Cock Robin – Just Around The Corner

1987 CBS single, Gehman production, Europe FM hit

Just Around the Corner is a Peter Kingsbery composition from Cock Robin’s 1987 CBS album After Here Through Midland, produced by Don Gehman. Released as a single in May 1987, it became an FM staple across continental Europe while the United States stayed cooler on the band. France took it to No. 18 for two weeks with an eighteen-week chart run. West Germany peaked at No. 16. Switzerland reached No. 6. Belgium Flanders hit No. 11. Sweden No. 12. The Netherlands Single Top 100 went to No. 14. Italy airplay even put it at No. 1 in Music & Media reports.

Kingsbery’s anchored vocal and Anna LaCazio’s answering lines sit at the center. Synths shine without crowding. Guitars stay almost murmured. The mix leaves air. Gehman, known for John Mellencamp’s heartland rock, let the arrangement breathe instead of stacking 1987 bombast. Cash Box called the cut darkly ominous yet hopeful, with The Call and Prefab Sprout as possible reference points. That read still fits: a careful layout, every part placed, no desperate key-change finish.

Cock Robin never owned the US mainstream the way they owned French and German radio in the mid-80s. When Your Heart Is Weak and The Promise You Made had already built that continental lane. This single extended it with a darker color and a dialogue-style vocal chemistry rather than standard frontman-plus-backup posing. Kingsbery sings the lines in a plain, already-lived way. The melancholy stays controlled. No extra drama. In a year when overproduction was normal, they chose clarity and got a song that does not glue itself to one fashion season.

European year-end lists kept the track visible into late 1987, including a Music & Media European Top 100 year-end placing. That longevity matters more than a single peak week. DJs and night programs treated it as adult pop with tension, useful between louder dance singles. The band’s chemistry was always more a conversation than a costume. Listeners who discovered Cock Robin through French radio still treat this cut as proof the group could use a darker color without losing melody.

Play it next to the brighter earlier hits and you hear the Midland album’s turn: same voices, cooler room, Gehman’s restraint keeping the arrangement in place. American indifference did not erase the European document. The 1987 tape still sounds like a car radio on a long European drive, which is how many people first heard it.