Songfacts®:

• The song is about a woman who is trapped in a relationship with a bullying, possessive man (similar to "Wildflower" by Skylark). The duo performed this song with Oleta Adams, who later went on to a successful solo career, scoring a huge hit in 1991 with "Get Here." >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Mike - Santa Barbara, CA
• Tears for Fears lead singer Roland Orzabal told Melody Maker about this song: "I was reading some feminist literature at the time and I discovered that there are societies in the world still in existence today that are non-patriarchal. They don't have the man at the top and the women at the bottom. They're matricentric - they have the woman at the center and these societies are a lot less violent, a lot less greedy and there's generally less animosity... but the song is also about how men traditionally play down the feminine side of their characters and how both men and women suffer for it.... I think men in a patriarchal society are sold down the river a bit - okay, maybe we're told that we're in control but there are also a hell of a lot of things that we miss out on, which women are allowed to be."
• Phil Collins played drums on this track. Because there are just two members in Tears For Fears, they rely on various guest musicians. When they were working on this song, they envisioned it with "Phil Collins drums." When thinking of who they could get to do it, they thought, how about Phil Collins?
• This was used in the 1993 movie Boxing Helena, which isn't about a woman in chains, but about a woman who is kidnapped by a guy who cuts off her arms and legs.
• Orzabal spoke about the song in a 1990 Washington Post interview: "When I sing 'Woman in Chains,' I'm singing about the oppression of women around the world, but I'm also singing about the repression of the female anima within myself, and I'm also singing about my mother. At the end when I sing, 'Free her,' I'm also saying, 'Free me.'"
• Oleta Adams influenced the album before she ever agreed to be on it. While touring the US in support of their previous album, Songs from the Big Chair, the duo watched Adams perform in Kansas City. "We were both knocked out by her emotional power," Orzabal recalled. "She just cut through the intellect and got straight to the heart. It made us realize that all the machinery and the complicatedness we were using were not allowing the expression to come through. It made me go back to the drawing board; it made me want to use real instruments and real soulful vocals."
  
  Adams joined the group for their The Seeds Of Love tour in 1990.