Song of the Week - Crowded House - Fall At Your Feet

I've decided to create a separate blog to deal with my musical musings, such as a thing I want to do which, as the title states, I want to write about a song each week and why I like it or why it's important to me.

To start it off, I'll begin with Fall At Your Feet by Crowded House.

Neil Finn is perhaps one of the most underrated and overlooked song writers. After being hired by older brother Tim to fill in a vacancy in Tim's band Split Enz, Neil ended up penning their biggest hits (I Got You to name one). Much to the annoyance of Tim. In 1984, Tim left Split Enz for Neil to carry on but by the end of the year, the group has disbanded. Neil took Paul Hester who was the final drummer for Split Enz, added Nick Seymour on bass, Craig Hooper on guitar and formed a group called The Mullanes, after Neil's middle name. They relocated to Los Angeles, minus Craig Hooper and changed their name to something that summed up their living conditions - Crowded House. Their first album from 1986 spawned the hits Don't Dream It's Over, Mean To Me and World Where You Live. In between was their second album Temple of Low Men, which Neil wanted to call "Mediocre follow-up Second Album".


Fall At Your Feet came from their most successful album Woodface. The beginnings of Woodface saw the near split of the band and most of the material for the album rejected by the record company. Neil had patched things up with brother Tim and co-wrote some songs and Tim briefly joined the band. However, Fall At Your Feet is purely a Neil Finn composition. Anyway, enough waffle on the history of the band. If you want that, head over to Wikipedia.

To me, this song always stuck out from Woodface and pretty much anything else Neil has written. Essentially an acoustic strum-along love song, with a simple bass line, small amounts of electric guitar and as usual, rock steady drumming from the late, great Paul Hester. Tim's backing vocals throughout the song compliment Neil's perfectly. As you'd expect, being brothers they harmonise well. But the vocal interaction between the two during the bridge is fantastic. Neil's knack of a good melody shines though, which is most noticeable in the chorus - one Paul McCartney would probably have wished he'd written.

It's perhaps the only song on Woodface where the production doesn't sound flat. However, the song comes alive when performed live, which can be said for 90% of Crowded House material. If you've never seen the band live, I urge you too, they are that good. I had the good fortune of seeing Neil perform with Tim as the Finn Brothers back in 2004 and saw a reformed Crowded House with new drummer Matt Sherrod in 2007. If you cannot get to see them live, pick up a copy of Farewell To The World.

Witnessing my favourite Crowded House song being played live in two different venues is a fantastic experience. The Finn Brothers rendition was excellent, but the Crowded House was simply brilliant. They made an arena concert seem like they were playing to just you. But when the audience (including myself) are singing along with the whole song in tune (alas not me), I got quite emotional.

What, though, is the main reason I dig this song so? Yes, I'm a big Crowded House fan, but it's become a hugely personal song and means so much to me. It's also my wife Jayne's favourite song. We used it for our first dance at our wedding reception. I need say no more...

Promo video for Fall At Your Feet

Click here for Fall At Your Feet from the Farewell concert 1996

One final note. It's just such a shame James Blunt got hold of it....

So, what's to be expected next? Well, there's tunes by Lightning Seeds (predictably), Iron Maiden, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Volbeat, New Order, Joy Division and many many more. If you're interested, please continue to read. If not, it really would be a waste of your time and it would be a shame!