Love My Way Here Come Cowboys The Psychedelic Furs

Love My Way Album: Forever Now (1982)
Here Come Cowboys Album: Mirror Moves (1984)
by The Psychedelic Furs

Furs frontman Richard Butler had a specific audience in mind when he penned the lyrics to Love My Way. He explained in an interview with Creem in 1982: "It's basically addressed to people who are f--ked up about their sexuality, and says 'Don't worry about it.' It was originally written for gay people."

To the best of our knowledge, Love My Way is the most popular song featuring a marimba as a lead instrument. The Forever Now album was produced by Todd Rundgren and recorded at his studio, Utopia Sound. It was his idea to use the marimba on this track, and he played it.

The demo of the song had a different instrument for those sections, but Rundgren had a marimba in the studio and thought it would be worth a shot. "It turned out that the little musical theme just sounded perfect with the marimbas, and became a signature element of the song," he said in an interview. "So it just was a question of availability. It's not like I had to go rent some marimbas. I happened to have them."

The lead single to their third album, "Love My Way" was the first Psychedelic Furs song to chart in America, where it reached #44 thanks in large part to exposure on MTV. To that point, most Americans only heard the band on college radio or at listening stations in independent record stores. When the song caught on in the States, the band moved there because they found the audience more receptive and they liked what New York had to offer.

Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of The Turtles sang backup on this track, but you would never peg the "Happy Together" singers as the backing voices. Producer Todd Rundgren used them essentially as an instrument, creating a wash of vocals under the chorus and at the end of the song.

The dreamy, heavily tinted video, directed by Tim Pope, was the first by the band to get significant airplay on MTV, which launched a year earlier. Like many new wave British bands, Psychedelic Furs had been making music videos from the jump and had refined the form by the time MTV went on the air. Their videos didn't rely on subplot storylines where actors would portray characters in the songs. Instead, they typically showed just the band, offset by some abstract imagery.

The Forever Now album marked a change in direction for the band, which had slimmed down to a quartet after losing saxophone player Duncan Kilburn and guitarist Roger Morris. Their first two albums were produced by Steve Lillywhite, but Todd Rundgren was at the controls for Forever Now.

Richard Butler doesn't write love songs, but he does write songs about love. He told Songfacts that "Love My Way" is a great example.
This song is included on the Valley Girl (1983) soundtrack. It was used in the scene when Nicolas Cage surprises Deborah Foreman in the bathroom at a party. Because of issues with music licensing, this song and others hits from the soundtrack, like Men at Work's "Who Can It Be Now?," have been replaced with other songs on the DVD release.

Love My Way also appears in the 1998 movie The Wedding Singer and in a 2009 episode of the TV series Hung.
When Rich Good filled in for guitarist John Ashton on tour in 2009, he quickly learned how passionate fans were about this song. He remembered in an interview with a now-defunct unofficial Psychedelic Furs website: "We got some rather heated responses when we didn't do 'LMW' for the first dates of 2009. I believe violence was threatened… You can't please all the people all the time."

Love My Way features in a dance party sequence in the 2017 movie Call Me by Your Name where we see Armie Hammer bust out some awkward moves. It collected 177,000 audio and video streams in the US in the week ending November 30, 2017 following the film's release, according to Nielsen Music. That marked the song's largest ever streaming week.

Written by the Butler brothers of The Psychedelic Furs (lead singer Richard and bass player Tim), "Here Come Cowboys" is one of the few songs by the band that takes a political lean, with Richard taking aim at US President Ronald Reagan and his law-and-order cohorts. In an interview with Artist magazine, Butler said that Reagan was the main cowboy, but the song is also "an attack on TV heroes."

Tim Pope directed the Here Come Cowboys music video, which cuts between shots of the band performing the song and scenes from rural America, including sheriffs, rodeos, and, yes, cowboys. It's one of the few videos where you'll see star wipes. (Why have hamburger when you can have steak?)

Mirror Moves was the fourth Psychedelic Furs album. Drummer Vince Ely left before they started making it, so their producer, Keith Forsey, stepped in behind the kit.

Psychedelic Furs are from England, but by this time, Richard and Tim Butler had moved to America, which explains the very America-oriented lyric. The song was released as a single but failed to chart. Hopes were high that Mirror Moves would be the US breakthrough for the band, but the only single to chart was "The Ghost In You" at #59.

1978-
Richard Butler Vocals 1978-
Tim Butler Bass guitar 1978-
Duncan Kilburn Saxophone 1978-1982
Paul Wilson Drums 1978-1979
Roger Morris Guitar 1978-1982
Vince Ely Drums 1979-1989
John Ashton Guitar 1979-2008
Paul Garisto Drums 1986-
Rich Good Guitar 2009-
Mars Williams Saxophone 1986-
Amanda Kramer Keyboards 2003-

The Psychedelic Furs were born amidst the chaos of the late-'70s punk scene in England when bands like The Sex Pistols were chewing scenery and spewing vitriol to the delight of disgruntled teens. But the Furs, formed by brothers Richard and Tim Butler, resist the constant stream of labels thrown at them and their unique blend of sound. Tim explained in an interview: "People for years have been trying to lump music into different categories. Music is just music. I can remember when we first came out, people were asking, 'How would you describe yourself? Punk? Or alternative? Or new wave?' Why pigeonhole people? It's just music."

Although the Furs' music has been memorably featured in '80s teen flicks like Pretty in Pink and Valley Girl, Tim Butler leans toward a different genre. He told That Music Magazine his favorite film from the decade is John Carpenter's The Thing. Unfortunately, there are no songs from the band in the horror movie.