Cliff Richard - Back from the Wilderness Singles and Albums 1975 - 1995

I agree that part of the problem is the production - most of the songs are balalds of some sort, and they are produced much in the same way, reminding me a little bit of "THE ALBUM", but with weaker songs. The sound is too inoffensive and bland, and it keeps to a template the whole way through. A template that doesn´t really work, at least not as far as I´m concerned. I still think of the title track as a breath of fresh air, but that´s about it.

I´m not sure I agree about Cliff working with a multitude of producers is a good thing. It works on some albums - "STRONGER" springs to mind - but not on others. I think the strongest albums are produced by Terry Britten, Alan Tarney and Bruce Welch, sometimes with Cliff himself in the producer´s chair. ("SMALL CORNERS", anyone?)

But as to this album, I do agree. 13 songs produced by Peter Wolf is a lot to take in, and yet... underwhelming.

 

I think I'm in the minority here, but I absolutely love this track!
And I do think that if it was released as a single it would have been a hit.
I can't remember what, but think there was a reason it wasn't released as a single, not the it didn't "gather much interest" reason.
But who am I to make that judgement. When I first heard " We Don't Talk Anymore", I thought what a load of rubbish and Cliff would never get back into the charts releasing songs like this!
I play "Vita Mia" a lot, think it is great, enjoy watching live versions too.
From memory, Cliff did another duet with Vincenzo which is on an album by Vincenzo.

 

Like I said, glad that somebody likes it! I don´t hate it, but find it kind of boring. I think it could have been so much more.

Cliff had several songs he contributed to on the "VITA MIA" album - "MY LOVE" and "IF IT WERE UP TO ME" in addition to the title track.

Funny you should mention your reaction to "WE DON´T TALK ANYMORE" - mine was the complete opposite! I immedately thought: "Yes! Cliff is back!"

 

If It Were Up To Me is a great song and would have made a great single, I think.

 

Since we hadn't had anything on the radio since "Devil Woman" it was a welcome return to form, I was told.........

 

I have the CD, but I have yet to play it. I´ll give it a spin.

 

It was, in commercial terms, and, I feel, also artistic terms. It´s an explosion of a song.

 

I don't have the CD. I'll check youtube.

 

Good idea. And much faster.

 

Hello??

 

I keep having a look, but it's all very quiet. I expect Jarleboy is still getting over listening to Real. Then having the Millennium single to consider, and then Wanted, it could all be too much too soon!

 

I hope Wanted hasn't pushed him over the edge, that is the most boring album by anyone, ever!

 

Amen to Stephen´s last comment...

Sorry for leaving you stranded, but I have - proudly - been writing a show that my two classes will present in June. (It´s called "Xanadu", but the only thing in common with that great - eh... - movie is the title track. It may sound grand, but it´s just a glorified compilation of sketches and songs, the latter of which I have nicked from the best! I´m writing the story - it´s slight, but I enjoy writing it, and the kids enjoy playing all the parts.)

In other words, I have been otherwise engaged, so the Cliff thread has been neglected, but not forgottten. And maybe the prosepct of "having" to write about the "MILLENNIUM PRAYER" and the album "WANTED" is less enticing than what I have written about so far.

I expect, however, to be back this evening with the sainted - in all kinds of ways - "MP", and the "WANTED" singles this weekend, and maybe the album itself on Monday.

I haven´t forgotten you, boys! We have many songs yet to trash!

 

Good luck with the show!

 

Thank you very much, Mark. How sweet!

The show won´t be seen by anybody outside our class until June, so this has just been the writing part. Some of the casting is done, and the rehearsals are up next. I have to admit that I am absolutely loving this. It´s not a big or important thing at all, but now that the writing is more or less done, I can focus on the rest of the process. The heaviest burden is off my shoulders.

In other words, back to Cliff.

 

Single No. 129: 1999 November 15 — UK — PAPILLON/BLACKNIGHT PROMISECD01
A-side: "THE MILLENNIUM PRAYER" (Lyrics by God, according to Robert Porter, composer of tune unknown)
B-side: "TWO WORLDS" (Written by Craig Pruess & Jennifer Lawrence)
Produced by Nigel Wright





First of all, sorry for the delay. I had planned to write this yesterday, but time just ran out on me. Busy man. (And if you believe that, you´ll believe anything. He, he. No, I was busy, but I suppose I wasn´t rushing to do this particular single..)

