Senses Working Overtime - Remastered 2001

Released in 1982 as the lead single from their album English Settlement, "Senses Working Overtime" was XTC's highest charting song in the UK, reaching #10 on the UK Singles Chart. In the US, the video for "Senses" was regularly played on the fledgling MTV cable channel.

The song incorporates a catchy melody, intricate harmonies, and a complex arrangement with a hook inspired by Manfred Mann's "5-4-3-2-1." "It's like a little prog operetta," frontman Andy Partridge told Prog. "The verses sound like medieval reggae, before it opens up like The Who and the chorus is almost The Strawbs-meets-Manfred Mann. Then it goes sideways into something else for the middle section. I'm notorious for sticking bits together. You can only be the f---ing sum total of how you mash up all your influences. There's no such thing as originality."

"Senses Working Overtime" paints a sonic kaleidoscope of vision, hearing, taste, touch and smell pushing themselves to the limit. This sensory overload mirrors the internal struggle – the fight between good and bad. "I worked on this kind of stomping, idiot pattern, thinking about the five senses," Partridge recalled to Todd Bernhardt. "Then I thought, 'Well, everyone has five senses, what's great about that? Well, they're not just working, they're going crazy! They're working overtime! They're taking all of life in, and it's too much!' Because life is just too much. It's amazing, you know."