Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin – ‘Separate Lives’

14 December 1985

Phil Collins and who now? From what I can find out online, Marilyn Martin was a fresh new record company signing who, for a calling card to us pop consumers, got paired up with Collins on a romantic duet for the soundtrack to White Nights, a movie which I haven’t seen but which I recall has some sort of Cold War male ballet dancer storyline.

Phil Collins, alas, is well known to us. Even though he didn’t write ‘Separate Lives’, this is still recognisably a Phil Collins joint; “You have no right to ask me how I feel / You have no right to speak to me so kind” is a chorus tailor-made for Collins’ line of male passive-aggressive sourness. Martin does a solid job but this record is so busy straining every sinew for catch-in-the-throat poignancy (which, in fairness, it sometimes reaches) that it forgets to add any personality or distinctiveness; I am none the wiser as to Martin’s singing style or strengths. Whatever hit status and high-profile movie tie-in it may have had, ‘Separate Lives’ was never going to launch anyone’s stellar career, and it didn’t.