the band’s standout tracks.
It's hard to believe now, but the picture sleeve was seen as controversial at the time. The UK artwork was sharp and simple – a white background with "a million" represented by a large gold Roman numeral ‘I’ and the six zeros formed by holes cut into the sleeve, so that the black of the record showed through.
A small second UK pressing of the record replaced the cut-outs with gold circles and added gold commas. Unlike the card sleeve of the first pressing, this sleeve was printed on thinner paper and the few copies that can be found haven’t stood up well to the ravages of the last 40 years or so.
Many people wondered why anyone would release a single that didn’t have the band name and the title of the song on the sleeve? In other countries where the record was released, this ‘error’ was corrected. This is the French picture sleeve.
I think this looks really messy – I much prefer the original artwork concept. And really what was all the fuss about? In 1983, New Order released Blue Monday, with much acclaimed artwork that had cut-outs and also didn’t feature the band or song name.
My younger brother would have loved to have been here chatting to you all.Unfortuanately he was terminal brain But Bob heard about this and phoned my brother.Its all we heard for weeks Sir Bob Phoned me,what a wonderful thing to do Bob and i am one person in life that believes your not LOOKING OUT FOR NO 1
Some great comments and analysis. from my point of view, it’s one of my favourite post ‘hits’ period. It feels a bit Phil Spector to me and was surprised it never got higher in the charts.
My favourite Rats single. It's got emotion, passion, a sense of defiance and somehow managed to be a flow. Some reviews said it was the Rats trying to remake Bowie's Heroes. Dont see much similarity myself. This lazy idea probably comes from the fact that Tony Visconti produced, same as people trot out Springsteen every time Rat Trap is mentioned. A Hold of Me is thematically similar to Never in a Million Years and also one of my favourite Rats songs. Geldof's voice has a distinct emotional quality and you can hear it in Never in a Million Years and in live versions eg London June 1982. It's a mystery why this did not do better. Can't blame the sleeve really, it's not that important. It's what's inside that matters. I like the video. Maybe the sinking ship portends the band losing popularity and Bob tries to steer the band to safer waters. He was being heavily criticised by the music press at the time , hensel the "I'd spite in their eye" line from the song. A whole new scene of so called New Romantics was emerging at this time and cynical Bob could never be accused of being one of those. I doubt this song got much airplay. No TOTP live appearance which normally helps to push a song up the charts and also I believe the Rats were touring a lot outside the UK .
I never liked the single,the video or the sleeve.But thats the beauty of music.
It was also released as a single in the States which had Charmed Lives on the b-side.
Its an a anthem, a statement I almost feel a birth, Boom what happened next?