Second single from Love Deluxe, and the one about the layoff
On 16 November 1992 Epic released Feel No Pain, the second single from Love Deluxe. Sade Adu, Andrew Hale and Stuart Matthewman wrote it. The band produced it. The album version runs 5:08. A US 7-inch cut it to 3:45. The lyric is not a love song. Mama has been laid off, Papa has been laid off, a brother has been out of work for more than two years, and Billy cannot get a job. The chorus asks for a chance, then warns that if nobody gets them moving, the damage comes back on everyone.
Love Deluxe was recorded in 1992 at Studio Condulmer in Venice, Ridge Farm in Surrey, the Hit Factory in London and Image Recording in Los Angeles. The album reached shops on 26 October 1992. The day before, Stephen Holden in the New York Times called Feel No Pain a catchy funk song that examines unemployment, asks for help and predicts tragedy if none arrives. The groove is a shuffle. Hale’s keyboards sit under the vocal. Matthewman’s guitar picks a dry blues line. The bass pattern is what keeps the record walking.
The 12-inch did not stop at the album take. Nellee Hooper remixed it for clubs, with a bonus-beats version on that disc. The 7-inch B-side was Mad Professor’s remix of Love Is Stronger Than Pride, a 1988 song pulled forward. Albert Watson, who had photographed the Love Deluxe cover in London that year, directed the video. It runs about 3:48, close to the short single, not the five-minute album cut.
Laid back but nonetheless driven, the second single from the Love Deluxe album is not completely painless, because the repetitive bass pattern makes you tap your feet until they hurt, especially through Nellee Hooper’s dance remix.
(Music & Media, 5 December 1992)
Britain took the single to number 56, peaking on 29 November 1992. Germany reached 80. Italy’s Musica e dischi list put it at 20. New Zealand stopped at 48. In the United States it was not a Hot 100 record. Billboard’s Hot R&B chart peaked at 59, and Cash Box’s R&B list at 44, with that Cash Box high in the week ending 24 July 1993, months after the UK release. European dance radio got it to 20. The UK club chart managed 52.
On the album it sits between No Ordinary Love and I Couldn’t Love You More. It did not repeat No Ordinary Love‘s pop numbers. What it did was keep a layoff inside a funk shuffle, then hand the same track to Nellee Hooper. The album version is the one that still states the case: give them a chance, or it comes back on everyone.
