All About Eve emerged on the late 80s UK "gothic" scene. The creative core consisted of the Coventry born Julianne Regan (vocals), and the Huddersfield born Andy Cousin (bass guitar), with other members changing over the years.
All About Eve developed a solid following and with a backdrop of hippie mysticism and imagery, along with Regan's predilection for white-witchcraft and Tarot cards, provided a taste of the exotic with a mixture of goth rock and 70s folk.
The band's tenure ran between 1984 and 2004, and included four UK Top 50 albums.
In between, Regan went on to form Mice in 1995, and to work with Bernard Butler, and she teamed up with Jean-Marc Lederman in the Jules et Jim project.
"Martha's Harbour" is their 1988 hit single. It has become known as the group's signature song, reaching #10 in the UK Singles Chart and helping the group's self-titled debut album reach #7 in the UK albums chart.
The song is also well-known for an incident on the popular BBC UK music show Top of the Pops, when the group, ready to do a mimed (as was BBC policy at the time) performance of their hit, were not played the backing track through their monitors, and so sat motionless while the television and studio audience could hear the song. Due to this error on the part of the BBC, the band were invited back the following week and insisted on playing the song live.
One of the main reasons they are remembered but it probably contributed to their success at the time - this single rose up the charts for the next two weeks!
On its creation, Julianne Reagan has said, in an interview on BBC radio, "This song happened by accident when we were recording the first album. It was one of those things when we had the day off and we were sat in this very idyllic setting beneath a willow tree besides a stream by this beautiful residential recording studio and it just came out so naturally. It was a miracle of a little song and its very dear to us because of that, because it was very pure, a really happy accident.
Everybody went to the pub and we put it down and by the time they got back Martha's Harbour was committed to tape. Martha's Harbour is a fictitious backdrop for this happening."
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