Tears For Fears have released Break The Man as the third single from their new album ‘The Tipping Point’.
Co-written by Curt Smith and Charlton Pettus, and co-produced by Curt, Roland Orzabal, and Charlton, the empowering track bears the overarching message to break the patriarchy.
Of the song, Curt says, “Break The Man is about a strong woman, and breaking the patriarchy. I feel that a lot of the problems we’ve been having as a country and even worldwide to a certain degree has come from male dominance.
“It’s a song about a woman who is strong enough to break the man. For me, that would be an answer to a lot of the problems in the world – a better male-female balance.”
It follows previous releases The Tipping Point and No Small Thing, with the full album due February 25.
Speaking to the launch issue of Retro Pop, the duo open up on the creative process behind the record, which they admit was a tough experience.
Curt explains: “We got to the point a few years ago where I certainly wasn’t happy with what we were doing.
“Myself and Roland sat down and I said, ‘Look, if this is what you want to do, then you go ahead and do it, but it’s not for me.’
“That ended and we didn’t know what we were going to do. It was sort of up in the air.”
According to Roland, the band was being “pushed in various directions – not only by our past management but also a record company we were signed to,” which led to discontentment between the pair.
Initially, they set the project to one side and focussed solely on live work, but it was a tragedy that reignited their creative flair and pushed the pair back into the studio, when Roland’s wife Caroline passed away.
That poignant moment reunited the pair and compelled them to reconvene and reassess their direction, with a view to pushing forward with a body of work that was mutually fulfilling.
“Roland said, ‘Look, let’s sit down and talk about this. What do you feel?’ And I said, ‘I think we have some good songs. But I just think that the recordings really aren’t right. They don’t sound like Tears for Fears – they sound like us trying to be someone else’,” Curt remembers.
“I think he’d come to the same realisation, having taken time away from it… So we sat down and plotted a path forward of how we could finish an album that we were both happy with.”
‘The Tipping Point’ is available to pre-order on CD, Deluxe CD and vinyl. A Super Deluxe Edition CD is also available, along with signed CDs.
Read the full interview in the Retro Pop 2022 Preview Special, out now. Get yours here: Retro Pop Store.
