T’Pau – ‘China In Your Hand’

21 November 1987

Lyrics inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, apparently. The song itself feels stitched together too. You can hear something of Kate Bush in Carol Decker’s gothic, stage-whispered verses: “Eyes wide / like a child in the form of man!” The chorus, though, is pure ’80s power balladry: vague, blustery melodrama belted out as Decker implores us to heed her painfully-earned insight on the fragility of human ambition, or on not dropping any of the good cups. A quick false-ending fade down tees up a standard ’80s sax solo, then another few rounds of the chorus.

My feelings on this song have changed with the years. Back then, being young and impatient, I just saw ‘China In Your Hand’ as blatant number-one bait, yet another soppy ballad blocking up the top spot at the expense of proper pop tunes. (‘Criticize’ by Alexander O’Neal and ‘So Emotional’ by Whitney Houston were two absolute bangers in the UK and Irish top tens at this time.) Now, though, I look more kindly on its slightly lumped-together oddness and its all-in commitment to sounding like a number one. Carol Decker still appears every so often on British TV, thanks in no small part to public affection for ‘China In Your Hand’, so we can think of it as a companion piece to ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ at the daftly enjoyable end of the ’80s power ballad spectrum.