Almost Hits: Modern English - I Melt With You (1982)

Modern English is a one-hit wonder whose most famous song never reached the Top 40. "I Melt With You" may have climbed to #7 on the US rock chart, but it never made it higher than #76 on the Hot 100, and that was after it was re-recorded and released a second time in 1990 on the quintet's Pillow Lips CD. The original version - and the one most people know from the album After The Snow - placed two spots lower.

The video shows a couple dancing, but don't let the song's catchy melody and exuberance fool you. Its opaque lyrics reveal a serious theme. Lead singer Robbie Grey explained that "I Melt With You" is about a young couple making love during a nuclear holocaust.

Grey wanted to write a love song, but he told Lori Majewski and Jonathan Bernstein, authors of Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s, that "The last thing we wanted was to write a song where boy meets girl, they go to the cinema and make love, and that's the end of it." 

The original lineup reunited in 2010 to record the song a third time for inclusion in the movie "I Melt With You" starring Jeremy Piven and Rob Lowe as a slowed down and less compelling dirge that won't captivate you like the more famous original version does. The film's plot has nothing to do with the song's lyrics. I've never seen it, but it features multiple suicides and sounds more depressing than the record.

Modern English was still active as recently as 2024 when they released 1 2 3 4, their latest album. They've built an entire career mostly around one song that has become an undeniable 80s classic.

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Almost Hits is an occasional exploration into songs that failed to reach the top #20 on the American Billboard Hot 100. Many have become classics despite what their chart position would indicate.

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