Cover My Eyes (Pain And Heaven)

Lyrics

"Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be... BONO!"

Seriously, if someone played you this song and told you it was the new U2 single... well, maybe you'd notice that Bono wasn't quite sounding himself, but otherwise there'd be no reason to suspect they were lying. In fact, played alongside the closest U2 song chronologically (that'd be "The Fly"), "Cover My Eyes" would undoubtedly be the most likely to be mistaken for them.

As far as U2 singles go, if it were one, this would rank somewhere in the middle of the table even back in those wonderful pre-"Vertigo" days, but it does beg the question of "WHY?" in large capital letters. For the lead single from Hogarth's first album as the band's fully integrated frontman, rather than just a guy singing his own words over Fish's music, this was an undeniably bizarre choice.

Video: Cover My Eyes (Pain And Heaven), Top of the Pops
I'm somewhat surprised Hogarth elected not to go all the way and don the shades for this performance. Also, Marillion on TOTP remains a difficult concept for me to get my head around. Marillion miming on TOTP even more so. The times they are a-changin'.