"When Your Heart Is Weak" by Cock Robin

Song#:  2360
Date:  06/15/1985
Debut:  90
Peak:  35
Weeks:  16
Genre:  Pop, New Wave



Pop Bits:  This quartet headed up by singer/songwriter Peter Kingsbery and co-lead singer Anna LaCazio formed in the early 80s and by 1984 they were signed to Columbia Records. They set out to record their self-titled debut album and by the summer of '85 it was ready. To introduce the album, this first single was issued. The song lingered around the chart for quite a while and eventually peaked just inside the Pop Top 40. It also reached #28 at Rock. It would end up being their only charting single in the US. While luck in their homeland was limited, overseas their fortunes blossomed. This song reached the Top 10 in a few European countries. Its follow-up, "The Promise You Made," would become their biggest hit making it onto more charts and even hitting #1 in Belgium. Their next two albums would feature more chart entries in Europe, but by 1990 the band split. Kingsbury would move to France, where the band was very popular, and began a solo career. Cock Robin would reunite over the years and push out some new material, but none would be as popular as their mid-80s European output.

ReduxReview:  This song definitely had a Euro-pop feel, so it's not surprising that it did better on that side of the world. It's a mid-temp tune with a lot of atmosphere, a good chorus, and a nice vocal performance from Kingsbery. It's a subtle tune that falls in that weird area of not really being a ballad, but also not being something upbeat and danceable. Songs like that sometimes get lost on the chart. This one did okay, getting into the Top 40, but is should have done better. It's a lovely tune.

ReduxRating:  7/10

Trivia:  So what's up with the band's name? Apparently it came from the old English poem "The Courtship and Marriage of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren." The story, which seems to have also appeared in Mother Goose books, is about two birds who fall in love and get married. But tragedy strikes when a hawk swoops in to steal away Jenny Wren. A sparrow sees this happening and with a bow and arrow tries to kill the hawk. Unfortunately, the sparrow was a bad shot and instead of the hawk, the arrow hit Cock Robin and killed him. The name Jenny Wren would appear again in literature in 1864 when Charles Dickens gave that name to a character in his novel Our Mutual Friend. It was Dickens' last fully completed work. Paul McCartney would later write a song based on that character titled "Jenny Wren." I appeared on his 2005 album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. The song got McCartney a Grammy nod for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

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