Peter Godwin

Peter Godwin is an English new wave singer who first turned up in Metro, the band behind "Criminal World", which he co-wrote. The BBC banned it on release in 1977 over its bisexual overtones, and six years later David Bowie covered it on Let's Dance.

On his own he made cool, glassy pop with a romantic heart. "Images of Heaven", from the 1982 EP Emotional Disguise, is all shimmering keyboards and a distant, yearning vocal, and it became a cult favourite on the new wave stations of the day. The dance remix of "Baby's in the Mountains" turned into a proper club hit, and the song anchors Correspondence, released by Polydor in 1983 and still his only solo studio album.

A collection called Images of Heaven: The Best of Peter Godwin, pulling together Metro tracks, his early '80s solo recordings and a few fresh tracks, came out on Oglio Records in 1998. He wrote lyrics for Steve Winwood's 2008 album Nine Lives, and later teamed up with Italian singer-songwriter dr.Gam, writing the words for "Rise and Fall" and singing in Italian for the first time on the 2025 duet "Vieni a Cambiare il Mondo". That summer he was back on American stages with the Lost 80s Live tour, alongside A Flock of Seagulls, Big Country and China Crisis.

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