This is their best song although that generally seems to be an unpopular view amongst many on here. Understandable given what imposing monoliths Relax and Two Tribes became.

And yet, as befitted what surely and knowingly was intended as the last will and testament of this thing called New Pop, faith and belief were finally all that mattered. Just as the Martin Fry of “All Of My Heart” finally faced the fear and looked himself in his postmodern mirror, realising that, yes, although love can be analysed, disseminated and deconstructed, it cannot necessarily be put together again, and that the only way to stay meaningfully alive is to surrender to it and embrace it, there is no apparent irony in the Holly Johnson who sings on “The Power Of Love,” cajoled by Horn to sing better than he’d ever sung before. There is a glimpse of his impish grin in the opening pledge of “I’ll protect you from the Hooded Claw/Keep the vampires from your door” but this doesn’t even begin to mask the real and warm smile of reassurance which lies beneath.

Johnson has never been as astute and deft a wordsmith as Fry, but this works to “The Power Of Love”‘s advantage; the lyric is largely composed of slogans and homilies – “Love is the light,” “When the chips are down,” “Let yourself be beautiful,” “Make love your goal” – but Johnson’s blunt candour pulls the song through; on the verge of tears in the line “Sparkling love and flowers and pearls and pretty girls,” his double octave-leading emphasis of “death defying” to reinforce “undying,” the comforting arm around the shoulder of “This time we go sublime.”

What it all conveys is a desire for the revelation that sex can be beautiful and not tacky, that war and death can perhaps both be defeated. And Horn’s production and Anne Dudley’s string arrangement rise with an urgency especial even for them; for both “The Power Of Love” may be their finest hour. Listen to how the strings cushion the suddenly ajar door of Johnson’s first “Make love,” coming in to the solitary acoustic guitar, how the track crescendoes after the second verse, following which there is an unsettling moment as a Fairlight-manipulated Johnson vibrato is echoed by sinister low fuzz guitar as if he’s about to be atomised – but no, we return to the piano of “Moments In Love,” the guitar now high and yearning, the final pause before Johnson, Horn and Dudley (and Morley) summon up everything they know for the rapturously cathartic climax; as everything rises on Johnson’s “dove” one feels the Earth’s axis momentarily disturbed. That having been achieved, Johnson walks off into the long, echoing distance, Dudley’s strings engendering a near-unbearable sadness of sustenato (but isn’t this supposed to be a happy ending?) before Johnson repeats his opening promise and the dream fades into warm unreality.

For the dream was over, and everybody involved in “The Power Of Love” knew it; for those fortunate enough to have experienced the miraculous magic of New Pop it is almost impossible not to become tearful when listening to this record, for it carries within its generous arteries the portents of its own end – it is saying goodbye to New Pop, reluctantly relinquishing all its unfulfilled dreams; and yet the Frankie Goes To Hollywood trilogy ended up being as close to perfection as New Pop could possibly get.

Once you’ve reached the top, of course, the only way to go is down. But, to paraphrase Larkin on the Beatles, what if New Pop couldn’t get down? Instead, it proceeded to spread itself over the landscape in ways unexpected yet inevitable.

And now it seems swooning and rich and full of sincerity, even if decked out in tragic camp grandeur. The hooded claw, as has been said above, makes this a fantasy world/utopian song that equates love with saving the world; and if that isn’t a gay trope, I don’t know what is. It’s all about mythical creatures, ‘dreams’, ‘angels’, before its rush into the purely metaphysical towards the end (‘sublime/divine divine’).

In particular the song came out as the AIDS crisis was really beginning to hit. There would have been around 100 diagnoses in Britain at this time and the tabloids regularly used the phrase ‘gay plague’, adding to the sense of fear and stigma. I guess there was an aspect of that at work here; the privations of this world requiring a projection into another, better world.

The song also took on another dimension when I saw Holly Johnson perform it at London Gay Pride in 1997. It was the last performance of the day (following three-song sets from Erasure and Pet Shop Boys), and halfway through it, the end-of-day fireworks display started up at the other end of Clapham Common. This all seemed to trigger off a mass hugging and smooching session amongst the crowd: everywhere I looked, pairs of men and women were locked in embraces. We’d just had a change of government, many promises had been made, and optimism was in the air as we sensed a sea change in public attitudes. It felt like a vindication, after years of struggle. With all this in mind, the song took on a newly anthemic quality – a perfect soundtrack for that particular moment, of that particular month, in that particular year. I duly bawled my eyes out – not for the first time, since the Erasure and PSB songs had been equally well-picked: A Little Respect, It’s A Sin/I Will Survive (medley), Go West and Somewhere (from West Side Story).

So when I hear “The Power Of Love” now, I link it to the new dawn of 1997 rather than the bleak chill of 1984. Yes, the lyrics are somewhat stylised and overblown, but they suit Holly Johnson’s performance style down to the ground. He delivers the song like some sort of benevolent deity, blending Olympian detachment with more touchingly earthbound qualities, and for me the strategy pays dividends. It’s the one Frankie song which lets you in emotionally, and as such it’s the perfect conclusion to the trilogy. Sex, death and love: where on earth do you go after that?

(Answer: the dumper. And yes, the album was a total damp squib. But you can’t have everything…)

Two reasons for this, I think. One, the lease on my flat in St Neots had expired which meant that I was living in Notting Hill permanently now and reverse commuting while I looked for a job in London. This meant getting up at 6.30 to the sound of Farming Today on Radio 4, and returning at about 7.30 pm to relax in the jukebox-free Sun in Splendour in Portobello Road (which used to be a really good pub in those days, with an excellent pint of draught Bass). So no opportunity to hear any pop.

The other, I suspect, is that this one hasn’t endured in the non-pop-enthusiast canon.

Knicker-flash: By this time the pub quiz team at the Wheatsheaf was so far ahead in the league that we’d already won it by the beginning of December, so I was able to tell the guv’nor that I’d fulfilled my promise and would now retire from the side. The champion-of-champions knockout the following spring was another story – I came out of retirement to lead the team to the championship of East Anglia!

@(overlord) Tom. Have been chortling all day about the thought of someone using Two Tribes for their wedding dance ever since reading PoL was yours. In the gag-ridden rom. com. s/play of your life perhaps…

I think Frankie did well to make it to the top since this was released only a fortnight or so after the LP which most people found disappointing and over-priced. I remember retailers over-ordered it and were left with a lot of spare copies. There was enough good material to make a cracking single LP but their talents seemed over-stretched on a double. I’ll be kind and not mention their second album.