The iconic 80s song lyric “Human after all” appears in a couple of lines of “Something About You,” a New Wave hit for the British band Level 42 released in September 1985. It charted in the top 10 on three continents.
“Something About You” by Level 42
The hit 80s single “Something About You” appeared on the album World Machine, released in September 1985. It was written by the members of Level 42, Mark King, Mike Lindup, Phil Gould, and Boon Gould, and the album producer, Wally Badarou. Mark King sings lead and plays bass on the song. Mike Lindup sings the falsetto backing vocals and plays keyboards. “Something About You” was a top 10 hit in the United Kingdom, United States, and New Zealand. In the United States, it reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, US Dance Club, and Adult Contemporary charts. But it didn’t reach #1 on any of them in the competitive 1985 pop music landscape.
The song nevertheless became a staple of the New Wave and synthpop genres. Arguably no 1980s retrospective is complete without it. The phrase “human after all” appears in the last line of two of the verses.
Level 42 toured with Steve Winwood and Queen in 1986.
“Something About You” is sometimes misattributed to Lamont Dozier, Edward Holland, and Brian Holland, who wrote an R&B hit with the same title in the 1960s, first recorded by The Four Tops in 1965. Level 42’s song by the same name isn’t a cover of the earlier song.
Meaning of the 80s song lyric “human after all”
While Level 42’s song isn’t a cover of the 1965 R&B hit, no doubt the members of Level 42 would have heard the song and had some familiarity with it, being a jazz/funk fusion band.
Its infectious, jazz and funk inspired baseline made it a popular dance hit, and undoubtedly contributed to it becoming a New Wave standard. But like many of the best New Wave songs, it has a double meaning buried in it. We think of it as a fairly straightforward love song. After all, the main rhyme says, “There is something about you/ baby/ so right/ I wouldn’t be without you/ baby/ tonight.”
But it’s really a song about the ups and downs of a relationship. The song is up tempo, and that main rhyme sends your mind in that direction. But what about the line “We’re only human after all?”
Hint: It’s not a conventional love song
The line that precedes the second occurrence of “we’re only human after all” in this classic 80s song is anything but a pickup line for the ages. “If not so in love/ It’s not so wrong/ We’re only human after all.”
Pretty observant for a writer who would have been in his mid-20s at the time.
And the first occurrence is no pickup line either. “But making mistakes is a part/ Of life’s imperfections/ born of the years/ Is it so wrong to be human after all.”
Who made the mistakes? It sounds like both of them. The other lyrics talk about the relationship being fate and the thing of dreams and everything else you feel early on, fading or even disappearing over time.
A cynical take on a straightforward love song was the formula that propelled another British band, Joy Division, to posthumous success. Whether Level 42 consciously tried to do the same thing, or it was subconscious, or purely accidental doesn’t matter so much. We got a song for the ages out of them following that formula.
And while the song is much more cynical than the 1960s song of the same title, it doesn’t approach stay-together-for-the-kids level of cynicism. Is it a reconciliation song? Or a how-we-stayed-together song? The lyrics are ambiguous enough that it probably depends who’s listening.
Finding “Something About You” today
“Something About You” is readily available on whatever digital music platform you use, if only because so many compilations include it. If you want a physical copy, say for your vintage tape collection, those are easy to find too. Vintage copies are readily available on CD, vinyl, or cassette on Ebay.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
Love this song. Not played on the radio often enough, in my opinion.