Finally, on to that thorn in many people´s sides, "THE MILLENNIUM PRAYER". First of all, I love the tune, along with its original lyric as "AULD LANG SYNE". (Believed by many to be written by the Scottish poet Burns, but the song ws in circulation - though not as a CD single - decades before Burns was born.) For the odd sentimental moment, it´s the perfect song. The lyrics have their place in the Bible, but I´m just not that interested in them on a pop single. Having shown such good taste on the the previous Christian pop albums "SMALL CORNERS" and, to a slightly lesser degree, "NOW YOU SEE ME, NOW YOU DON´T", here Cliff dumps every attempt at subtlety.

I first heard of this project when I encountered my old friend The Record Dealer, of whom I have spoken before. He mentioned that Cliff had proclaimed the release of a single featuring the Lord´s Prayer set to the music of "AULD LANG SYNE". I had a little derisive laugh and hinted that Cliff might deliberately have chosen a project that would miss the charts completely, perhaps to force EMI´s hand. My record dealing friend looked at me, a bit puzzled
by my lack of enthusiasm. He is a man of strong and simple Christian faith, and believed the single would do well. Oh, how we laughed.

Well, imagine my surprise when the single not only was a success, but visited the top of the UK charts, something a Cliff Richard single hadn´t done since 1988. I still hadn´t heard the song, but I couldn´t imagine such an idea could ever be a good move for Cliff. Well, it was and it wasn´t. In strictly commercial terms, it was a tremendous, and saw out the 90s in a grand way for Cliff. On the other hands, many found the single as laughable as I did, and the celebrities were lining up to damn the the song with everything but praise. Now, I don´t care what a bunch of celebrities have to say about a Cliff single, but this time, I´m afraid I agreed with their views. I still think it was a ludicrous idea, and the arrangement didn´t exactly prove me wrong It sounded precisely like I thought it would, and it didn´t mellow my sentiments about it.

So, is this Cliff´s worst single? No. Not at all. It´s just one of the two singles I like the least. (The other one being 1991´s "MORE TO LIFE".) Looking at it from a distance - yes, I know - I think it did Cliff´s more harm than any other single. I know many Cliff fans and others like the song, and I think that´s absolutely fine. Just because I don´t happen to like a song, doesn´t make it "wrong" for others to enjoy it. I know that some of you who have posted messages to this thread love the song. That´s fine - I like that. And Cliff has released many singles before that were never taken serious by anybody than the fans. (Someone like me, for instance.) I am sure Paul Field´s motives and inspiration were the best when he suggested the idea to Cliff, and I guess Cliff saw it as a perfect way to celebrate the Millennium and also promote his faith at a crucial time for the world. I have no problems with that. I also think, though, that this is one of Cliff´s most boring singles ever, and one that seemed so out of touch with the rest of the world in 1999. It has since regularly been included in lists of the worst songs ever. I don´t normally follow such negative lists, but they may have had a point in this case. Just like "MISTLETOE & WINE", it´s a song I just don´t have all that much time for. I don´t think I need to hear it one more time before I die.

I hope that one or more of you readers will jump to its defence and tell me what you like about the song. I genuinely mean it when I say that I would eb most interested to hear your impression about the song.

Robert Porter has this to say about the A-side:

The Millennium Prayer
(God (lyrics); Unknown (music); David Arch, Stephen Deal, Paul Field, Anne Skates & Nigel Wright (traditional arrangement))
Running Time: 4:42
This is an original A-side.

Two Worlds
(Craig Pruess & Jennifer Lawrence)
Running Time: 4:29
This is an original B-side.

The sales of this single were for charity, supporting Children's Promise: The Millennium Final Hour Appeal.

