Released today in 1985: Roll Over

Arista TWINS8

Tom Bailey being taken ill at the end of March 1985 threw Thompson Twins into chaos temporarily. The band was in London, preparing for the release and promotion of their new single Roll Over, when Bailey collapsed in the hotel they were staying at. “It was really strange,” Alannah Currie told Record Mirror. “I went to take some clothes into his room this morning and he fainted in front of me; it was really scary. I called the doctors and they said he was just exhausted. He’s going back to Paris tonight to a clinic and we’re hoping he’ll get better quickly. He’s been looking bad for the last couple of days. He’s been under a lot of strain as the producer of our new album.”

That new album was Here’s To Future Days. There had been some difficulties with it already: Thompson Twins had parted company with original producer Alex Sadkin, who had helmed their last two hugely successful albums. Bailey had then brought in Nile Rodgers as co-producer instead, junking the material already worked on with Sadkin. A new recording of their late ’84 hit Lay Your Hands On Me was made with Rodgers and included on the album when it was finally released, nearly a year after the original version of the song had appeared in the charts as a single. In the meantime, Bailey’s illness led to a re-think of the promotion of the album – and of their other commitments: a UK tour was cancelled.

Roll Over, originally intended to be the first official single from the new album, did make it to the shops: but only just. With Bailey unable to help with promotion (it was released less than two weeks after his collapse), the decision was taken to pull it. It was withdrawn on its date of release and copies returned to Arista were destroyed. Bailey later got cold feet about the song altogether and it wasn’t included on the final track list for Here’s To Future Days. Instead, the anti-drugs song Don’t Mess With Doctor Dream was used as a single just prior to the album’s appearance.

NEW SINGLES on sale from Apr. 12
1985
FAT BOYS Jail House Rap (Sutra U9123)
Howard JONES Look Mama (WEA HOW7)
THOMPSON TWINS Roll Over (Arista TWINS8)