S03E20 – Games Without Frontiers (Peter Gabriel Song)

On to the last Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush song….. for now! Like the previous two Peter Gabriel songs we’ve talked about on the show, Games Without Frontiers is an album track. But unlike the previous ones, this was a successful single. In fact, it was Peter’s first top 10 hit in the UK and the biggest hit, to that point, that featured Kate and Peter singing together (until Don’t Give Up in 1986)! How cool is that? To discuss this song, we have our resident PG fan, also known as Cecilee’s husband Andrew Linke. We get to talk about the lyrics, the interesting references in the song, and of course, our lovely Kate’s ghostly background vocals singing the title line in French (as if her voice could get any more beautiful!). We also get to talk about how this collaboration came to be and a funny story from Graeme Thomson’s book Under the Ivy about a record executive’s reaction to this song. We also talk about the title’s reference to a rather silly game show called Jeux sans frontières (French for “games without frontiers”) and the British equivalent, called It’s a Knockout. Clips used: It’s a Knockout Theme Jeux Sans Frontières Full Show Games Without Frontiers (official video from Melt)