The Millennium Prayer was released in the USA as a CD single with the song retitled as The Prayer (For The New Year) and benefitted The Samaritan's Purse charity. Also, the 2005 Platinum Collection set claims it has the acapella version, but it is the standard single version instead.
"Millennium Prayer [sic] is nothing more than a collection of positive thoughts for the millennium-- that we are fed, that we are kept away from evil, and that we are more forgiving at this special time. I think that's why people have responded to it. But then people say it's controversial. What is so controversial about it? To find Millennium Prayer controversial, it seems to me that you'd have to be an absolute devil-worshipper. [...] Well here I am at 60 and I'm number one! So stuff them all. Rock 'n' roll has got nothing to do with age or religious beliefs. I'm not trying to change the world; I'm must a pop singer. So I find it really disturbing that all these people are having a go at me. I have never heard of an artist who gets to number one and then gets slagged off by others. What is their motives?"
Cliff Richard (circa 1999 [published 2008 May] - The Bachelor Boy)

"Just knowing that there has been a Christian campaign for it-- I think it is so exploitive of people's religion. It really is. I think there are people out there who feel it is their duty to buy this record on the eve of the millennium. This is a really horrible reason for a number-one record. [...] Cliff is always taking his hat off to himself, telling you how many hits he's had. Yes, absolutely great achievement. But I think the single and the way it has been dealt with has been vile."
George Michael (circa 1999 [published 2008 May] - The Bachelor Boy)

"BBC picked up... Well, they didn't really pick up on it. I had a record out for Christmas called The Millennium Prayer. And this track seemed to cause such a fury. It's one of the simplest records I've ever made. It's one of the simplest ideas to stick two seemingly opposing things together like The Lord's Prayer and Auld Lang Syne. It's such a simple idea that none-- Well, I'd never thought of it until these writers came up and said, 'Look, we have this idea, would you like to do it.' And I couldn't understand the opposition. The BBC, to be fair to them, did actually play it. But even the BBC has to understand that at the height of its... at the peak of its sales, when I was #1 for the third week, the most plays they gave me were ten plays a week which was just... it's less than two a day. And, the record that had dropped from #3 to #8, and it never made #1, was getting 8000 plays a day in again, the country. And again, my total was 1500. So there was this kind of-- It seemed like a conspiracy, I'm sure it's not. I try not to get too sensitive about it. But I couldn't understand why a record that sold a million here in this country, that's like the equivalent of selling five million in your country[USA], you know your population is five times that of ours... How people could be so anti- this song, this beautiful lyric about peace and about please keep us from evil, keep us fed... And then we changed some of the lyrics, it became very gospel towards the second half of the track and we were talking about the nations coming together and one voice, etc. And I thought, where are all these people that I see on these demonstration marches for peace and love. Here's a record, the lyrics were written virtually by Jesus... And I really found it very confusing. But a Christian friend of mine said to me, he said, 'Look! They crucified Jesus for saying things like this. Of course they're going to be against you for singing it.' So it made me feel a little better. [...] It was designed for that moment [the eve of the millennium] too. I mean, this is the other thing that... I often wonder about our industry. I don't know whether it's the same in the states, but certainly over here, we've become very image conscious and people are created, bands are created to last a few years and then disappear. And people have lost... They've lost being in touch with the public. A personal... It's a kind of personal thing. There's an instinctive factor in our business, I believe. And when I heard this track, I thought this is perfect for the turning of the century, for any new year's night. And in point of fact, it's not tracked in time. The Lord's Prayer has been spoken to for 2000 years at any day of the week, of any week of the year. I mean, and so therefore it can be sung at any time. But just for that moment, when everyone was concentrating on looking into the new millennium and looking back at the old, it seemed such a poingnant thing to do. And again I was confused. Because I thought, am I the only one able to see that this could possibly be successful. [...] When someone from my office first told me the idea [of combining The Lord's Prayer and Auld Lang Syne] I sort of, you know, I thought I'm going to be sick. But when I heard the demo, I thought, oh wow, this really works. Paul Field and Stephen Deal, two guys that write together, are gospel writers and they've been writing for years and years and years. The churches here in Britain had said, 'Look, we're kind of feeling left out of the celebrations.' The archbishop of Canterbury, even he was relegated to a position... He wanted to pray The Lord's Prayer at midnight, you know, which seems a pretty obvious thing to do in a nation that had most of its society built on Christian ethics. But he was relegated to somewhere like quarter past eleven. And, of course, he did that anyway. And the church was feeling left out. So they asked Stephen and Paul Field to write some music for them. About an hour's music, which they did, called Hopes And Dreams. And they both sat down one day and said, 'What we need is something at the end that everybody knows and loves. And what can we do?' And somebody suggested-- I think it was Stephen Deal suggested-- I think it was his wife, actually, said, 'Look, you know what. You need something like The Lord's Prayer and Auld Lang Syne' And they-- Paul said to me-- I phone Paul many times during the success of the record. He said, 'We laughed so much, you know. It sounds like such a ludicrous idea.' Then he went home and he sat at the piano and he started to play it. And he sort of sang, 'Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done...' And he said it fitted. Most of it fitted. You know, they bent the rules a little by changing the flow the lyrics just a little to make it fit scant completely. But it was a simple as that. I sometimes think that genius ideas sometimes come from the most simplest sources."
Cliff Richard (May 2000 - WGN Radio 720 Chicago interview)

