Lisa Stansfield, singer, songwriter
I met my husband Ian [Devaney] in school when I was 14 and he was 15; we formed a band with Andy Morris, who played trumpet in the school band. We called ourselves Blue Zone and were like three little terriers, getting on the train to London and bugging record companies until someone took notice.
Ian and Andy did the horns on Coldcut’s first album, and I sang a song with them called My Telephone. After hours we all went back in to the studio to see if we could come up with anything together, and the result was People Hold On, a massive hit. Because everyone said it would look clumsy with two bands’ names on, it was released as “Coldcut featuring Lisa Stansfield”. When we went back to our own music, they said, “Well everyone knows you as Lisa Stansfield now” and that was the end of Blue Zone. But I wanted my mates with me, even though it was my name on the record. That triangle of people was very strong.
All Around the World was something we wrote together. I came into the studio, and Ian was messing around at the piano. He had a melody, and I just started singing: “Been around the world and I, I, I…” Everyone laughed but Ian said, “Wait, it’s really good, that.” It just came into my head – it was nonsense, but had a really good feel to it. “I, I, I” became the main hook. We’d no idea how massive it would become.
I was the first white British woman to reach No 1 on the R&B chart – the American black music chart. I remember sitting in a hotel room reading all the different charts around the world and just going: “Fucking hell!” All Around the World was top of most. Over the years, a lot of people have told me the song helped them through a difficult period. That’s beautiful, to know you’ve helped someone in that way. The song literally took us around the world, four times. I suppose you have to be careful what you sing, because you might have to do it.
Ian Devaney, songwriter, producer
Blue Zone was signed to an indie label, then Arista bought the label, so we ended up on a major by accident. We made a mainstream pop record and they needed a B-side, so we knocked out this song called Big Thing in an eight-track studio behind Lisa’s mum and dad’s house. It was more soul than pop, and got more attention than the rest of the record. The label asked if we had any other songs like that, so we played them All Around the World.
The song came together really quickly. Once Lisa had all the lyrics down and I’d done a basic track with Andy, the whole vocal was two takes: one lead vocal and one take for single harmony. She just went in and sang it. The vocals from that original eight-track recording are what’s on the global hit. We put real strings on it at Strawberry Studios in Stockport, but otherwise it was all low-budget and DIY. It’s hilarious, really.
The song’s hugely influenced by Barry White. He was ridiculed in the disco era [as “the walrus of love”], but we really respected him as a soul artist. The album version of his single Let the Music Play has a spoken intro that goes on for about a minute and a half. So on All Around the World, we did a shorter spoken intro as an unashamed pastiche or tribute. We were nervous about what he might say about it, but he was very sweet. We met him several times, and Lisa and Barry really got on and rerecorded it as a duet.
The lyrics – about searching the world for an estranged lover – aren’t from personal experience. Lisa tends to make up stories and she’s good at putting herself in someone else’s shoes. If you write down “been around the world and I, I, I, I can’t find my baby” it sounds nonsensical, but there’s obviously something that connects emotionally. It leapt out to other people far more than it did to us. For us, it was one song in a group of five that we thought were good. But as soon as our manager, Jazz Summers, heard it, he went: “That’s it!”
