"It's Called a Heart" is Depeche Mode's fourteenth UK single (released on 16 September 1985). It was included as one of two new songs on the compilation The Singles (81-85) the same year, along with "Shake the Disease". It reached number 18 in the UK singles chart. The American version of The Singles 81>85, Catching Up with Depeche Mode, also includes the B-side, "Fly on the Windscreen".
Martin Gore and Alan Wilder have often been quoted as saying "It's Called a Heart" is their least favourite single ever recorded by Depeche Mode, and is not particularly well-liked by many fans either. On the documentary included on the remastered edition of the Black Celebration album, it is revealed that the band wanted to release "Fly on the Windscreen" as a single, but the Mute Records publicist nixed that idea, as the song starts with the word "death". However, the so-called "Final" version of the song was included on Black Celebration, released the following year.
There is no limited edition ("L12 Bong") version of this single in the way that most other Depeche Mode singles have been. Instead there was a "D12 Bong", a double 12", that featured both the standard 12" and the remix 12".
The music video was directed by Peter Care and shot on location in a Berkshire cornfield.
Famous quotes containing the words called and/or heart:
“If ever there was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, called New York.”
—O. Henry [William Sydney Porter] (1862–1910)
“The eye is the casement at which the heart generally looks out. Many a woman who will not show herself at the door, has tipt the sly, the intelligible wink from the window.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)