Fight for Ourselves

As Spandau Ballet was touring to promote their 1983 album True, they noticed an improvement in how they were performing together and wanted to capture the chemistry of their live shows on their next studio album.[1][lower-alpha 1] They attempted this shift with True co-producers Tony Swain and Steve Jolley on their 1984 album Parade, but the band's songwriter/guitarist Gary Kemp was unsatisfied with the result: "I think we were a bit afraid of making a big jump after True. The trouble was that Parade the record wasn't like we did it live. People went home and were disappointed by the record." He explained, "We're a rock band now."[2]

The band decided to change producers since they did not feel Swain and Jolley could help them attain the sound they were after.[3][lower-alpha 2] They chose to try out Gary Langan, a recording engineer they met while working with Trevor Horn,[3][lower-alpha 3] in the role of co-producer of one song for their Parade follow-up to see if they worked well together before committing to an entire album with him in that capacity.[3][lower-alpha 4] The song they chose for their test run was originally titled "Everybody (We've Got to Fight for Ourselves)".[4] They recorded what became known as "Fight for Ourselves" in the winter of 1986[5][lower-alpha 5] at Musicland Studios[6] in Munich and decided to keep Langan on as co-producer for the entire album.[5]

"Fight for Ourselves" was released in the UK on 14 July 1986[7] and peaked at number 15 on the UK Singles Chart, making it their first lead single from any album not to make the top 10 there.[8] It also got as high as number 5 in Italy,[9] number 7 in Ireland,[10] number 10 on the European Hot 100,[11] number 11 in Spain,[12] number 16 in Australia[13] and the Netherlands,[14] number 20 in Belgium,[15] number 23 in Switzerland,[16] number 32 in West Germany[17] and number 33 in New Zealand.[18] Lead singer Tony Hadley wrote in his 2004 autobiography To Cut a Long Story Short that the mostly unimpressive numbers "hardly squared with our hopes of global success".[19]

Most reviews of the song upon its release were negative. As a guest critic for Smash Hits magazine, singer and Parade cover model Samantha Fox opined that it was not very good.[20] Stuart Bailie of Record Mirror described it as "crummy", explaining, "There's a mid-tempo ordinariness about the whole thing, with Steve Norman playing that same old sax solo and a very indifferent vocal from Tony Hadley."[21] Roy Wilkinson of Sounds summed up the song as "absurdly paranoiac".[22] Number One's Andrew Panos, however, called "Fight" a "knockout". He thought its chorus was reminiscent of "Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)" and liked Kemp's "funky guitar picking", Norman's "sexy sax work" and Hadley's "restrained" vocals.[23]

In a retrospective review of the Through the Barricades album, Dan LeRoy of AllMusic wrote, "Most of the tunes demand guitar and drum bombast; instead, the riff-rocking 'Cross the Line' and 'Fight for Ourselves', in particular, are undercut by the polite-sounding rhythm section."[24]

The story line for the music video involves two young women (one of whom is played by Paul Young's then-girlfriend Stacey Smith)[4] who sneak into a Spandau Ballet concert and use their power to make themselves invisible in order to make out with band members during the performance of the song. Chroma key was used for the disappearing and reappearing sequences. The video was directed by Simon Milne.[25] Concert venue exteriors were shot at 43 King Street, Covent Garden, London.

• Hadley, Tony (2004). To Cut a Long Story Short. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 978-0-283-07386-1.
• Kemp, Gary (2009). I Know This Much: From Soho to Spandau. London: Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-0-00-732330-2.