Flashback
Putting the moral outrage that greeted ‘Relax’ and ‘Two Tribes’ behind them, a more festive Frankie Goes to Hollywood hit No. 1 again, as singer Holly Johnson recalls
Sun 7 Dec 2008
The Power of Love’ wasn’t a Christmas song from my point of view, although it was written around Christmas time the previous year. There’s a version from our final Peel session from then, before it all went a bit crazy for us. I had been plugging away at music for years —
I was in San Francisco when the video was delivered. After the groundbreaking ones for ‘Relax’ and ‘Two Tribes’, to be confronted with this obviously commercial, Christmas-card of a video was a surprise. We had no idea, and no input. The Americans were saying, ‘Oh, isn’t it pretty?’ We were looking at each other going, ‘What the fuck is this?’
I love the song, though —
Band Aid knocked us off the top for the Christmas No 1. Bob Geldof called me many times, trying to get me involved. I wanted to do it, the band didn’t. But I did do a voiceover that appeared on the B-side: ‘Feed the world! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!’.
Holly Johnson’s new version of ‘The Power of Love’ is available on The Xmas Pop Album (Crimson Productions).