"It is difficult now. It's become very, very difficult. But I still like to compete. And so, um, I did it once with Millennium Prayer [sic]. I didn't get any help from anybody other than the public. Although I will say this. The media, who as you know, you've read things about people like me. It is really painful sometimes what they do to us. But in the case of Millennium Prayer, the written word took up the [unintelligble] on behalf of Millennium Prayer and presented a story about my charity record which had been banned. And the story went around and the public heard about it without listening to the radio, which is very strange. And then, of course, they went into their stores and listened to it, liked it, and bought it. And it was the biggest selling single of that year-- of the year-- it was released in 1999 so it would've been 1999. And I was really thrilled about that. But I can't find the story that the press will latch onto for every single I release. [...] The Internet's not as big as they thought it would be at the moment. I mean, in terms of selling records for instance, when Millennium Prayer came out, I thought that most of-- a lot of the sales would happen [on the Internet]. They were minor in terms of the 1.5 million or whatever it was we sold. I think, in fact, it was thousands only."
Cliff Richard (April 2002 - Top Of The Pops internet interview)

"The whole business of The Millennium Prayer had taken me to a pitch that I had never been to before. I'd never felt such animosity about a record before and I'm thinking, 'Why am I doing this?' Rock 'n' roll and radio have always gone together. You know, in the old days we'd make a record; and it would be played; if it was a hit they'd play it more; if it was a big hit they'd keep playing it; and if it died they dumped it. Which seems a sensible, logical thing to do. And now that seems to have changed. And for some reason people have decided there are certain artists they just don't play. And I'm thinking, well, what is the point of making a record if no one is going to play it? So we've got to find now another way of selling our records. I believe that people like myself still make good records. [...] Though I'm still confused as to why people chose that one [The Millennium Prayer] to hate so much and to, you know, to ban. I really can't figure that one out at all because it had a role to play. I thought there'd be a lot of other millennium-type themes. But there wasn't one. And maybe people were just a bit knocked that I got the idea and done it. So I can't-- I was satisfied that it made it to #1 and that it sold all those records. But I'd rather have had the accolade. I don't need that sort of satisfaction. It's the wrong kind of satisfaction. It'd be just as satisfying to have thought, you know, they're playing a record that's a good record. It wouldn't become a #1 if it wasn't a good record. And it was for charity. And it cost twice as much as any other single at the time. So there are no arguments really against it. And I can't understand why it created that furor amongst radio programmers and things. 'Cause it was never meant to be a-- I didn't do it to be sort of controversial. It was I thought a really nice idea that everyone can sing a lyric that everyone respects, regardless of your religious persuasion or not even having a religion at all. It was still a harmless thing to have done, to suggest that we could find strength from outside us; that would forgive us; that would keep us fed; and keep us happy on the planet."
Cliff Richard (2002 - BBC Radio Cornwall interview)

"Christmas and a seasonal Cliff records have lately been as inextricably linked as turkey and salmonella; but on this occasion major radio stations, including BBC Radio 2, refused to play Millennium Prayer [sic], which put the Lord's Prayer to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. One obvious problem with the song is that the words of the Lord's Prayer don't fit the tune of Auld Lang Syne, but Cliff solved this by singing extra syllables on a single note, or smashing syllables together. It became the most hated hit in recent times."
Siobhan Synnot (September 1, 2003 - The Scotsman)

