singing about each other during their divorce
'Fish Out Of Water' (1993)
'Sun King' (1998)
+ some quotes under cut:
Washington Post (1993): "Well, a lot of the songs were written while I was in a sense going through the divorce," Orzabal says. "Things like "Break It Down Again" refer to that to some degree, and "Fish Out of Water", obviously.
Modern Rock Live Online (1995): Question: What is the song "Fish out of Water" about? T4FMRL: It is my "How Do You Sleep"? (The John Lennon song.)
Curt’s Radio Interview (1998?): Int.: Now you mentioned ‘Sun King’, so… CS: [chuckles nervously] Int.: We'll try to make it painless. So, I gather the subject matter is openly presented. CS: Yeah. Int.: I guess I gather at this point: you're still really not on good terms then. CS: Well, I don't… I don't think it's necessary that we're not on good terms. I mean, because how would we know? We haven't spoken to each other for years. But no, the… I mean, to straighten out the whole story behind ‘Sun King’ and, you know, people ask, and I said, ‘Well, yeah’, I mean, it's sort of a reply to ‘Fish Out of Water’, but you've got to put all these things in perspective because… a: when I first heard ‘Fish Out of Water’, it didn't piss me off. I found it quite amusing and… in a perverse way flattering, that someone would write a song about me, albeit in particularly unflattering terms. And then when I was writing ‘Sun King’, it was one of those songs that started literally with the chords, and… there's different ways I start songs. It may be like with a lyric idea, like ‘Jasmine's Taste’, or maybe with like the trumpet line on ‘What Are We Fighting For’, and that's the melody I remember. And with… with ‘Sun King’, it was a very discordant song, and it sounded musically very angry, so I wanted the lyrics to be angry. So then I go back thinking something I'm angry about, and so… this is the thought process I'm going through, and… but always in the back of my mind with a certain sort of tongue-in-cheek, you know, maturity about the whole thing that, you know, I really wasn't that pissed off, like I said, but it's an angry song, so how should I do this? And then like some, ‘Okay, I'm angry at Roland, right’ and… So how do I like translate that anger? Well, I think of ‘Fish Out Of Water’ at this point in time and I think, well, it's a very cerebral song and it's a very sort of roundabout way of dissing me, you know, and so I think, ‘Okay, how would one answer that?’ And I'm thinking of us as people, and we're different that way as people. He's very cerebral and he's into astrology, and, you know, and psychics, and all this kind of stuff, and I'm pretty straightforward and base, and that was the, you know, a lot of the time the reason why we work well together, strangely enough. And so I'm thinking of, ‘Okay, so I'm the bass one’. So, in more ways than one, forgive the musical pun. And so I'm thinking along the lines of, well, someone's like being very cerebral with you, and your answer would be what? And I'm like, okay, well, na-na-na-na-na, your mama's fat, kind of thing. You know, that's the way you want to deal with it. So that's ‘Sun King’. That's my version of that. ‘Sun King’ is just my way of being really straight ahead, like, ‘Go screw yourself’, basically, as opposed to being too like intellectual about it or anything. And the whole, I mean… I wasn't amusing myself while doing it, so it wasn't like it's all like really bass anger and it's a hundred percent men, you know? I… I find sort of half of it amusing in it's, because it's so based, and it's not the way I feel about him most of the time at all. But it's... it was just an answer to a song, and that's the way I wanted to make it, and, you know, I find it amusing, and hopefully he can take it the same way, but who knows?
LEXICON (summer 1997): CS: <...> I think a lot of these things get blown out of proportion by other people. It's also our fault as writers. You start a song off with a premise, which in the case of "Sun King" is "I'm going to answer 'Fish out of Water' ". And then the song just takes on a life of it's own. <…> the emotion in the song is what carries the song. That's not the way I feel about Roland every day of the week.
Cover Magazine (11.1997): Q: They say the song "Sun King" might be a swipe at Roland. CS: That would be because it is. Q: Any bitterness there? CS: I don't think there is — no, not on my part. The thing you have to remember about "Sun King" is that it's so tongue-in-cheek. I was amusing myself really. He wrote this song called "Fish Out of Water" which was about me in very unflattering terms. But it was in his normal cerebral sense that he does everything... overthinking and overintellectualizing whatever he does. It's an incredibly intelligent way of dissing me. I try to think about the best way to respond to this. I can't do it on his terms because it's not in my nature. I used to do it and we'd get into these arguments about what's right. There is no right and wrong — it's just one of those endless arguments that go on and on. That's what happens when you get in a fight with Roland. You can never win. The best you could do is not lose. "Sun King" is my response to someone intellectually dissing me. It's so blunt and to the point. I was always a lot more direct.
Tears for Fears' Curt Smith launches Mayfield (12.1998): "I’ve never consciously wanted to go out of my way to tear Roland apart because I think the reason it didn’t work was both our faults. And I think the more you labour on it the more it eats away at you." <...> "I’ve only heard Fish Out of Water once and it didn’t piss me off at all. At one level I was kind of flattered that someone would write a song about me. "Sun King is supposed to be amusing - I’m laughing while I’m writing it because I find it funny. Something that’s so blatantly over the top, I’m kind of laughing while I’m writing it, because I really don’t harbour those kinds of grudges."
Q Magazine (05.2004): Q: Roland, is Fish Out Of Water (from Elemental, his first ‘solo’ Tears For Fears album) about Curt? If so, those are some pretty cutting lyrics... RO: Yes, it is, and it contains some of my favourite lyrics. “We used to sit and talk about primal scream/To exorcise our past was our adolescent dream/But now its sink or swim since your memory fails/Now in Neptune's kitchen you will be food for killer whales.” Fantastic, no? Pure vitriol. CS: I couldn't give a fuck, quite frankly. It's a compliment, in some ways. RO: Absolutely. It means I cared deeply for him. [Laughs] That’s one way of interpreting it, anyway… <...> Q: After the fallout in 1990, was Roland pleased to see Curt’s career flop? RO: I didn't like his first solo album at all, but then nor did he. I felt it was going in the wrong direction. But his second, Mayfield, was really good. I thought to myself, ‘Why didn't he do this when we were together? I wouldn't have let him?’ Well, that’s probably true. I did view Tears For Fears very much as my band, I suppose.
Metro Silicon Valley (08.07.2009): "I thought it was quite amusing," Smith says of the song today. "That was a song obviously written out of anger. I'd left the band, he was pissed off, and fair enough." (Smith recorded a response, "The Sun King," on his next solo album.) <…> As for the vindictive songs they once wrote for each other? Water under the bridge, says Smith — even though he still feels he got in a humorous last word. "The 'Fish Out of Water' thing was a little obtuse," he says. "And my song was like, 'Yeah, but you're fat.'"
Curt's twitter (07.09.2013):
Curt's twitter (12.12.2013):
Curt's twitter (16.04.2014):
Curt's twitter (19.03.2020): [1; 2]
Vulture (10.02.2022): CS: I get a real kick out of “Fish Out of Water,” which is about me in a very derogatory way. I found it highly amusing.