“Breaking Us In Two” by Joe Jackson

"Breaking Us In Two" was the third single to chart from Night and Day, Joe Jackson's 1982 album, and the British songwriter owns it outright: he wrote the words and music, arranged it, sings it, and produced and mixed it with David Kershenbaum, with Michael Ewasko engineering. It's tender, grown-up pop, delivered at a civilized murmur.

The UK single carried "El Blanco", a Spanish-language take on "Target", on the flip, while American copies kept the English original. It was a slow burner: radio warmed to it across late 1982 and early 1983, MTV gave the video medium rotation, and it climbed to 18 on the Hot 100 that March and 8 on the Adult Contemporary chart. The video was shot around Oakworth station on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, with a train pulled by the Hudswell Clarke locomotive No. 31 "Hamburg".

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