I haven’t been on the forum much for the last couple of months as my younger brother in Germany had a heart attack in November and we buried him in France in December. (No need for an avalanche of condolences, folks- I'll assume you've expressed them already

)
Messing on the guitar and the Christmas competition provided some very welcome distraction during an emotional time

With the unexpected and extremely generous gift of a Skype lesson from Justin approaching, I thought I’d better pull the finger out and get practising, so as not to be too embarrassing on the big day!
I dipped my toe into some fingerstyle and have started on barre chords, but put them aside as I felt it was time to learn another song.
I loved this original by Tears for Fears when it came out in ’82. As a post-punk New Wave enthusiast, I thought this was the dogs proverbials. Videos were only becoming a ‘thing’ and I thought Roland threw the coolest shapes in history

My version includes the inevitable hiccups I get with one-take recordings (but I no longer apologise)
Of note:
Sartorially, I am still in the old dressing gown my dear mum made me in ‘84

The strumming pattern (which I found a bit tricky to match up with the vocals) is what Justin called ‘old faithful’
He mentioned ‘forcing the A’ in the video. I didn’t check what that means, but presume it’s what I tried to do in the ‘Mad World’ bit of the chorus?
Breathing during the chorus is tricky, especially if you speed up as the song goes along!