"When I Dream" Raises Expectations for The Teardrop Explodes

The Teardrop Explodes : When I Dream

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In September of 1980 The Teardrop Explodes released the UK#47 single "When I Dream" b/w a dreamy "Kilimanjaro", which would be left off the original pressing of the upcoming debut album by that name. In fact, "When I Dream" is a remixed version of the Kilimanjaro track. This track added to the massive expectations for the album .

Julian Cope would tell Trouser Press he gave up the bass to concentrate on vocals.

"I really want to be a great singer. I want more than anything to be a technically good singer. There are three singers I think count more than anything. (Jim) Morrison, Scott Walker and Tim Buckley. People like Dylan have some kind of primeval power about them, but I do love voices. I love singing.

Smash Hits' Mark Ellen's could have only been written by an Englishman :

Brilliant. Further upstream from their once sombre, sparser sounds, Liverpool's Teardrop devise a richly textured tuneful keyboard ballad (that's the word!) that's bursting its sides with lightness, depth and ingenuity. The 'B' side is a curious gothic chant faced with ghost synths and native drums --a mystical cruise to "Kilimanjaro"--it's the most essential swop for a quid note this fortnight.

The closing of the club that created the new Liverpool scene

Teardrop Explodes : Poppies

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In March of 1980, after police raided Eric's Club during a Psychedelic Furs/ Wah! Heat show resulting in a dozen arrests including two Furs, owner Roger Eagle announced the place was closing. 

The club hosted all the great acts of the time like Elvis Costello, Buzzcocks, The Clash, Joy Division, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, Ultravox, Wire, and XTC. What happened inside the club helped Liverpool recreate an incestuous music scene that would involve Wah!Heat, Teardrop Explodes, Echo + The Bunnymen, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Dead or Alive and many others.

When bands weren't onstage, Eagle played great music in the club, from American bands like Love, The Doors, Captain Beefheart and the Electric Prunes as well as Krautrock. It would be difficult to overestimate the impact this had on the up and coming musicians like Julian Cope and Ian McCulloch who gathered there.

Said DJ Greg Wilson to BBC Radio's Sounds of A City

Without Eric's I think there'd be no Kilimanjaro, no Teardrop Explodes, no Echo and the Bunnymen. The two of those bands are totally intertwined. They're almost the same band, cut in half into two separate things, produced by the same people. Eric's is fundamental to the whole thing.

The Teardrop Explodes' "Treason" earns Single of the Week

The Teardrop Explodes : Treason ( It's Just a Story)

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In February 1980 Teardrop Explodes released "Treason", their third and final single on Zoo Records. The debut album is still months away. Recorded in London with producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, the single would move 16,000 copies in its first week and peak at #3 on the UK Indie chart. Sounds' Dave McCullough declared the "Treason the "Single of the Week", writing:

"This is marvelous! Over a thrusting, vibrant pop background that only the Attractions could equal for earth panache, Julian Cope sings a complex love song in the kind of way that has you splitting the line sup in your head, seeing just how he phrases this or that line, marveling at how he says ' Consequently...my reaction is getting rather strange,' where his slight lisp and rich Liverpudlian tones turn every nuance into little works of art...Everything points to a record of 'classic' stature."

The b-side was a version of the Cope/McCulloch song "Read It In Books", which Echo and the Bunnnymen had already released as the b-side to their debut single, "The Pictures On My Wall".

The French version: