Songfacts®:

• Talk Talk frontman Mark Hollis wrote "I Believe In You" about his older brother Ed Hollis' heroin addiction. Hollis became especially concerned about the decline in Ed's health over the summer of 1987, and this song is a plea for both him and other heroin addicts to stop.
• Hollis is normally reluctant to discuss his opaque lyrics, but the Dutch magazine Oor managed to get him to open up about "I Believe In You."
  
  "I've seen the misery that heroin can cause," he said. "I've known so many people who thought the stuff would never get hold of them and end up with a totally ruined life."
• Sadly, Mark Hollis' entreaty to his brother was to no avail. Talk Talk released "I Believe In You" in September 1988 but the following April Ed died as a consequence of his heroin addiction.
• Mark Hollis co-wrote "I Believe In You" with Talk Talk keyboardist and producer Tim Friese-Greene. They bought in the Chelmsford Cathedral choir for the choral backing.
• Talk Talk released "I Believe In You" as the only single from Spirit Of Eden. Drawing on jazz and ambient influences, it was a radical departure from Talk Talk's previous three more poppy albums. Spirit of Eden had poor sales and was pooh-poohed by critics on release, but as the years have passed, the album has been reevaluated as an important stepping stone to 21st century post-rock. Its elegant arrangements and tranquil soundscapes influenced the likes of Doves, Elbow and Sigur Ros. In 2013, NME ranked Spirit Of Eden at #95 in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
• The album version runs for 6:15. Parlophone edited the single version to 3:40, cutting the beginning and end off the song, much to Hollis' chagrin. He complained to Q magazine that the single existed "purely to help the record company promote the album."
• Tim Pope's elegantly lit video captures the atmosphere of the song as Hollis, eyes closed, strums an out-of-frame guitar. The Talk Talk frontman regretted the clip. "I really feel that was a massive mistake," he told Q.
  
  Hollis added he thought by sitting there and listening and really thinking about what the song was about, he could get that in his eyes. "But you cannot do it," he said. "It just feels stupid. It was depressing and I wish I'd never done it."