(Debuted March 12, 1983, Peaked #8, 22 Weeks on the Chart)
"Always Something There to Remind Me" had a fairly long history before Naked Eyes recorded it, but since I wasn't around during the 1960s, I was too young to know that at the time. It was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, it charted in the Hot 100 for Lou Johnson and Dionne Warwick but was a #1 hit in the U.K. for Sandie Shaw in 1964. It would eventually make the U.S. Top 40 when R.B. Greaves took it to #27 in 1970. However, the Shaw version was the one that Naked Eyes members Pete Byrne and Rob Fisher would know while growing up, and the one they used as a basis for recording it.
While it's the same song and the same lyrics, the electronic sound the duo used on their version was unique to the 1980s. The synthesizer made it possible to do things that no longer required a string section, and the result was something that sounded bigger. It also became the biggest-selling version of a song that has been recorded dozens of times. Growing up, I never realized it had a history; imagine how surprised I was to hear that it wasn't the classic New Wave original I thought it was when I was a kid.
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