"More than This" is a song by the English rock band Roxy Music. It was released in March 1982 as the first single from their eighth and final studio album, Avalon (1982). "More than This" was the group's last top-10 UK hit, peaking at No. 6 on the UK Singles Chart, and also charted in the United States, reaching No. 58 on the BillboardRock Top Tracks chart.
"More than This" has become one of Roxy Music's most popular tracks.[8] American alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs released a cover version in 1997 that peaked at No. 25, and British singer Emmie released a cover that reached No. 5 in the UK in January 1999. The cover of the single's release is the painting Veronica Veronese, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which was completed in 1872 with Alexa Wilding as the model.
Composition
The song was written by lead vocalist Bryan Ferry, who has stated in interviews that he began writing the songs for Avalon while on the western coast of Ireland, which he believes contributed to the dark melancholy of the album.[9] "More than This" is somewhat unusual for a pop song in that Ferry's lead vocals end at 2:45 minutes, leaving the last 1:45 minutes as a synthesizer-driven instrumental outro. The song's narrator is hopeful about the existence of something more but is vaguely melancholic about there not being so.[10][11][12]
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
Cover versions
In 1997, a cover performed by 10,000 Maniacs with Mary Ramsey on lead vocals was a single from their album Love Among the Ruins becoming a US hit when it reached No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the week ending 29 August 1997.[29] The version also debuted at its peak position, No. 87, on the UK Singles Chart on the week ending 28 September 1997.[30] The video for the cover was filmed at House on the Rock. A live version was also included on their 2016 album Playing Favorites.
English singer-songwriter Emmie recorded a cover of the song and released it as a single on 11 January 1999.[31] Produced by Mark Hadfield and Adam Carter-Ryan, her version of the song peaked at No. 5 on the UK Singles Chart,[32] No. 25 on the Irish Singles Chart,[15] and No. 39 in the Flanders region of Belgium.[33]
Bill Murray performs a karaoke version of "More Than This" in the 2003 Sofia Coppola film Lost in Translation. As Tom Nicholson wrote in Empire, "It's absolutely perfect. [Murray] makes for a weary, fragile kind of Bryan Ferry, the lounge lizard who’s lost the ability to really connect. He takes a shot before his first line then barely opens his mouth to sing, either too exhausted or too numb to really let go."[34] This version is available as a hidden track at the end of the film's soundtrack album.[35]
References
^Strong, Martin C. (2006). The Essential Rock Discography. Edinburgh: Canongate Books. p. 931. ISBN1-84195-860-3.
^Pitchfork Staff (24 August 2015). "The 200 Best Songs of the 1980s". Pitchfork. Retrieved 18 October 2022. Pop songs are very rarely as lush and unabashedly romantic as "More Than This" ... "More Than This" is a high peak of the New Romantic moment of early 1980s UK pop...
