That old saying that there’s nothing new under the sun certainly applies to music. Even 80s music, which seemed to be full of innovation at the time, generally built on the foundation of older forms of music. The key to making it sound new was in the combination and the execution of it all. The British band ABC understood that more than anyone. They bucked prevailing trends and gave audiences what they didn’t know they wanted until they heard it. And their classic 1982 single “Poison Arrow” was a main catalyst in that process.
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Originating in Sheffield, England, ABC first started to take form when Martin Fry interviewed a duo that called themselves Vice Versa. They asked this would-be journalist to join the band. Shortly after, the trio saw Chic in concert and decided on a new way forward for their music.
Certainly, the lush rhythmic pocket achieved by Chic played heavily into what the newly christened ABC (named after the Jackson 5 song) wanted to accomplish. But they also threw other elements into the stew as well. You can hear a lot of the archness of David Bowie and Bryan Ferry in the lyrics of Fry.
The band also wasn’t afraid to lean into unabashed romanticism and, its flipside, crushing heartache. Top it all off with a dash of melodic sophistication that hearkens back to the Great American Songbook, and you can start to understand what ABC was peddling. The only missing piece was a producer who could help all these disparate elements cohere. Enter Trevor Horn.
Potent “Poison”
At the time he was introduced to Fry, Horn was only just beginning to take on production work. But he was already familiar with building songs through state-of-the-art recording techniques via his work as a musician in The Buggles and (briefly) Yes. The first song he worked on with the band was “Poison Arrow”.
Horn knew that the instrumentalists in ABC couldn’t play from scratch the kind of music that would jump out of speakers. Hence, he and the band constructed the track piece by piece out of tiny sections of music. After that painstaking process, “Poison Arrow” was replete with huge instrumental flourishes and attention-grabbing musical peaks.
Fry rode above it all with his erudite melancholia. When Horn suggested that the track needed a middle eight, Fry came up with a he-and-she, back-and-forth spoken-word section that leads thrillingly into the final repeat of the chorus. “Poison Arrow” hit the Top 10 in Great Britain and reached No. 25 in the US as well upon its release in 1982.
Behind the Lyrics of “Poison Arrow”
“Poison Arrow” finds the narrator struggling to connect with the girl he’s addressing, constantly fumbling to make the right moves because he receives mixed signals. “Hey girl, I thought we were the right combination,” Fry moans. And later: “Right on the target but wide of the mark/What I thought was fire was only the spark.”
In the aforementioned bridge, Fry whispers his admonition: “I thought you loved me, but it seems you don’t care.” But the female voice (provided by Karen Clayton) quickly rebuts. “I care enough to know I could never love you.” Ouch. No wonder he feels the sting of that “poison arrow to my heart.”
This song was just one weapon in the arsenal for ABC. Their entire debut album, Lexicon Of Love”, hits the target with stunning accuracy. “Poison Arrow”, straight, true, and original, served as the brilliant opening salvo.
Photo by David Redfern/Redferns
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