Songfacts®:

• Those sad songs can hit pretty hard when you're at an emotional crossroads. Many songs have been written about the pain that comes from hearing a song that reminds you of an ex - Ben E. King's "Don't Play That Song (You Lied)" is probably the gold standard - but in "There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)" it's a little more complicated. It's not clear if Billy Ocean is tortured by the song because it reminds him of his former flame, or if a new love is brewing and the song is part of that story.
  
  Well, there was a real-life inspiration that explains it. It didn't happen to Ocean, but to the friend of the wife of the song's co-writer Barry Eastmond, who told the story in The Billboard Book Of #1 R&B Hits: "The lyrics came out of a story my wife told me about a friend of hers. She had just broken up with the fellow she had been going out with for years. There was a particular song that always made her think of her boyfriend. She was at a party given by her new boyfriend and the song came on and reminded her of the old boyfriend. She broke down. We thought that was an interesting story so we wrote the song about it."
  
  Here's the kicker: The song that made her cry was Billy Ocean's "Suddenly," released two years earlier.
• Billy Ocean wrote this song with his producers, Barry Eastmond and Wayne Brathwaite. The trio teamed on most of the tracks for Ocean's Love Zone album, including the first single, "When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going," which was also co-written by Mutt Lange. Eastmond was Ocean's keyboard player on his previous album, Suddenly, and got an upgrade to producer on Love Zone.
• "There'll Be Sad Songs" was a huge hit in the summer of 1986, going to #1 on the Hot 100, R&B and Adult Contemporary charts. Ocean was a well-seasoned 36 years old, a year younger than Lionel Richie, another three-chart superstar in the '80s. Ocean was based in the UK and kept his personal life private, so most Americans didn't know much about him, but he was all over the radio for a six-year span starting in 1984 with his #1 hit "Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run)." This run of hits was part of his second act: Ocean's first hit came in 1976 with "Love Really Hurts Without You," which went to #22 in the US but reached #2 in the UK. He had more UK hits in the '70s but none in America until "Caribbean Queen." Once he got that ball rolling he kept the momentum with songs like "Loverboy" and "Suddenly." After his Love Zone album came Tear Down These Walls in 1988, which includes another #1 hit, "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car." Married since 1978, he slowed his roll in the '90s to spend more time with his family.
• The music video is kind of puzzling, with multiple Billys and different couples in various states of amity. The timing was good for Ocean: VH1 launched in 1985, just as he was aging out of MTV. "There'll Be Sad Songs" was perfect for VH1, which catered to a more mature audience.