- With Simple Minds winding down the European leg of the
Once Upon A Time tour, Virgin issued
All The Things She Said as a final push to ensure the band were riding high and
triumphant in the charts.
- It was such an impressive and strong coupling of tracks that Virgin saw
little need to tempt fans with a limited edition. All The Things She Said was a
popular track from the album and gained extra weight with an extended version on the 12".
Don’t You (Forget About Me) proved a huge hit live and
Pete Walsh’s nine minute recording and mix from Rotterdam
was so powerful that many radio stations elected to play that instead of the title track.
And for the hardcore collectors, attempting to import the US edition of Promised You A Miracle
for its exclusive remix, Virgin iced the cake by including one of the remixes as a bonus on the 12”.
- A very limited edition was produced, but comprised the Alive And Kicking and
All The Things She Said stock 7" singles housed in a plastic gatefold sleeve with a sticker. This edition turned out to be fantastically
rare and escaped being included in the discography until now.
- A 12" promo was also produced and was distributed in the commerical sleeve (unlike the other promos from this period, as they were packaged in
plain die-cut black sleeves).
- The sleeve design, by Ian Goodyer of Design Clinic, was based on a photo-shoot of Jim
by Paul Cox. It was also the first sleeve to feature support for Amnesty International.
- "At the time I was working for a company called Design Clinic
(originally Virgin Design Clinic, later just Clinic). We did a lot of
work for Virgin and for a time were owned by them. We were most
closely involved with the retail division, but we also designed a lot
of sleeves and marketing material for acts on the Virgin record label.
We were commissioned by Gary Wathen to design the sleeve for "All The Things She Said" and I was
duly sent along to take the brief. Like so
many record sleeve designs, this one was based on a pre-existing
photograph; but this commission sticks in my mind because Gary Wathen
– for whatever reason – was out of sorts with Jim Kerr. Gary was less
than pleased with the photograph that Jim had apparently demanded be
used on the sleeve, and was decidedly unimpressed with the ornately
embroidered (and by all accounts, extremely expensive) Chinese shirt
that he wore for the photo shoot. As a matter of fact, Gary disliked
the image so much he asked me to crop it, so only half of Jim Kerr was
visible! This explains the rather odd layout, although sections of the
shirt did find a more prominent place on the reverse of the sleeve and
as an infill on the band's logo." - Ian Goodyer
- The single was also issued in the USA. The commerical editions omitted the remix of Promised You A Miracle (as it had
been issued in America three years previously). The three collectable promos (a 7" and two 12" records) were also joined by an Electrosound
test pressing of the 7". This oddity turns out to be relatively common; turning up more often than the red-label 7" promo.
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