The Story Behind The Song: How Talk Talk used ‘It’s My Life’ as a protest against EMI
There’s a good case to be made for Talk Talk being one of the most original bands that the UK has ever produced, and a large amount of that claim is based on their unwillingness to play to anyone’s expectations of what sort of band they should be.
Spearheaded by the late Mark Hollis, the band originally dealt in synth-led sophisti-pop when they emerged in the early 1980s, but this would soon evolve into a far more expansive sound that served as a precursor to modern post-rock acts such as Tortoise and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
The shift in presentation from their 1982 debut, The Party’s Over, to their 1991 swan song, Laughing Stock is perhaps one of the most staggering evolutions any band has undergone in the space of just five albums, but that doesn’t mean that their early stuff was lacking in the same brilliance as the material they were releasing as they neared their end as a group.
One such song from the early portion of Talk Talk’s existence that proves their versatility and their genius is ‘It’s My Life’, the lead single from their second album of the same name. While not markedly different from the world that their debut existed in, its mere existence came as a product of Hollis’ stubbornness and refusal to play by the rules that their label, EMI, were seemingly adamant they should be following if they had any aspirations of success.
After being forced to tour with Duran Duran to promote their debut on the basis of them both being synthy bands, Talk Talk were subjected to plenty of other promotional obligations, which Hollis saw as a tiresome and punitive exercise that stood in the way of his desire to create. Interviews were nothing but a chore for him, and being made to perform against his will when it was clear he wished to remain a studio innovator was becoming increasingly grating for him to have to deal with.
Even though on the surface of ‘It’s My Life’ it seems as though Hollis is lamenting a communication breakdown in a romantic relationship, the rest of the supporting materials that were sent along to the label made it a little more obvious that it wasn’t him expressing his anguish over a lost love, but rather Hollis sending a big ‘fuck you’ to EMI. “It’s my life, don’t you forget,” is him demanding freedom from the oppressive governance of the label and wishing to spread his wings in ways that they wouldn’t dream of permitting.
The band self-shot their own video for ‘It’s My Life’, which featured several shots of Hollis at London Zoo with his mouth digitally obscured to make it impossible to see whether he was performing. Given how lip-syncing was a staple of the music video during this period, EMI went back to the band and demanded that they re-shoot it with Hollis miming, and the band themselves sent back a second option – a gigantic middle finger of a video where Hollis mimed deliberately badly in front of a green-screen projection of the original take.
As much as Hollis appeared to be liberally taking the piss and growing more frustrated at the label, he would be the one having the last laugh eventually and getting his way. ‘It’s My Life’ sold exceptionally well in the US, becoming their first and only major hit in the States and taking them to the top of the Billboard Dance chart, and this led the label to treat them with a considerable amount more respect when it came to allowing them to play by their own rules. Their third album, The Colour of Spring, was consequently a complete overhaul of the sound that the band had been forced to follow, and ‘It’s My Life’ appears as more of an anomaly in their discography, given the avant-garde direction they took.
‘It’s My Life’ is a protest song that led to the band entering a more experimental and artistically rewarding period for the band, and even though Hollis likely never wanted to write the track in the first place, its proof that his pop sensibilities were just as powerful as his more outré leanings, given the long-lasting acclaim the track has gone on to accrue for itself since its release.
