“Lyric writing is very important. […] What matters to me is that I believe the lyrics I’ve written are good. Other people are a secondary consideration. I’ve no ambitions, I’m not trying to say anything to anyone.” Mark Hollis quoted in Electronics & Music Maker: March 1986
“Nobody knows how long
Rustling leaves unrhyme
Lullaby breeze unsung
Babel of dreams unwinds in memory”
The first time I saw the opening lines of Time It’s Time written down, in the deliberately illegible script which makes up the lyric sheet for The Colour of Spring, I thought to myself “damn that’s some poetic shit. I wonder if there’s any more?” There is. But this is my first and therefore my favourite of Mark Hollis’s musings about love death and the hereafter. That might sound pretty dark but I still find this song to be just so uplifting. I reckon that’s all down to that insistent, forever repeating musical motif that drifts slowly upwards in a kind of intensifying spiral, a seabird caught in a thermal.
After two albums of energetic new wave emoting Mark Hollis found his inside voice for The Colour of Spring. In particular he found it for the verses of Time It’s Time. Not only are the lyrics poetic as fuck, the delivery of them is compelling even though – or perhaps because – it is as fragile and iridescent as an insect wing.
Tim and Mark stopped just short of ripping out the kitchen sink to create the sound of Time It’s Time. Massed recorders, a choir that might have been nicked from Carl Orff, a variophon solo, Lee Harris channelling a premonition of trip hop, and all of it trailing off with a churchy organ that you might miss if you weren’t listening out for it. It seems it should be a hot mess like the scrawl on the lyric sheet, but miraculously it’s perfect. A perfect end to a perfect album.
“What’s your favorite last song on an album? : “Time It’s Time” by Talk Talk from The Colour of Spring. This is my favorite album by Talk Talk […]. “Time It’s Time” is such a remarkable example of melancholy and at the same time it’s full of optimism and the call to keep going. “- John Grant, April 2019, undertheradarmag.com