Relax

Written by the group's lead singer Holly Johnson, bassist Mark O'Toole, and drummer Peter Gill, "Relax" was the first Frankie Goes to Hollywood single, and by far their biggest American hit (they had two other chart-toppers in their native UK: "Two Tribes" and "The Power Of Love"). The basic idea of "relax, don't do it" came to Johnson one day in winter 1982 when he was late for rehearsals "walking very quickly along the central reservation of Princes Avenue in Toxteth." At that point, the band only consisted of Johnson, O'Toole and Gill.

The lyrics are relatively ambiguous, although the line "when you want to come" is clearly a reference to orgasm. The song is essentially a guide to delaying ejaculation. To throw censors off the scent, when "Relax" first came out, the band claimed publicly that it was written about "motivation." Later, they confessed it was actually about "shagging."

In America, any sexual innuendo contained in this song got little attention, but it caused plenty of controversy in the UK. It entered the UK singles chart at #77 on November 12, 1983, and was at #35 when Frankie Goes To Hollywood performed it on Top Of The Pops January 5, 1984. The song jumped to #6, and on January 11, BBC Radio 1 DJ Mike Read announced on air that he refused to air "Relax" because of the single's controversial artwork and lyrics. He didn't know it at the time, but the BBC was planning to ban the single, and did so soon afterward. This was big news, and many in the UK sought out the song to hear why it was banned. Record stores had trouble keeping it in stock; a spokesman at the Aberdeen, Scotland record store One Up explained at the time: "Banning the record seems to have created an air of mystery about it. We have had people coming in asking to hear the record to find out what all the fuss is about." Some commercial radio stations in the UK put it in hot rotation, boasting they were playing "the song that BBC banned." "Relax" rose to #2 on January 21, and it hit the top spot a week later, becoming the first banned UK #1 since the steamy Serge Gainsbourg/Jane Birkin duet "Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus" in 1969. "Relax" was no flash-in-the-pan: It held the top spot for five weeks and stayed on the chart until October. The BBC threw in the towel and lifted the ban in December 1984 so the band could perform it on the Christmas edition of Top of the Pops. This sent the song back up the chart for another run; it made two more chart runs in 1985. A parody of Read's on-air rant was included on some of the releases of the band's third single, "The Power Of Love."