Songfacts®:

• Thompson Twins frontman Tom Bailey got much of his musical training in church, where he sang in the choir. This song has religious overtones, but there's more to it. In our interview with Bailey, he explained: "We were interested in the idea of group rituals of that sort, and particularly how it relates to artist, performer, and audience. And of course we're not the first people to make use of that. Many, many, many artists have employed those kind of ideas, so it's not specifically biblical.
  
  It's nonspecifically religious. It looks at religious ritual in that way, and then draws a kind of metaphor - I've always been very fond of the kind of layered metaphor where the song can be about one thing but also about another. That's part of a really ancient and noble tradition of religious writing of music.
  
  Typically, people talk about their love for God in a religious song, but what they're also saying is that they love someone human. It's a way of evoking that immense emotional weight into a song."
• The lyrics talk of someone being able to heal with a mere touch - what's known in many religious rituals as "laying of hands." Elton John covered the same theme with his single "Healing Hands" in 1989, and Peter Gabriel had a song called "Lay Your Hands On Me" in 1982, which was centerpiece of his live performances as he would surf the crowd to punctuate the message of healing and unity through touch.
  
  In 1988, Bon Jovi released a song of the same title, which Tom Bailey wasn't aware of until we brought it to his attention.
• The band is not, in fact, named after a pair of twins called 'Thompson,' but rather characters Thomson and Thompson from the Belgian comic strip The Adventures of Tintin by Herge. Note the lack of a 'P' in one of their names. Just one more thing that makes the world's clumsiest policemen!
  
  The band was a larger collective until 1983 when they paired down to three members: Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie, and Joe Leeway. Bailey and Currie were a couple, and married in 1991 (they divorced about 12 years later). The trio shared songwriting credits: Bailey wrote most of the music, Currie most of the lyrics, and Leeway added various musical and visual ideas.
  
  Doing production duty on Here's to Future Days was Alex Sadkin, who had produced the previous two Thompson Twins albums. Sadkins resumé also includes Bob Marley & the Wailers and Duran Duran.