| "Breaking Us in Two" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Joe Jackson | ||||
| from the album Night and Day | ||||
| B-side | "Target" | |||
| Released | 13 August 1982 | |||
| Recorded | 1982 | |||
| Studio | Blue Rock, New York City | |||
| Genre | Sophisti-pop[1] | |||
| Length | 4:35 (album version) 3:45 (single version) | |||
| Label | A&M | |||
| Songwriter | Joe Jackson | |||
| Producers | Joe Jackson, David Kershenbaum | |||
| Joe Jackson singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "Breaking Us in Two" on YouTube | ||||
"Breaking Us in Two" is a song by British musician Joe Jackson. It was the third of three charting singles from his 1982 LP, Night and Day.
The single was released in the UK on 13 August 1982, backed with the Spanish version of "Target" renamed "El Blanco" (target in Spanish). In the US, the B-side was the regular English version of "Target".[2] The single began to get radio airplay in late 1982 and early 1983, especially in the US where the music video was in medium rotation on MTV in early February.[3] The single had become a hit in the US, reaching number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of March 19, 1983.[4] Later, it reached number 40 in Canada. It also charted in the UK and Australia. It was a bigger Adult Contemporary hit, reaching number eight in the U.S. and number 12 in Canada.
The music video was filmed on location in and around the Oakworth railway station in England.
Billboard said it was "jazzy and precise [and] similar in tone to the top 10 'Steppin' Out'."[5]
In Melody Maker, Edwyn Collins said, "This is another song that's just full of cliches. It's almost a pastiche. It's just so mediocre. If you heard it on the radio it would be some totally ambient background noise. Brian Eno would be proud of him."[6] Geoff Barton of Sounds was also negative, calling it a "miserable, depressing, mournful ballad" and an "ugly grey stain in the Dalmatians' colourful world".[7]
Weekly charts[edit]
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Year-end charts[edit]
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Mandy Moore covered the song for her 2003 album, Coverage.
