Pale Shelter

"Pale Shelter"
1983 re-release
Single by Tears for Fears
from the album The Hurting
B-side	"The Prisoner" (1982) "We Are Broken" (1983)
Released	March 1982 18 April 1983 26 August 1985
Format	7" 12"
Recorded	1982
Genre	New wave
Length	3:55 (Original Version) 4:34 (Album Version)
Label	Phonogram Mercury
Writer(s)	Roland Orzabal
Producer(s)	Mike Howlett (Original Version) Chris Hughes Ross Cullum (Album Version)
Tears for Fears singles chronology
"Suffer the Children" (1981) "Pale Shelter (You Don't Give Me Love)" (1982) "Mad World" (1982) "Change" (1983) "Pale Shelter" (second release) (1983) "The Way You Are" (1983) "Suffer the Children" (second release) (1985) "Pale Shelter (You Don't Give Me Love)" (third release) (1985) "I Believe (A Soulful Re-Recording)" (1985) Alternative cover Original 1982 release sleeve

"Pale Shelter" is a song by the British band Tears for Fears.

Written by Roland Orzabal and sung by bassist Curt Smith, it was originally the band's second single release in early 1982. The original version of the song, entitled "Pale Shelter (You Don't Give Me Love)", would not see chart success at the time of its original UK release. However, it would later become a Top 20 hit in Canada and would become a Top 75 hit when it was reissued in the UK in 1985.

The generally better-known version was a re-recording from 1983. This version eventually became the third UK Top 5 chart hit taken from Tears for Fears debut LP The Hurting (1983), peaking at number 5. As with the previous two singles, the song also reached the Top 40 in several other countries.

Along with "Suffer the Children", "Pale Shelter" was one of two demo songs that landed Tears for Fears their first record deal with Phonogram in 1981. The song began life as a sequence of two chords that Orzabal had been repeatedly playing on acoustic guitar for weeks. The rest of the music and lyrics were eventually written in a single morning's time. The original demo of the song was recorded at musician Ian Stanley's home studio in Bath, after a chance meeting led to a working relationship with the duo.

After the release of their David Lord-produced debut single "Suffer the Children", "Pale Shelter" was selected as the follow-up. In an effort to sound more commercial, and because Lord was busy recording Peter Gabriel's fourth album, Mike Howlett was brought in to produce. Artistic disagreements between the duo and Howlett (specifically regarding his overuse of Linn drums) led to this being his only work with Tears for Fears. As Curt Smith later noted, "Mike was far too commercial for us. I don’t think we felt we were learning anything and we’re not good at being pushed in a direction we don’t wish to go."