TALK TALK - Life's What You Make It

TALK TALK = LIFE'S WHAT YOU MAKE IT (1986) NOTE: I've framed and extended the TOTP footage to run the full length of the single. At the heart of TALK TALK was the clenched, despondent voice of Mark Hollis – a singular, downbeat instrument, yet one capable of commanding such individual, esoteric and compelling music. Terms such as ‘post punk’ and ‘post rock’ were never quite able to calibrate the pop-rock spectrum for TALK TALK. Simply, Hollis’ musical trajectory was to work back to his first ideas for the band’s sound, something like a jazz trio with his voice on top, an eye on the minimalism of artists such as John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Whatever terms we use to describe the music the group composed later in their career – ambient, gospel, spiritual, an exercise in Miles Davis-inspired free jazz – it was certainly interesting. The great shame, though entirely understandable, was that Mark felt disenfranchised by the whole music industry and ultimately the singer and songwriter of such delicate, introspective work turned his back on the music ‘machine’. Talk Talk’s third studio album The Colour of Spring saw Mark Hollis imbuing his creations with the spirits of Bartok, Delius and Miles Davis. Seasoned session musicians were brought in - including Steve Winwood and Robbie McKintosh – and kept in the dark regarding the context of their input. "We learnt over the years that giving an outsider any hints as to musical approach was almost always doomed to send them off in the wrong direction," said producer, co-writer and keyboardist Tim Friese-Greene. "So what we ended up doing, which must have been quite intimidating, was to get people in and say nothing. That way at least they'd be free to play anything they wanted. Sometimes you get a result and sometimes you'd just write the session off and erase them when they'd gone, which happened on many occasions. We became very good at erasing things." “…we thought, OK we'll go in and write a single, treat it as some kind of challenge. I had a drum pattern loosely inspired by Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' and Mark was playing 'Green Onions' organ over the top." Augmented by a David Rhodes' guitar hook, the end product was the celebratory LIFE'S WHAT YOU MAKE IT, a single that helped The Colour Of Spring sell over two million copies. #talktalk #markhollis #life'swhatyoumakeit #lifeswhatyoumakeit

Added 2 Oct 2026