Some ’80s songs define the decade. Modern English’s “I Melt with You,” with its bouncy, effervescent music that distracts from the somewhat dark idea at the core of the song, certainly qualifies. In fact, if you were to make a list of the most impactful songs of the decade that weren’t actually hit singles, it would rank way up near the top of said list.
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How did this song come to be? What was at the heart of Robbie Grey’s lyrics? And how did this song become a classic without every really being a smash hit? It all begins with a British quintet who were searching for a signature sound.
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Modern English formed in the British town of Colchester in the late ’70s and released their debut album Mesh & Lace in 1981. The sound on that album resembled the brooding dance music of many other similar acts at that time. Looking to stand out a bit more on their sophomore release After The Snow, the band—after self-producing their debut—decided to hire an outside producer, Hugh Jones. By that time, Jones’ credits already included working with hot acts of the day like Simple Minds, Adam and the Ants, and Echo & the Bunnymen.
Jones helped take the bits and pieces of music the band had composed and structured them for a more accessible pop feel. One of those sound collages caused lead singer Robbie Grey to have the most impactful three minutes of his life, as he recounted to this author for the book Playing Back the ‘80s: A Decade of Unstoppable Hits.
“I’d gone home with some of the music being made for ‘I Melt with You,’ some of the parts of it, and I wrote the lyrics in about three minutes sitting on the floor stoned in my house in Shepherd’s Bush in London,” Grey said. “I just wrote these words down on a scrap of paper really quickly.”
Modern English released After the Snow, the album containing “I Melt with You,” in May 1982. The song itself arrived as a single in August of that same year. Little by little, it worked its way into the American market, but even then, it didn’t exactly blow up. It reached its highest chart position of No. 78 in spring 1983.
The fact that it was prominently included in the 1983 teen flick Valley Girl helped “I Melt with You” achieve some staying power. From there, it just basically sustained in the culture as more people discovered it over the years. It now enjoys a loftier status than other songs of the era that were much bigger hits. And we’d wager a lot of people who love it have no idea about the meaning and message of this fantastic track.
What is “I Melt with You” About?
You can listen to “I Melt with You” a bunch of times, get to where you can sing along to all the words, and still never quite latch onto the meaning. And it’s not like it’s that hard to parse once you really look at the lyrics. But the breezy momentum of the music, the ebullient refrain, and some of the more playful elements of the production (including the unforgettable a cappella, humming breakdown that Grey delivers before the return to the chorus) hide it all in plain sight: It’s a song about two people making love during a nuclear war.
“It got missed for years until somebody asked me what it was about,” Grey says. “I think everybody just thought it was a straightforward love song. It was almost like a metaphor for that time. Using a relationship and people making love as an example of something good against something so dark in the background.”
The narrator of “I Melt with You” embarks on a mission to enjoy his final moments on earth with his beloved. He races to get to her, even as time is running out on him: I saw the world crashing all around your face. Grey sneaks in an in-joke in the first verse, with the reference to mesh and lace, also the title of the band’s first album.
This guy realizes that the ideals in which he once believed will now never be realized: Dream of better lives, the kind which never hate. All his efforts fall in vain: I made a pilgrimage to save this human’s race / Never comprehending the race had long gone by. The one line in the bridge is bitterly ironic: The future’s open wide.
Yet the chorus evokes a triumph over the darkness. I’ll stop the world and melt with you, Grey sings. Considering the context, it’s a brilliant line with a double meaning. They might be physically melting due to the nuclear bombs, or they might be melting with the heat of passion, as lovers do.
Modern English remains a touring and recording outfit, with Grey still at the helm. And at every concert, they’ll play “I Melt with You” and fans will shout along, many of them blissfully unaware of this unforgettable track’s deeper meaning.
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Photo by Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images
