In April 1983 the British group Spandau Ballet released the single “True”. By May it had sat at #1 UK Singles Chart for four consecutive weeks. It was the band's peak - and the pivot point. Within two years Spandau Ballet would be fractured by internal lawsuits; Gary Kemp (the band's songwriter) would move to cinema, Tony Hadley to a solo career. But “True” outlived the split and became one of the most-played songs at British weddings: per UK Wedding Industry Association 2019 data, “True” sits at #3 in first-dance rankings.
Spandau Ballet: from the Blitz club scene to the mainstream
Spandau Ballet - Tony Hadley (vocals), Gary Kemp (guitar, songwriter), Martin Kemp (bass, Gary's brother), Steve Norman (saxophone, percussion), and John Keeble (drums) - formed in 1976 in Islington, London. All five went to the same school (Dame Alice Owen's School).
By 1981 the band was part of the New Romantic scene of London's Blitz club - alongside Culture Club, Visage, Duran Duran. First hit “To Cut a Long Story Short” (1980) reached #5 UK; “Chant No. 1” (1981) - #3. By 1982 they had put out two albums and had a reputation for “stylised British new wave”.
But in 1982 Gary Kemp made a strategic call: abandon the new wave aesthetic and turn the band fully mainstream pop. He told NME in 1983: “We looked at Duran Duran and Culture Club - they'd already locked that niche. We had to do something completely different. I decided: soul. Real soul. With a saxophone, slow tempo, Hadley's voice at the centre”.
Recording: Compass Point Studios, Bahamas, January 1983
Spandau Ballet booked Compass Point Studios on the Bahamas - Chris Blackwell's (Island Records) studio where AC/DC recorded Back in Black (1980) and Talking Heads Remain in Light (1980). Producers - Jolley & Swain (Steve Jolley and Tony Swain, a British duo who later worked with Bananarama).
The session took four weeks. Gary Kemp had been writing the lyric of “True” for six months before going in - about his unrequited love for Clare Grogan, vocalist of the band Altered Images. Kemp wanted to translate the feeling into “emotional truth” - hence the title “True”. The lyric directly quotes Stevie Wonder's “Sir Duke” (1976): “I know this much is true” - Kemp consciously referencing the soul master he was writing under.
The key moment of the session was Steve Norman's saxophone part. The alto sax solo is cut in one take. Norman said in a 2010 interview: “I was going to play 8 bars, Gary showed me the melody. I asked for 10 minutes. Went down to the beach, had a cigarette, came back. Played. Gary hugged me and said: „That was the take"”.
“The song is about Clare, yes. But I didn't want her to know. The lyric is so abstract she didn't figure it out for about ten years. When she did, we weren't talking anymore.”
- Gary Kemp, autobiography I Know This Much, 2009
Sound anatomy
- Key: F major, modulating to A-flat major on the final chorus
- BPM: 70 - very slow, practically a ballad
- Length: 6:30 (album), 4:00 (single edit)
- Saxophone: Steve Norman on a Selmer Mark VI, one-take solo
- Keys: Yamaha CP-80 (electric piano) and Roland Jupiter-8 (string pad)
- Drums: John Keeble on a Yamaha kit + light LinnDrum LM-1 for hi-hat
- Bass: Martin Kemp on a Fender Precision
- Album: True (March 1983, Reformation/Chrysalis)
- UK sales: 1.2 million singles (Platinum)
- Worldwide: over 4.5 million copies
Chart history
The single came out on 11 April 1983. By 23 April - #1 UK Singles Chart, where it stayed four weeks. #1 in Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand. #4 Billboard Hot 100 in the US - Spandau Ballet's biggest American hit.
The True album also hit UK Albums #1. Across 1983 it sold 3 million copies. This was Spandau Ballet's commercial peak - no subsequent album ever came close.
The hip-hop return: P.M. Dawn 1991
In 1991 the American hip-hop group P.M. Dawn sampled the sax solo from “True” on their single “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss”. The track hit #1 Billboard Hot 100 (September 1991) and landed Gary Kemp and sax player Steve Norman 100% of the writing royalty on single sales - P.M. Dawn hadn't cleared the sample in advance and settled the terms after the fact.
P.M. Dawn sold over 3 million copies of “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss”, and Kemp collected roughly $1.8 million in royalties on that single track. In 2013 Kemp said: “P.M. Dawn were my pension fund. I'm grateful to them to this day”.
Subsequent “True” samples include Nelly “N Dey Say” (2004), and further uses by Rich Homie Quan, Keyshia Cole, and Wu-Tang Clan. In total more than 30 hip-hop samples draw from the song.
The split and lawsuits
By 1985 a gulf had opened between Gary Kemp and the rest of Spandau Ballet. As the songwriter, Kemp collected 80% of the royalties. The others took 4% each (Hadley, Martin Kemp, Norman, Keeble). By 1987 Hadley had filed suit, demanding the split be reviewed back to 1981.
Court proceedings dragged on from 1999 to 2001. The outcome: Hadley, Norman, and Keeble lost. The court found Kemp to be the sole author, with the others' compositional contribution minimal. Bitter split. Spandau Ballet didn't share a stage for 19 years.
They reunited in 2009. The 2009 tour drew 300,000 UK concert-goers. “True” was still the finale each night. But in 2017 Tony Hadley left the band again - this time permanently.
“True” as a wedding song
Per UK Wedding Industry Association 2019 data, “True” is in the top-3 first-dance songs at British weddings (behind Ed Sheeran “Perfect” and Christina Perri “A Thousand Years”). In the US - #12 on the equivalent list.
Reasons it wins at weddings: length (4 minutes) - ideal for a first dance; slow tempo (70 BPM) - comfortable to walk to; a lyric about “a love I can't forget” - universally applicable. Spandau Ballet reportedly earn around $800,000 a year from wedding performance royalties alone.
What to listen to next
For the New Romantic → soul pivot: Spandau Ballet “True” → Culture Club “Karma Chameleon” (1983) → Sade “Smooth Operator” (1984). All three - British attempts to fuse soul standards with new wave. Kemp did it through slow tempo, Boy George through reggae, Sade through jazz.
And for a career-arc parallel, try George Michael's “Careless Whisper” (1984). Both are soul ballads with a saxophone solo as their calling card, both became wedding standards, both outlived their authors.