"Dancing With Tears in My Eyes": Cover Comparison

I don’t think this will be a cover comparison much like the ones I’ve made up to this point. I’ll comment on the original and cover versions of "Dancing With Tears in My Eyes," but I’ll also compare the song to another, similar one.

“Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” is a song by a new wave band which was released in the first half of the 1980s, sits at a bit over four minutes long, and is about someone spending their final moments with the person they love before the world ends. Somehow, it is not the only song that fits that description and in fact, it’s the lesser-known of the two. The second is, as many of you have probably guessed, “I Melt With You” by Modern English. However, despite the fact that “I Melt With You” is so well-known and well-liked, I think I prefer “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes.” I feel like that’s something I can’t just say and then not provide any explanation for, so the cover comparison will have to wait. First, I’ll try to justify my decision:

The subjects of both songs are heavy and emotional. The world is ending (in “I Melt With You” the cause is an atomic bomb, while in “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes,” the cause is a malfunctioning nuclear reactor) and the narrator is spending the limited time they have with their significant other. As far as songs go, I think that’s an amazing concept and probably one of my favorites that I’ve come across. It has the ability to combine a sense of desperation, love, and resignation in a way that I haven’t come across in any other type of song. Of course, there are songs where someone might feel like the world is ending, but that hardly measures up to the world actually ending. There’s just something really emotional and darkly romantic about such a scenario.

Between the two songs, I think that “I Melt With You” is more traditionally poetic. Take the second verse for example:

“Dream of better lives, the kind which never hate

Dropped in the state of imaginary grace

I made a pilgrimage to save this human's race

Never comprehending the race had long gone by”

Even the phrase “I’ll stop the world and melt with you” has this grand, dramatic quality to it.

However, what “I Melt With You” doesn’t have is a linear narrative. “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” does. The first verse begins with the narrator in their car, receiving the news that “it’s [all] over.” He makes it home in the second verse and in a shortened third verse, the moment is at hand and we can assume the world is being destroyed. This narrative makes the situation feel less abstract. We can follow along with each step and see how the end of the world unfolds. And while the chorus isn’t especially amazing lyrically and the idea of dancing with tears in one’s eyes might not have the same power behind it as stopping the world and melting with someone does in a vacuum, the context provided by the rest of the song makes this line hit differently, for me at least. I used the words “desperation, love, and resignation” before and I think that one line perfectly encapsulates those emotions in a beautifully simplistic way.

Another small detail that I really like is at the end of the first verse, where the “man on the radio” cries that “it’s over, it’s over.” This is also really powerful when the context is taken into consideration and the repetition adds an extra punch to this daunting revelation.

I think “I Melt With You” was supposed to be more of a vague song and was meant to tackle multiple subjects, not just the end of the world. However, I think that one concept is extremely strong and without a doubt strong enough to stand on its own, which is proven by “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes.” The song's concreteness and specificity win me over.

So now that I’ve given my thoughts about that, let’s move on to the comparison. The original song is by the band Ultravox. They were quite successful in their native UK and had some success in other countries as well. Their biggest hit wasn’t “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes,” but a song called “Vienna,” which reached number two in the UK and number one in a handful of other countries.

The band whose cover I’ll be looking at is a Polish group called Hey. They were very popular in Poland with plenty of successful albums. Originally, they seemed determined to break into the international market, singing some songs in English and others in Polish, but after this did not work, they seemed to turn their focus to their large domestic audience.

While Ultravox deserves plenty of credit for coming up with the song and lyrics in the first place, I discovered the cover by Hey first and upon listening to the original, found it a bit stiff and constrained. Singer Midge Ure certainly isn’t holding back, but the volume of his voice seems to have been turned down in production, making it sound a bit overpowered by the instrumental. I like the instrumental, but I think this is a song that draws most of its strength from its lyrics.

This is where I think the cover by Hey shines. Vocalist Kasia Nosowska can be heard loud and clear above the song, belting out the lyrics with plenty of emotion. The cover also sounds less “new wave” than the original. It leans more on the guitar and drums, with light keyboards in the background. This makes each note feel more powerful. I enjoy a lot of new wave and synth music, but I think a more “rock and roll” sound fits the song better. Finally, I’m not a big fan of guitar solos in general. Both the original and cover feature one and they’re quite similar. I actually like them both and think they both add something to the song, but I prefer the one in Hey’s cover a bit more.

These are all just minor preferences and, in the end, I’m comparing a really good song to another really good song (and then comparing that really good song to a really good cover). As with pretty much everything music-related, this is just personal preference and I would suggest any of these three songs/versions to anyone, especially new wave fans.