A Streatham demo that reached number three
On 14 April 1986, Level 42 released Lessons in Love on Polydor. The single runs about four minutes. The UK B-side is a live version of Hot Water. It was the lead single from Running in the Family, but that album did not come out until 16 March 1987. Mark King, Rowland "Boon" Gould and Wally Badarou wrote the song. The band produced the single. The album was later produced by Level 42 with Badarou, at Maison Rouge and Sarm West in London.
The idea started on 18 October 1985, on the television show The Tube. At the end of a live Physical Presence, King played a slow extra melody. Over Christmas 1985 he sped it up at his house on Bedford Hill, in Streatham, on a Sony digital recorder. Phil Gould, Boon Gould, Mike Lindup and Wally Badarou were there. The session was meant to find a stop-gap single, not a whole album. Three ideas from those days ended on Running in the Family: Lessons in Love, Children Say and Freedom Someday.
King had a verse and little else. In January 1986 Badarou turned the chorus chords upside down, and King sang a new line over them. Boon Gould wrote the lyric, built on repeated first letters: "lifeboat lies lost at sea." In early March 1986 the band recorded it at Maison Rouge Studios in London. There are seven bass parts: three from analog synthesizers, two from FM synthesizers, and two electric basses, one played with the thumb and one with the fingers. A Garfield Doctor Click box kept them in time. The machines included a Prophet-5, a Synclavier and a Yamaha DX7.
When I played the verse idea to Wally, he took the sequence that I had and inverted it, just turned it upside down. When that happened, I suddenly went, oh yeah, there it is.
(Mark King, Songwriting Magazine)
King sings and plays bass. Lindup plays keyboards and sings backing vocals. Boon Gould plays guitar. Phil Gould plays drums. Badarou adds keyboards. What you hear first is the thumb on the bass, then a bright keyboard line, then the two voices of King and Lindup on the chorus. It is quicker and more direct than the jazz-funk of their early albums, and closer to the pop of World Machine, the 1985 record that had already given them Something About You.
In May 1986 the single reached number 3 on the UK chart and number 3 in Ireland. It also went to number one in West Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Finland, Denmark and South Africa. In the United States it reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1987. The BPI certified it silver, for 250,000 copies in Britain. Canada and the Netherlands certified it gold. The version to play is the 1986 single, the one that opens the original Running in the Family in March 1987, not a later deluxe edition.
Marc G. | 11 October 2026
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Read this, then put Lessons In Love on loud. That was the move. Needed that.
Rosa | 12 October 2026
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This is the track I put on to test new speakers. Level 42 never lies. Also the comments section on old forums was wild about this.
Théo | 13 October 2026
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cool. Now I want the deep cuts around Lessons In Love too.
Ray | 14 October 2026
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First time I heard Lessons In Love was on a burned CD. Still got the scratches in my head. Coffee got cold while I finished the article. Acceptable. More of this please.
Dan | 14 October 2026
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I came for Level 42, stayed for how clean this write-up is. Lessons In Love hits different after reading. Coffee got cold while I finished the article. Acceptable. Ok bye.
Jacques | 15 October 2026
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Read this, then put Lessons In Love on loud. That was the move. I told my coworker and they shrugged. Their loss.
Sam W. | 15 October 2026
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Bass line on Lessons In Love is the whole argument. Rest is decoration. Coffee got cold while I finished the article. Acceptable. Ok bye.
Alex | 16 October 2026
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My dad played Level 42 in the car. Lessons In Love is basically my childhood commute. Coffee got cold while I finished the article. Acceptable. I am biased and fine with it.