Our House

‘Our House’, a song penned by Chas Smash and Chris Foreman, made a significant global impact. It was the lead single from their fourth studio album, The Rise & Fall, and was released on 12 November 1982. The song’s popularity soared, charting within the top ten in numerous countries. Notably, it became the band’s biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and even won the category of Best Pop Song at the May 1983 Ivor Novello Awards.

The song “Our House” was released in November 1982 and became a hit in the UK, peaking at No. 5 on the Singles Chart. It also gained popularity in the US, reaching No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983, becoming their biggest hit there. On the US rock chart, it peaked at No. 9 and reached No. 21 on the US dance chart. The song received extensive airplay on radio stations.

The B-side, “Walking with Mr. Wheeze”, is an instrumental. The title is a play on “Groovin’ with Mr. Bloe”, a 1970 instrumental hit by the session group Mr. Bloe.

The band portrays a working-class family in the video, including one with a stubbly face, dressed in an apron and bonnet, playing the mother. The band members perform with their instruments in the living room as they prepare for work and school. The family play squash and relax in a hot tub. The video includes exterior shots of other houses like the Playboy Mansion, Stocks House in Hertfordshire, and Buckingham Palace. The domestic property featured in the video is a terrace house on Stephenson Street in north-west London, near Willesden Junction station.

Cathal: ‘Our House’ was a very positive take on my home-life as a kid. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of noise, my Dad yelling, my Mum trying to get everyone up, out of bed, fed, dressed and out the door. Mum and Dad are no longer with us and there’s more that could be said behind the lyrics, but I’ll leave it here, with love, a testament to a time past.

Mike: I remember Chris coming in with the chords to ‘Our House’ and thinking it wasn’t going to work… But then, when the words and melody were fitted, it just suddenly came together. We tried it in a kind of Motown style, like ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’. It sounded good, but that possibly made it less original. I have a pleasant memory of a sunny afternoon coming home from the recording studio, sitting in Whittington Park on Archway Road, thinking we’d have to change it, and moving some of the crotchets around in my head, in order to take it out of that genre without losing the feel.