Listen to Tears for Fears' patriarchy-bashing new single 'Break The Man'
Tears for Fears have shared a new single called ‘Break The Man’ – check it out below.
The song is the third taste of the group’s first album in 17 years, ‘The Tipping Point’, which is due to arrive on February 25 via Concord Records. In October 2021, the duo – comprised of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith – released the record’s title track and last month, they released second single ‘No Small Thing’.
‘Break The Man’ pays homage to women who fight against the patriarchy. “I feel that a lot of the problems we’ve been having as a country and even worldwide to a certain degree has come from male dominance,” Tears for Fears singer Curt Smith said of the single.
“It’s a song about a woman who is strong enough to break the man. For me, that would be an answer to a lot of the problems in the world – a better male-female balance.”
Smith recently spoke to NME about the album following the release of ‘No Small Thing’, and also commented on ‘Break The Man’.
“Four years of living through Donald Trump and also the #MeToo movement sparked that song,” he said. “I’m lucky to be in a family surrounded by strong women: my wife and daughters. Women have this calm wiseness about them that men don’t, because we’re too busy showing how big our dicks are most of the time. We saw so much of that with Trump in America: the idea of ‘we are real men’, and the trouble it caused.”
He continued: “This toxic masculinity spurred wars and the hatred of others – the idea of: ‘I’m stronger and I need people weaker than me and I’m going to show them they’re weaker than me’. In America, that became everyone hating immigrants and the notion that a woman’s place is in the home. It’s nonsense, and we could do with a more empathetic leadership – preferably from a woman. That was where that song came from.”
Tears For Fears have 16 tour dates on the itinerary for next summer in support of ‘The Tipping Point’, kicking off in Shropshire on Friday July 1. Check out the full schedule here.
