Street Fighting Years is the eighth studio album by Simple Minds, released in 1989. Produced by Trevor Horn and Stephen Lipson, it was a major stylistic departure from the previous album, 1985's Once Upon A Time. While still maintaining the epic arena-rock sense of scale and drama which the band had developed since the mid-1980s, Street Fighting Years also moved away from the American soul and gospel influences of its predecessor in favour of soundtrack atmospherics and a new incorporation of acoustic and Celtic/folk music-related ingredients including double bass, slide guitar and accordion. The lyrics built on the more political themes which the band had introduced with 'Ghostdancing', moving away from the impressionistic or spiritual concerns of earlier 1980s Simple Minds songs and covering topics including the Poll Tax, the Soweto townships, the Berlin Wall and the stationing of nuclear submarines on the Scottish coast.
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Famous quotes containing the words street, fighting and/or years:
“There was an Old Man who supposed,
That the street door was partially closed;”
—Edward Lear (1812–1888)
“The things a man has to have are hope and confidence in himself against odds, and sometimes he needs somebody, his pal or his mother or his wife or God, to give him that confidence. He’s got to have some inner standards worth fighting for or there won’t be any way to bring him into conflict. And he must be ready to choose death before dishonor without making too much song and dance about it. That’s all there is to it.”
—Clark Gable (1901–1960)
“I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)