This week in 1989
1 Belfast Child Simple Minds
2 Leave Me Alone Michael Jackson
3 Love Changes Everything Michael Ball
4 Stop (1989) Sam Brown
5 Help! Bananarama and Lananeeneenoonoo
6 Hey Music Lover S-Express
7 My Prerogative Bobby Brown
8 I Don’t Want A Lover Texas
9 Too Many Broken Hearts Jason Donovan
10 Can’t Stay Away From You Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound
Machine
‘Belfast Child’ borrows the music of folk song ‘She Moved Through The Fair’ but marries it with completely different lyrics. Simple Minds frontman Jim Kerr has said that he was inspired to write the song after hearing the folk tune a few days after the Enniskillen bombing when an IRA bomb killed 12 during a Remembrance Day service. ‘I’m trying to relate to people in Northern Ireland who lost loved ones. I’m trying to talk about the madness, the sadness and the emptiness,’ he said in an interview, explaining the lyrics. Running to over six and a half minutes, ‘Belfast Child’ is one of the longest tracks to have topped the UK charts. It remains Simple Minds’ only No. 1 in the UK and Ireland.