Speak To Me

Official single number two from ‘Charm School’…remixed, unnecessarily?

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“That voice in your heart, it won’t come to the phone…”

Following the success of ‘She’s Got Nothing On‘, ‘Speak To Me‘ became the second official single from ‘Charm School‘ spring of 2011.

Per’s T&A Demo was recorded July 13 2010, before the finished Roxette recording took shape later that year. It’s one of the album’s strongest Per and Marie duets, combining a darker, almost classic Roxette atmosphere with the more modern production that ran throughout ‘Charm School‘.

We (TDR) certainly liked it. Our original album review compared its atmosphere to the ‘Pearls of Passion‘ era and picked up echoes of ‘(Do You Get) Excited?‘, while also noting the little “sank like a stone” lyrical callback to ‘You Can’t Put Your Arms Around What’s Already Gone‘ too.

For the single, Roxette didn’t simply use the album recording. Swedish producer Peter “Bassflow” Boström completely reworked the track, and his punchier Bassflow Remake became the version released to radio. ‘Speak To Me‘ was announced as the second single in Sweden, Belgium and South Africa, while Germany initially went its own way with ‘Way Out‘ (more on that one later).

Interestingly, the ‘Charm School‘ vinyl featured a deliberately slower version of ‘Speak To Me‘, described by Roxette’s official site at the time as being treated “à la The Beatles”.

A video arrived in August, directed by Mikael Sandberg. Rather than a conventional performance clip, it mixed live footage, backstage material and studio scenes into a more artistic companion to the later ‘Way Out‘ video.

Commercially, ‘Speak To Me‘ didn’t repeat the impact of ‘She’s Got Nothing On‘, although it did pick up useful European airplay and reached the Top 20 of Finland’s radio chart.

‘Speak To Me‘ has one of the strongest melodies on ‘Charm School‘, gives Marie and Per equal space, and sounds unmistakably Roxette without simply recreating the past.

If anything, we might even have pushed the original album version harder. The Bassflow remake works of course, but there’s something about the atmosphere of the original that feels particularly special. The Bassflow remake would have been a great accompanying remix, with others.

We didn’t get to hear this one live, which is probably the biggest disappointment, as it would have worked on the stage, even in a stripped back acoustic format.

★ Currently on Streaming
01 (T&A Demo, Jul 13, 2010)
02 (Album Version)
03 (Bassflow Remake)

★ Missing from Streaming

– Charm School LP Version – Slower Vinyl Version
– Bassflow Remake – Instrumental