Today’s 12″ offering is from 1983, and it features the re-release of a song that hadn’t charted as a single on two previous occasions, in 1980 and 1982. It’s also kind of appropriate as I’m actually out and about just now, hitting Manchester for a couple of days, during which time I’ll have the privilege of hooking up with Swiss Adam for a long-overdue catch-up.
mp3: Simple Minds – I Travel
The 1980 release was on 7″ only, and was an edited version (about a minute or so shorter) of that which was on Empires and Dance, the album released In September 1980. It was the band’s final album for the Arista label. It was the failure of both the single and album that led to the end of the relationship with the label, and the move to Virgin Records for all releases of new music up until 1998.
The long-awaited chart success for Simple Minds after the move to Virgin led to the folk at Arista feeling they had a chance to cash-in, which is why the compilation album, Celebration, containing ten tracks from the first three albums, appeared in February 1982. I Travel was also reissued as a single, this time on both 7″ and 12″, with the latter being a magnificently extended version. The single didn’t bother the chart compilers, but the compilation album did reach #45 during a six-week stay.
This irked the folk at Virgin, and their response was to acquire the entire back catalogue and take control of all future releases. It meant that the Arista pressings of Real to Real Cacophony, Life In A Day and Empires and Dance, as well as Celebration, were withdrawn and replaced in the shops in 1983 by pressings on Virgin Records. And as part of the marketing campaign, I Travel was given a third release as a single, but this time on 12″ only.
The b-side to the 1983 re-release was this:-
mp3: Simple Minds – Film Theme
An instrumental that had originally been included on Real to Real Cacophony. It gives a great insight to how much the band’s sound had evolved in such a short period of time.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Love this track, thanks.
A great track from their third album, combining dance rhythms with electronic sounds. One year later they released their masterpiece Sons and Fascination.
Superb song
SC
“I Travel” will always be my acme of Simple Minds. I well remember the day I bought both “Real To Real Cacophony” (German Virgin) and “Empires + Dance” (UK Zoom) in 1983. I cued up side one of “Empires + Dance” and was recording the album to tape (as I always did – I listened to the tape and spared the LP from wear) and I had to stop the tape as I marveled at the most exciting intro I’d ever heard to a song… several times in a row, before I regained my composure and finally let the side get taped. Shortly afterward I got this 12”. My first copy of this single but not the last!!
I bought the “Special Extended Remix” 12″ version of I Travel at Speed Records in Parkhouse Street in Ayr in 1980. It was on Import (from France – 45 tours – if I remember correctly) and had “Kaleidoscope” and “Film Theme Dub” on the flip. It was on Arista. I always thought it was odd that such a monster 12″ was not given a UK release given the additional production and remix invested on it. It was freely available on the shelves until a few years later when the sleeves changed and it was ‘re-issued”. Maybe a tax thing.
The Arista version of “I Travel” from the album “Empires and Dance” is one of my favourite songs from 1980, a nearly perfect year for pop music. I also like the Virgin 12″ version. Another question is: Is it also important? (One of my standard questions when I need to gain time in a discussion)
Seconds 3 through 6 of the first-mentioned version are used in Mappy, one of my favourite arcade video games from 1983. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough space here to provide evidence of this.