"You make a record as best you can. And then you sit back and you say, 'Well, yeah, this has potential.' None of us know about the #1s. Did I know that Millennium Prayer [sic] was going to be #1? Of course not. But I had a feeling it could be. And the same goes for any #1 I've ever had. [...] And on the other hand, though, when I think that Millennium Prayer [sic] was a #1 against all the odds... that I sang the words spoken by Jesus to the most famous melody probably on the planet, I'm thinking, well, that wasn't a bad thing either, was it?"
Cliff Richard (2003 October 28 - interview on Radio 96.4, The Eagle)

"In my count, I've only had two Christmas #1's. I don't consider Millennium Prayer [sic] a Christmas song. [...] When Millennium Prayer made it to #1 only three years ago, I can't tell you the elation it gave me. Being #1 today is probably just as exciting if not more so than when I was younger. I have to work harder for it, of course. And the competition is greater."
Cliff Richard (2003 December - Good Morning Sunday)

"I don't do a Christmas single every year and I have actually only had four Christmas number ones, which is not a lot in 38 years! The first was with the Shadows, I Love You, which was not really a Christmas song at all, then Mistletoe and Wine in 1988. Saviour's Day got to number one in 1990 and Millenium Prayer [sic] in 1999."
Cliff Richard (December 14, 2006 - The Telegraph)

"He had 13 more Number Ones including Summer Holiday (1963), We Don't Talk Anymore (1979), Mistletoe & Wine (1988) and The Millennium Prayer (1999). [...] He has reached the No 1 position four times around Christmas. The first, in 1960 – I Love You - with the Shadows, and the most recent with The Millennium Prayer, which sold more than a million copies."
Stephanie Condron (December 19, 2006 - The Telegraph)

Steve Turner:

"In 1999 he announced he would be taking the year 2000 off. There would be no tours, no recording sessions, no television appearances and no albums or single releases. Just as he had dreamed of doing, he would wipe the diary clean and follow his own inclinations for twelve months.
Before the lull though, there would be a storm. In 1997 Paul Field had written a Christian musical, Hope and Dreams, that was designed primarily for church audiences. The concept had been to explore the thoughts in the Lord's Prayer. The writer of the book, Stephen Deal, had thought that one of the songs should be a new setting for the Lord's Prayer itself but Field was initially resistant to the idea, arguing that it had been done too often. Deal pushed, saying that as the musical had the millennium in view, it would be a good to match the prayer with a tune that people already associated with celebrations and new beginnings. 'As an example, he suggested Auld Lang Syne,' says Field. 'It was pulled out of the air. It was almost said as a joke.'

Nothing was done about it for a while and then the notion began to intrigue him. 'I couldn't get the idea out of my head,' he says. 'I started to tinker with it. I thought it was the most cheesy, awful idea in the world or it was something that could actually fly. The truth is, it was probably both.'

In 1998 and album was made of the musical. Field invited Cliff to do the vocal on his song that combined the words of the Lord's Prayer with the tune of Auld Lang Syne. 'At the time I suggested to him that it would make a great Christmas single but I got no response. I didn't hear anything else until a month before it was released when he played it to me after Jill Dando's memorial service at All Souls Church in London. By then it was all done and dusted.'

EMI, Cliff's recording company for 41 years, hadn't seen it as a single so David Bryce and Malcolm Smith had gone to Papillion Records, a label formed by Mike Andrews and Roy Eldridge from within the Chrysalis Group. 'They played the track to us and we assumed that this was Cliff's latest single and they were then going to try and interest us in another artist,' says Andrews. 'But they asked us if we wanted it. We couldn't believe that EMI weren't happy to go with it. Of course we jumped at it.'

Released in November 1999, it immediately sold 85,000 copies and became the subject of intense controversy. Leading radio stations such as Magic 105.4 FM, Virgin, Capitol, Capitol Gold and Radio 1 wouldn't include it in their playlists. Even Radio 2 declared that the track didn't have 'broad enough appeal' for its listeners. Some churches encouraged their parishioners to buy it because they felt that the Christian significance of the millennium had so far been underplayed. This enraged some non-Christian observers who saw it as manipulation of the charts.

The lack of airplay was interpreted as a 'ban' by sections of the press and created a lively story about the clean-living singer who had recorded the best-known prayer in Christiandom and was being censored by the secularized radio. Celebrities piled in with their denunciations of what they believed to be a piece of bad art. Melanie Chisholm, Sporty Spice, called it a 'pile of ****.' George Michael said it was a 'heinous piece of music' and he thought the single and the way the church members had been urged to buy it was 'vile'.

