Great Songs from My Favorite Year in Music: 1985, Part 41

Bryan Ferry - "Slave to Love"



(Single Release: April 1985)
I don't often use the word 'sensuous.' However, in this case, that word is more than apropos. "Slave to Love" is a sultry, late night, piano bar seduction, in the very best way.How sultry and sensuous? Well, it's famous for appearing in the soundtrack for 9 1/2 Weeks, the erotic Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger film. I was never exposed much to Roxy Music. I only found their music afterward, but I knew that I loved Bryan Ferry's voice from his solo work. That means I was never aware of a harder edged version of Ferry, only the throwback, crooning, honey-voiced rake. It made for quite an interesting surprise, like if someone heard P.I.L. before the Sex Pistols, not that it's a perfect analogy, but you get the picture. Though Ferry's solo career is dotted with covers, it is important to know that he wrote a vast majority of Roxy Music's songs as well as his own solo material, including "Slave to Love." That being said, it almost sounds like it could be a cover, a modernized version of an old 30s romantic tune. Ferry writes some intriguing and poetic lyrics, including in the opening verse, where he makes a metaphor in which love is like losing everything, "To need a woman / You've got to know / How the strong get weak / And the rich get poor." But, I am more impressed, and always happy to hear, the later lines, "We're too young to reason / Too grown up to dream." I would venture to say that this feeling is universal. These lines were echoed years later in Jeff Buckley's "Lover, You Should Have Come Over," when he sings, "Too young to hold on / And too old to just break free and run." Looking at this video, Ferry also preceded George Michael by five years in presenting female models singing his lyrics. Ok, so maybe Ferry didn't blow up artifacts from Roxy Music or have it directed by David Fincher, but it's still a great video. Aside from 9 1/2 Weeks, "Slave to Love" is also briefly seen in poster form, an advertisement for the 12" single, on Ferris Beuller's wall. You can also see a Bryan Ferry album leaning against his stereo. These facts are neither here, nor there, but they are stuck in my head and part of the reason for this blog is to get all that useless trivia out.