A probably unintentional
dissection of the blood-rich gulf between image and content that made
the eighties the uniquely fresh slice of hell that it was, “Through
the Barricades” settles once and for all the question of whether
or not authorial intention matters or not. (It doesn’t.) Opening
with a lovely plucked guitar and some slowly pulsating synth, it builds
by addition, bringing a new instrument or effect in every four lines
or so. The musical house it builds, which comes to include a soprano
sax lilting across the surface like a stone across water and some
very crisp military-drill style snare drum, is quite beautiful, with
the exception of the bridge, which is wretched. But even the bridge's
awfulness feels all right when the inevitability of the final verse
that it introduces becomes clear, and Tony Hadley does a small but
significant variation on the line's melody for emphasis. It is generally
a very nice ballad that wouldn't sound out of place on one of those
we'll-get-you-through-the-workday soft-rock-and-love-songs stations
where
top 40 ballads go to die.
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