Cliff seemed vindicated when Millennium Prayer sold over a million copies, reaching number one where it stayed for three weeks. He was eventually toppled by the Irish boy band Westlife whose version of Abba's I Have A Dream reached the top for Christmas, but it gave him the unique achievement of having number one hits in five consecutive decades and along with the proceeds of a New Year concert in Cardiff, it raised £million for the charity Children's Promise

Nevertheless the attacks on his choice of music still riled him. Interviewed by the Daily Mirror backstage at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena where he was starting a ten-day run of shows, his last before taking his break, he said, 'It hit me like a blow. It left me feeling very, very low... What hurts me so much with these people slamming me is that it's so painful to know that it's all coming from my own industry, from people who I would regard as colleagues and fellow artists.

'I have been true to pop-rock throughout my career. But this made me realize that maybe singers and musicians aren't one big unit. I'm a big boy. I'll get over it. But I won't pretend that I'm not very hurt by some of the things people have said about me.'

Paul Field quite enjoyed the controversy surrounding his work. On the one hand, it earned him the distinction of being the creator of the worst single ever and the abuse of several pop stars; on the other, he obtained an Ivor Novello Award and sales of 1.3 million . 'It sold two or three times what a single normally sold to get to number one. Some of those sales might have been to Cliff fans but there aren't that many of them.

'I don't hold it up as a work of art. In fact, if someone else had done it I would probably have said, What a terrible idea. But at the end of the day, it got the words of Jesus in front of millions of people and I don't think that can be a bad thing. The competion was a cover version of an Abba song by Westlife and something about a hamster. This was the best we could offer in terms of significant moments at the turn of the millennium!'"


Steve Turner (2008 January - Cliff Richard - The Biography (revised edition))
"He later compiled an album of 'inspirational' songs ranging from the overtly Christian (Millennium Prayer, Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?) to the pleasantly feel-good (Somewhere Over The Rainbow/Wonderful World) and released it through a small independent label in Nashville. Titled Healing Love this was clearly seen as an alternative route into the American market, aiming squarely at the often lucrative CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) market where he was probably slightly better known because of his connections with such pioneer CCM stars as Larry Norman and Randy Stonehill."
Steve Turner (2008 January - Cliff Richard - The Biography (revised edition))

"Millennium Prayer [sic], released as the 20th century drew to a close, was another track that proved that Christmas and a Cliff single go hand in hand; even though it received very little radio airtime, with most stations refusing to play it, it still became one of Cliff's most successful hits of the 1990s."
Nigel Goodall & Peter Lewry (2008 - liner notes for The Hits: Number Ones Around The World album in the ...And They Said It Wouldn't Last! {My 50 Years In Music} set)

"The Millennium Prayer: Cliff's 14th Number One and his third biggest-selling single. It won an Ivor Novello award for best-selling single of 1999."
Author Unknown (November 19, 2011 - Daily Mail's Weekend)

"However, following his grim year, he's visibly thinner, his voice huskier and the show has an emotional edge as the umpteen-song setlist mercifully shuns ghastly late-catalogue horrors such as Millennium Prayer in favour of songs that mean most to him."
Dave Simpson (October 2, 2015 - The Telegraph review of October 1, 2015 Sheffield show)

"Despite many stations refusing to play it, The Millennium Prayer topped the UK singles chart in 1999. It is his last number one to date, but Sir Cliff has continued to make music for his dedicated fanbase."
Unknown (October 10, 2015 - The Oxford Times)

"And I mentioned canon – Cliff’s undoubtedly large canon of song. But where are the cannons [on the 75 At 75 compilation]? We could have used those! Even if to just drown the final moments of his Lord’s Prayer, renamed for some reason The Millennium Prayer, clearly some sort of tie-in with the end of the last century."
Simon Sweetman (December 7, 2015 - Off The Tracks website)

"Millennium Prayer – Sir Cliff Richard. So very nearly the King of Christmas... until this song threatened to dethrone him."
South Somerset (December 8, 2015 - Western Gazette)


Running Time: 4:42
Record Date: August 1999
Record Location: Skratch Studios, Surrey & Whitfield Street Studios, London
Written By: God (lyrics); Unknown (music); David Arch, Stephen Deal, Paul Field, Anne Skates & Nigel Wright (traditional arrangement)
Arranged By: Anne Skates (vocals)
Produced By: Nigel Wright
Engineered By: Unknown
Performed By: Cliff Richard (vocals), David Arch (orchestration), other artists and instruments unknown

So much for Robert Porter´s collected comments. Thanks again for the hard work you put in.

