The Living Years

Infobox Album |
Name = The Living Years
Type = studio
Artist = Mike + The Mechanics


Released = November 1988
Recorded = The Farm Surrey April 18-August 18, 1988
Genre = Adult Contemporary
Length = 47:11
Label = Atlantic (US/Canada) /
WEA (Rest Of World)
Producer = Christopher Neil and Mike Rutherford
Reviews =
*Allmusic Rating|4|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:twa9qj2boj6a~T1 link] |
Last album = "Mike + The Mechanics" (1985)
This album = "The Living Years" (1988)
Next album = "Word of Mouth" (1990)

"The Living Years" is the second album by Mike + The Mechanics, released in 1988.

History

The first single taken off the album, "Nobody's Perfect," peaked at number 63 on the Billboard Hot 100. The next single off the album, the title track, was a worldwide number one hit, reaching that mark on the Billboard Hot 100 chart the week ending March 25, 1989. The song also reached number one on the Australian ARIA singles chart the week ending May 13 1989. In the United Kingdom, it spent three weeks at number 2 in January and February 1989, behind Marc Almond and Gene Pitney's reworking of "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart". "The Living Years" was co-written by Rutherford and B. A. Robertson, both of whom had recently lost their fathers. The song combined features of both writers' relationships with their fathers; it dealt with Rutherford's strained relationship with his late father and the birth of Robertson's son three months after his father's death. fact|date=April 2007

The album itself was also a success, reaching number 13 on the Billboard 200 and number 2 on the UK albums chart.

Track listing

All songs by Mike Rutherford and Christopher Neil, except where noted.
#"Nobody's Perfect" (Rutherford, B. A. Robertson) — 4:48
#"The Living Years" (Rutherford, Robertson) — 5:32
#"Seeing Is Believing" (Rutherford, Robertson) — 3:13
#"Nobody Knows" — 4:24
#"Poor Boy Down" — 4:33
#"Blame" — 5:24
#"Don't" — 5:45
#"Black and Blue" (Robertson, Rutherford, Paul Young) — 3:27
#"Beautiful Day" (Neil, Rutherford, Young) — 3:39
#"Why Me?" (Rutherford, Robertson) — 6:26

Personnel

*Mike Rutherford — guitar & bass
*Paul Young — vocals
*Paul Carrack — vocals
*Adrian Lee — keyboards
*Peter Van Hooke — drums

Miscellanea

* Phil Collins and Tony Banks, Rutherford's Genesis bandmates, made a guest appearance playing the riff on "Black and Blue" (a sample by Banks of Collins and Rutherford playing a riff during the "Invisible Touch sessions).