“Pearl in the Shell” by Howard Jones

"Pearl in the Shell" was the fourth and final single WEA lifted from Human's Lib, Howard Jones's 1984 debut album, and it carried the English synth-pop man to No. 7 in the UK. Jones wrote it and sings it, Rupert Hine produced, and Stephen W. Tayler engineered. The curveball is the saxophone solo, played by Davey Payne of Ian Dury and the Blockheads.

Unlike his earlier singles, the twelve-inch skipped an extended mix of the lead track. Instead it carried "Total Conditioning", a stretched-out take on the album track "Conditioning" padded with extra lines borrowed from most of the album's other songs. The long version of "Pearl in the Shell" did surface eventually, on The 12″ Album.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.