Broken

Side one of Big Chair may have "Shout" and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," but by God, it's pretty hard to beat "Broken/Head Over Heels/Broken" and then followed up by the amazing "Listen," which was post-rock a decade before anyone knew what that meant.

I just love side two so much, and "Broken" is the anchor of the whole suite.

This song is beautiful, and although the lyrics and music are melancholy, the tone of the song is lifted by the singer and the energy. To me, the song means as we try to process trauma, or just come to terms with life, as we get older it doesn't get easier or clearer, but we learn that we can embrace the absence of meaning ourselves - we are broken, but you know what, it's better than just being in pain as you are breaking, and perhaps we need to break to get by?

Forgot to mention: I think 'Funny how time flies' refers to the fact that once you are 'broken', life is actually less torturous as you get on with living rather than searching out all the answers. Personally, although I'm glad to have a more happy life, it also feels like I've left the Great Question behind and that if I had searched longer I would have figured out how to make EVERYTHING alright.

isn't the end from Head Over Heels?

Love the bass at the begining of the song.

Yeah, Broken/Head Over Heels/Broken reprise was intended to be all one ongoing medley I believe

Beautiful work again by the best band ever. It all started with Broken. This showed up on the B-Side of their Hurting single 'Pale shelter'. They eventually worked it out to this final version. Head over heels was somewhat older, but just lyrics. Therefor they used the same bassline for HoH, and the final lyrics of Broken were reprised in HoH, so they directly threw in a reprise of the Broken melody. The one on the album is a live recorded solo. The studio version, as HoH is a studio song, can be found on the 'Preacher remix' of the song.

This song always makes me smile!

I can relate to this song's lyrics. Often in the process of self understanding (between the searching and need to work it out), I have stopped and thought , damn, Im fucked up. Sometimes it is too painful to continue when I realize in the moment how my life has been affected.

I love this song. In the 80's when so much synth pop was around it was awesome to hear a nice guitar drive song. I can relate to this song too much. Too often I get overwhelmed with the need to figure stuff out and make things better. So many of us are broken and being tossed about. Sometimes I still feel anger for things from my Youth that all these years later still burn in my gut - Funny How Time Flies.......