Time and Tide (1981-1982)

Tim Finn has a nervous breakdown and he's not alone; Split Enz record perhaps their best album; and 'Leaky Boat' is scuppered in the UK.

Songs in this programme include 'Remember When', 'Dirty Creature', 'Six Months In a Leaky Boat', 'Take a Walk' plus demos of 'Something To Do', 'Giant Heartbeat' and other rarities.

Album Trivia: Time and Tide

• 'Six Months In a Leaky Boat', the first single released from the album in the UK, was sent to radio stations on record and, unusually, video.
• In NZ, the third single released from Time and Tide was 'Hello Sandy Allen'. In Australia, 'Never Ceases To Amaze Me' was issued instead. The video for 'Never Ceases...', shot in a zoo and featuring Tim Finn with an extreme afro-hairdo, is now considered so embarrassing by the band that it was left off the recent Split Enz DVD. Neil has called the song itself "naff" and "twee to the extreme".
• 'Fire Drill' was recorded during the Time and Tide sessions, but was left off the album and became a B-side. The song opened many of the band's 1982 live shows and included an instrumental section previously used in the unreleased songs 'Murder' and 'Outer Mongolia'.
• Eddie Rayner began composing Pioneer back in 1975.
• 'Giant Heartbeat', composed by Neil Finn and Nigel Griggs, was initially called 'Look-alike'. The instrumental break was recycled from a rejected Neil and Tim song, 'Silent But Deadly', cited by Neil as the worst he's ever written!
• In 'Haul Away', after Tim sings "Ambition has lost me friends and time", a few seconds of the 1973 recording 'Split Ends' can be heard: "Telling them all about Split Ends".
• The final line of 'Haul Away' was inspired by 5-year-old Sean Lennon's 'A Story' on Yoko Ono's 1981 album Season of Glass.
• 'Log Cabin Fever' was partly inspired by the movie The Shining.
• Some UK copies of Time and Tide included a bonus LP of the remixed Frenzy.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details