The first song composed for
The Seeds of Love was "Badman's Song" (originally titled "The Bad Man Song"), written during the band's 1985 world tour after
Roland Orzabal overheard two members of the tour personnel maligning him in a hotel room one night. The song was co-written by Orzabal with keyboardist
Nicky Holland, who was touring with the band throughout 1985. Holland would go on to play an integral part in the writing and recording of
The Seeds of Love, much as keyboardist
Ian Stanley had on the band's previous album
Songs from the Big Chair. Recording sessions for the album began in late 1986 with producers
Clive Langer and
Alan Winstanley, but Orzabal and
Curt Smith were unhappy with the results and so the recordings were scrapped in early 1987.
Chris Hughes (who had produced both the previous Tears for Fears albums) was then brought back into the fold, but again conflicts arose over the direction of the new material. Orzabal in particular had grown weary of composing and playing music using machines and sequencers, as the majority of Tears for Fears' music had been up to that point, and was striving for something more organic and a different way of working. The song "
Sowing the Seeds of Love" was written in June 1987, the same week as the
UK general election in which
Margaret Thatcher and the
Conservative Party won a third consecutive term in office (reflected in the lyric
"Politician granny with your high ideals, have you no idea how the majority feels?"). Hughes and keyboardist Stanley both left the project later in 1987 citing "creative differences", though their contributions to the track remained on the final album. After two failed attempts to make the album, the band opted to produce it themselves, assisted by engineer Dave Bascombe. Also in 1987, Orzabal and Smith flew over to the US to track down a hotel lounge pianist/vocalist named
Oleta Adams, whom they had seen playing in
Kansas City during their 1985 American tour. Hoping she could add to the organic feel by bringing a soulful warmth to their music, they invited Adams to work with them on their new album. Adams would ultimately perform on three tracks ("
Woman in Chains", "Badman's Song" and "
Standing on the Corner of the Third World"), and a solo recording contract was also offered to her by the band's record company Fontana.). The final mix of the album was completed at London's
Mayfair Studios in July 1989. Frustrations during the making of the album had also given rise to tensions between Orzabal and Smith, Orzabal having become something of an intricate perfectionist and Smith preoccupied with living a
jet set lifestyle rather than focusing on the album (Smith's first marriage had also ended in divorce during the making of the album). At one point, Orzabal considered calling the album
Famous Last Words (the title of the album's final track), commenting "it may well turn out to be our last album." Indeed, the duo did not make any further recordings together for over a decade. ==Release==