“We had to give up the flat because we couldn’t afford to travel and pay the rent. So we did that, did the tour, and then of course we had no home. So we thought, ‘Where the fuck are we gonna go?’ Foolishly, John Wilde and Scott Roger, who’d come to a lot of the dates on the tour, had said, well, if you really need somewhere to stay, just come along at any old time and we’ll put you up and all that stuff. But I think they meant a weekend, and it turned out to be about a year. We made Head Over Heels while we lived there—we went back to Grangemouth to record it, made it up as we went along in the studio—but we stayed there while it was going on. There was a lot going on in that house. It was a really good atmosphere, really productive.” Elizabeth Fraser
Head Over Heels
- October 1983
- 4AD
- CAD 313
- 37 min, 1 sec
Track listing
- When Mama Was Moth
- Five Ten Fiftyfold
- Sugar Hiccup
- In Our Angelhood
- Glass Candle Grenades
- In the Gold Dust Rush
- The Tinderbox (of a heart)
- Multifoiled
- My Love Paramour
- Musette and Drums
Formats
- Vinyl
- Cassette
- CD
- Digital
Performers
Release notes
- Produced by Cocteau Twins and John Fryer at Palladium Studios, Edinburgh.
- Engineered by Jon Turner.
- Special thanks to Ally Gibb for saxophone on “Five Ten Fiftyfold.”
- Art direction and design by 23 Envelope.
- CADC313 (cassette) and CAD313CD (CD) included tracks from the EP Sunburst and Snowblind.
- Head Over Heels peaked at #51 on the UK album chart, and was 4AD’s first #1 record on the UK independent chart.
- The sleeve design was inspired by a scene from the 1979 Andrei Tarkovsky film Stalker.
- Lyrics from “When Mama Was Moth,” “Glass Candle Grenades,” “The Tinderbox (of a heart),” and “My Love Paramour” are printed on the inner sleeve of the vinyl release.
- The album title takes its name from a lyric in the song “It’s All But An Ark Lark” from the EP Lullabies, released the previous year.
- The track “Musette and Drums” appears on the 1985 compilation The Pink Opaque.
- Remastered versions of “Sugar Hiccup” and “My Love Paramour” appear on the 2000 compilation Stars and Topsoil.
- “Sugar Hiccup,” “My Love Paramour,” and “Musette and Drums” have appeared in live performances.
- An instrumental track, “My Hue and Cry,” was recorded during this period but never released until a Radio Sessions version appeared in 1999 on the BBC Sessions, though a version of it was performed live during the mid-1980s.
- Head Over Heels was digitally remastered and re-released, with original artwork, by 4AD in 2003.
- “Musette and Drums” was included on the two-disc compilation that accompanied the 2013 book, Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD, by Martin Aston.
Listen and buy online
Videos
Press
- Cocteau Twins featured on Spotify’s ‘Bandsplain’ podcast
- NEWS | 16-Sep 2021
- “Cocteau Twins, 4AD, The Mary Chain & Other Stories — An Interview with Colin Wallace”
- Arcane Delights | 15-Dec 2020
- “A Buyer’s Guide to Cocteau Twins”
- Sun-13 | 6-Aug 2020
- “An Introduction to Cocteau Twins in Five Songs”
- KTSW 89.9 Blog | 30-Sep 2019
- “Simon Raymonde on… Nostalgia”
- Long Live Vinyl | 10-Jan 2019
- “The Strange World of… Cocteau Twins”
- The Quietus | 5-Mar 2018
- Cocteau Twins Announce Treasure and Head Over Heels Reissues
- Pitchfork | 17-Jan 2018
- “National Treasure”
- Louder Than War | Jan/Feb 2018
- “Cocteau Twins: Head Over Heels”
- Sputnik Music | 5-May 2016
- “30 Years On: Cocteau Twins’ Head Over Heels Revisited”
- The Quietus | 11-Nov 2013
- “From 4AD to Nine Inch Nails”
- Sound on Sound | Jan 2006
- “Ether Madness”
- Uncut | Apr 2003
- “Head Over Heels with the Cocteau Twins”
- Electronics & Music Maker | Aug 1984
- “Cocteau Twins Live at Victoria Palace, London, February 26, 1984”
- Melody Maker | 3-Mar 1984
- “The Cocteau Twins”
- Boston Rock | 21-Feb 1984
- “Twice Shy”
- Sounds | 31-Jan 1984
- “Twindrops Keep Falling on my Head”
- NME/New Musical Express | 10-Dec 1983
- Review of Sunburst and Snowblind
- Melody Maker | 03-Dec 1983
- Review of Head Over Heels
- NME/New Musical Express | 05-Nov 1983
- “And Then There Were Two”
- Sounds | 05-Nov 1983
- “Two’s Company”
- ZigZag | Oct 1983
- “Cocteau Twins are hard to pin down”
- The Morning Call 1983