Bonus pic:  More lilies opening.  All on the same plant so far, but hoping the rest will start opening soon. (Yes that is poison ivy trying to grow up the tree and the siding.)

And here we are at disc 7 of 7 of the Like Omigod! The 80s Pop Culture Box (Totally).  Learn more about it in my earlier post here.  The song chosen today is “If You Leave,” by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.  Again, it was a tossup between this song and Paranoimia by The Art of Noise featuring Max Headroom; this song is better and the lead singer is much better than the annoying Max Headroom.  I hope you have enjoyed traveling through these 7 discs as much as I have enjoyed traveling through them.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) are an English electronic band formed in Wirral, Merseyside in 1978. “If You Leave” was recorded for the soundtrack to the film Pretty in Pink (1986), in which it is played prominently during the final scene. Along with 1980’s “Enola Gay“, the track has been described as the band’s signature song.

“If You Leave” is the group’s highest-charting single in the United States, where it reached number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in May 1986. The song was also a Top 5 entry in Canada and New Zealand, and charted at number 15 in Australia. A distinguishing track of the 1980s, it has had an enduring presence on radio.

The band wrote “If You Leave” after John Hughes decided to change the ending to Pretty in Pink after poor test audience reactions. Hughes had asked the band for a song for the new ending two days before they were due to begin a tour, and “If You Leave” was written and recorded in under 24 hours as a result. The song was deliberately written at a tempo of 120 BPM, to match the speed of “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”, which the dancers in the scene had initially danced to. Despite this, singer Andy McCluskey later noted that an editing error meant the dancing appears out of sync regardless. The original ending featured another OMD song, “Goddess of Love”, which was released on The Pacific Age later in 1986.

If you leave, don’t leave now
Please don’t take my heart away
Promise me just one more night
Then we’ll go our separate ways

We’ve always had time on our sides
But now it’s fading fast
Every second
Every moment
We’ve got to, we’ve gotta make it last

I touch you once I touch you twice
I won’t let go at any price
I need you now like I need you then
You always said we’d still be friends someday

If you leave
I won’t cry
I won’t waste one single day
But if you leave, don’t look back

I’ll be running the other way
Seven years went under the bridge
Like time was standing still
Heaven knows what happens now
You’ve got to, you’ve gotta say you will

I touch you once, I touch you twice
I won’t let go at any price
I need you now like I need you then
You always said we’d meet again

I touch you once I touch you twice
I won’t let go at any price
I need you now like I need you then
You always said we’d still be friends

I touch you once I touch you twice
I won’t let go at any price
I need you now like I need you then
You always said we’d meet again someday

If you leave
If you leave
If you leave
Don’t look back
Don’t look back

Songwriters: Martin Handsley Cooper / Paul David Humphreys / Andrew McCluskey