I have said before that you can´t argue with success. And this single was a success. It reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in Australia and new Zealand, as well as No. 3 in Ireland. It was also a minor hit in in Belgium and Germany, reaching Nos. 18 and 23 respectively.

No, you can´t argue with success. But I still don´t have to like it. After having seen brilliant Cliff singles miss the charts completely, it´s strange to see this one selling enough to become his third most successful single ever. Still, I see no reason to get all that upset about it. It´s just a pop single.

 

The "B-side" of the single was written by Cliff´s old producer Craig Pruess and Jennifer Lawrence. (I guess it´s safe to hazard a guess that this is not the actress from the "HUNGER GAMES" movies.) "TWO WORLDS" is not as catchy as the A-side undoubtedly is, but it´s a far, far better song. To me, it sounds like so many other Cliff B-sides from the 90s. The best of those were quite good. This is not among my favourites - it´s a tad too predictable, with even a modulation suddenly appearing - just when you expect it to. Nothing wrong about that - you could do worse than choosing to listen to this song.

I forgot to mention that some versions of the CD single included an instrumental version of the A-side, whereas a later single included an a cappella version. And the Australian band Men At Work released a single called "OVERKILL"...

 

I absolutely love this record. Because of the controversial A side, this side seems to be missed by most people.
A lovely song, lovely words, well sung and produced.
It's a great shame it's lost on a B side, perhaps if they did another compilation of Religious songs it will be included.

 

I pretty much agree with everything here. I bought the CD out of duty, more than anything else, and perhaps played it once. It has meant though, that I never really gave the 'B' side a chance. Although most 'B' sides would shine in the presence of the lead track...

 

I think I´ll have to say that I agree with Anthony´s final remark. It´s a pretty, almost anonymous track, comparable to good to great B-side like "REUNION OF THE HEART", "ALL THAT I NEED", "WHERE YOU ARE", "BULANGE DOWNPOUR" and the rest. A tad too predictable for my taste, but a good song.

In a way, it´s a pity that the A-side ended up as being remembered as controversial. As far as I can see, it´s more a question of being bland and boring. Something Cliff has been too many times. I think generally he managed to avoid that particular trap from 1976 to 1982, but gradually the blandness crept in after that. At this moment in his career, 1998 and onwards, the blandness was back in beige, ruling his career. There was a reason I intended to stop this thread after 1995. But it´s tempting to see what you think of the songs in this period, and there is one major diamond among the dross - many of the tracks from "SOMETHING´S GOING ON".

We´ll see what happens as we approach 2017. Will we see more worthwhile releases from Cliff? I doubt it, but I "forgive" him. He´s given us all so much already.

 

I think the best response to the Millennium Prayer is this one (at about 45 seconds):

 

Short (response), but perfectly formed, as Ernie used to say.

 

I, for one, don't think that The Millennium Prayer is as bad as people make it out to be and I am not even religious in any way. I still enjoy (yes, that's right) listening to it every now and again but it is not one I would actively seek out. If it comes up on a compilation I am listening to I won't skip it.

What got me most at the time of its release was the comments of the late George Michael. How on Earth could he say that this was a vile and "heinous" piece of music? It is not as if it is a song about having sex in public toilets now, is it?

 

Although I always skip it, whether on a compilation CD or concert DVD, I wouldn't describe it as 'vile and heinous'. I was quite disgusted by Mr Michael's comment. Most public toilets, I could possibly consider calling vile and heinous though. Regardless of what's going on in them.

 

I, on the other hand, do skip it most of the times I listen to compilations that includes is. But I agree with you that it´s not as bad as some people make out. I first and foremost think of it as a bland, inoffensive and utterly boring piece of music. That´s the criteria I use as a reason to ignore the song. Cliff did nothing wrong in releasing it, I think. It´s just a song that I really, really don´t care for.