New Song by Howard Jones

"New Song" is the debut single by musician Howard Jones, released in September 1983. The single reached number three on the UK Singles Chart. The single spent 20 weeks on the Top 75. In the US, "New Song" peaked at #27 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, although it was not released there until early 1984. The track later appeared on Jones' debut album Human's Lib. The single's B-side was titled "Change the Man". The twelve-inch single featured an extended version of "New Song" together with "Change the Man" and the original studio version of "Conditioning", which would be re-recorded for Human's Lib. "New Song" itself was later re-recorded for The 12" Album, in a version denoted "New Version". This featured a lot of multi-layered piano, in contrast to the austere synthesizer sound of the original seven and twelve-inch versions. Equipment used for the song includes a Roland Juno-60 synthesizer, Moog Memorymoog synthesizer, and an E-mu Drumulator drum machine.On the UK seven-inch single, the song's lyric is printed in a spiral on the A-side label, with all the credits printed on the B-side. DJ Mike Read refused to play "New Song", suggesting it was too similar to the song "Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel. When asked about the similarity in a 2011 interview, Jones denied using "Solsbury Hill" as inspiration: No, there might have been a subconscious influence and I’ve always been a massive fan of Peter’s… I mean there’s always something you can compare things to, but there was no conscious influence.