Intro

Andrew Gold's heartfelt Thank You for Being a Friend is a doubly golden slice of pop heaven celebrating platonic relationships. New wave bands, however, rarely treated friendship so simply. Sometimes it was a source of warmth and encouragement; other times it became tangled in romance, dependence, temptation, or bitter fallout. Whether celebrating lifelong companions or mourning friendships that couldn't survive change, new wave found surprising emotional depth in relationships that didn't always fit neatly into the love-song mold. Here are six of the genre's most compelling examples.

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"While Difford and Tilbrook are picking up the pieces of a friendship, the Cars’ Ric Ocasek is in an internal tug-of-war to save his."

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B-52s - Deadbeat Club

As part of the B-52’s 1989 comeback, they updated their sound by getting down with the funk stylings of producers Nile Rodgers and Don Was. But also important was putting their hearts on their sleeves and getting personal. In their own way: not through Joy Division angst, but by fondly recalling their Georgia days. Love Shack brought up the Atlanta highway, but despite its title Deadbeat Club is a touching vignette of them finding joy in the mundane (“anywhere we can we’re gonna find something”). Like the big hit Roam, it’s Pierson/Cindy-driven vocally and showcases Strickland’s laidback Southern guitar stylings and drumming that’s mellowed from their early days. And it also enjoys a dynamic chorus, featuring one of the B-52s’ best Pierson/Cindy Wilson harmonies. The usually-zany Schneider provides quirky backup, but shows excellent restraint and matches the laidback tempo of the rest of the band. This allows for full focus on the bond between the band members in the story. The result? One of new wave's warmest celebrations of simply enjoying your friends' company.

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Cyndi Lauper - The Goonies 'R' Good Enough

Cyndi Lauper, riding high on the She’s So Unusual juggernaut, released the Goonies R Good Enough for the adventure tale Goonies. The song effectively sells the movie’s narrative - kids channeling their friendships into team chemistry to save the day. But it also stands well on its own, and can be heard as Lauper giving her friend a pep talk to shake things up for the sake of growth. There are references to being stuck in the past (“hanging on the strains”), citing how far they’ve come already (“ideals you used to play with are finally taking shape”), and using their friendship to propel them further (“you mirror me“). Lauper dips into her strengths to jolt them into action, including a brisk pace to match the instrumentation in the verses. Even musically, Lauper looks backward. Its doo-wop/power-pop blend recalls her Blue Angel days, reinforcing the lyrics' balance between honoring the past and moving forward. The use of a male response (mirror) vocal was a deliberate choice: the different register standing out and showing he’s in sync with Cyndi, just like a good friend.

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Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again

Other new wave songs paint friendship as a double-edged sword. In Never Let Me Down Again, Gore's "best friend" may be literal or figurative, but either way the relationship has become one of complete dependence. Where Black Celebration embraced darkness head-on, Music for the Masses found it in emotional ambiguity, with Never Let Me Down Again serving as its clearest example. While the listener may realize Gahan’s relationship is lopsided, he seems to be immersed in euphoric ignorance. The line "never want to put my feet back down on the ground" perfectly captures the intoxication of surrender, especially when paired with Fletcher's unexpectedly bright synth figure. However, the production never lets the euphoria become comfortable. Its expansive, arena-sized sound invites listeners to share the narrator's exhilaration even as they recognize the danger beneath it. The repeating of the song title in the outro eventually comes off as a plea and suggests that this cycle of dependence is unlikely to end well.

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Squeeze - I Learned How to Pray

Squeeze’s I Learned How to Pray has Tilbrook sitting in the ashes of both his ruined romance and friendship (“the fire was lit and how I got burnt”). One of Difford's strengths as a lyricist is resisting the obvious. Here, he focuses not on the failed romance but on the friendship it destroyed. He fondly paints a picture of their friendship: their afternoons browsing secondhand clothes, her quiet kindness, and the guidance she offers him. Rather than growing from grand declarations, the romance emerges naturally from everyday familiarity. Tilbrook and his friend try to become something more, only to lose both the relationship and their friendship. All that's left is prayer to dull the pain. The arrangements on much of Squeeze’s comeback Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti were more sparse than their classic era, and In I Learned it effectively creates awkward tension The sparse arrangement leaves Tilbrook alone with a rare double post-mortem: one for a failed romance, and another for the friendship that never recovered. Though I Learned How to Pray is not about religion, the faux choir in the chorus and organ in the bridge gently echo the song's title. Not to suggest faith, but to emphasize that prayer has become Tilbrook's last refuge after losing both lover and friend.

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The Cars - My Best Friends' Girl

While Difford and Tilbrook are picking up the pieces of a friendship, the Cars’ Ric Ocasek is in an internal tug-of-war to save his in My Best Friend’s Girl. Sonically, it’s not as adventurous as Just What I Needed; the Cars dress My Best Friend’s Girl in an oldies-inspired (albeit catchy) hook, but Ocasek complicates what could have been a straightforward tale of lost love by making the object of his affection his best friend's girlfriend. In fact, Ocasek, being the maestro of trapped emotional energy, bottles it up again in My Best Friend’s Girl. The breezy, oldies-inspired sound makes the narrator's restraint all the more surprising. Beneath the catchy hook sits a moral dilemma rather than a simple crush. Despite his vivid pining for his ex, he never fantasizes about taking her back, confronting his friend, or otherwise going cathartic. In fact, amidst the lusting, his conscience keeps coming back with the simple “she’s my best friend’s girl”. Indeed, the chorus becomes a recurring reality check, repeatedly pulling him back from temptation.

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Tears For Fears - Fish Out of Water

Ocasek may have dodged a bullet, but unfortunately some friendships dissolve, sometimes acrimoniously, and you bet new wavers wrote songs about that too. One of the biggest examples is Tears For Fears’ (now a solo outfit for Roland Orzabal) Fish Out of Water. Its album, Elemental, focused on the emotions coming out of dissolution and endings. Break it Down Again and Goodnight Song hailed the good that comes out of that. Fish Out of Water shares the album's uplifting musical palette, but that's where the similarities end. Orzabal references their friendship and how it led to cathartic songs like Shout (“we used to… talk about Primal Scream). But then he accuses Smith giving in to shallowness and callousness (the fish leaving his home waters). Usually at this point there’s a fork in the road: the song becomes a come-to-Jesus moment or the narrator doubles down on the diss. Ocasek might have done the former but King Catharsis Orzabal does the latter and predicts Smith’s comeuppance, pulling out every aquatic metaphor he can muster to drown Smith’s reputation. In doing so, Orzabal delivers one of the album’s best lines with “In Neptune’s kitchen you will be food for killer whales”.

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Outro

Friendship rarely receives the same attention in popular music as romance, yet new wave repeatedly found fertile ground there. Sometimes friends pushed one another toward growth. Sometimes they became lovers. Sometimes temptation was resisted, and sometimes relationships unraveled beyond repair. Through it all, these artists treated friendship not as a supporting character but as a relationship worthy of every bit as much emotional complexity as love itself. That's one more reason new wave remains such a rewarding genre to revisit: even its songs about friendship rarely settle for the obvious. Like this article? The Vault has bonus writeups on five articles.

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