There aren’t many albums I’d call “perfect”. Tears for Fears’ Elemental is an exception. From the brutal, expansive Elemental to the warm, joyful Goodnight song, it’s an album that plays with genres, sounds as clear as you’d imagine, and still has that pop sensibility that hooks you.

Granted, it’s a Roland Orzabal album, much like its much underrated successor, Raoul and the Kings of Spain, but it’s good enough to carry a Tears for Fears coat of arms. Orzabal’s voice is perfection, moving from aggressive wistfulness to melancholic self-reflection. You want ambient? Gas Giants. You want a Beatle-esque ballad? Brian Wilson Said. You want pent-up anger? Mr. Pessimistic. You want U2 but better? Break it down again.

I’d always do my homework on the later part of the night, between 10 pm and 1 am, always listening to the radio. It was a pop and easy going rock station called Azul 89 and Break it down again was a regular part of the playlist. I’d listen to a tape copy of the album later, as my commute, and if I didn’t have it with me, I’d hum or recite the lyrics to any of the songs. It was an exercise in memory, it was proof of how catchy the songs were.

I spent most of my summers in the 90s in Tampico Madero, and I usually would go to the arcades and play for a while, walk for even longer and ride buses to different parts of the city, soaking the humid, hot weather. The small streets with remnants of old house from where the English lived and worked with oil, the overgrown bits in parks and seldom visited streets, the haughty scene near Liverpool department store, in Avenida Hidalgo.

Living with being neurodivergent can make you fall into routines that people won’t get, but trust me, I don’t like them either, but I must do them. So these long wanderings took about 6 to 8 hours and I would always take back bus 74 from Tampico’s city centre back to my aunt’s gaff in Madero. I’d time how long the bus would take from its bus rank to the Carpintero lagoon by singing Tears For Fears’ cold to myself. How many times I could sing it meant how much the bus was taking to get there. Once at the Carpintero Lagoon, I’d sing Elton John’s runaway train.

Every. Single. Trip. That was my routine. I loved how dynamic Cold is, I think the musical ideas intertwine perfectly and gave me a sort of home for my mind. I would get a little restless after walking under the sweltering heat and Cold’s catchy pre-chorus gave me relief.

It’s strange once I write it down, but it’s one part of my behaviour I can explain easily. Wish I could write about other aspects of my life like this.

-Sam J. Valdés López