Loading details…
Loading details…
Artist
Howard Jones (born John Howard Jones on February 23, 1955) is an English singer and songwriter. He is the eldest of three boys. His birthplace is Southampton, England, and he spent his early years in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, and attended the Royal Grammar School. He now lives with his family in Somerset, England. When he was young, he used to give piano lessons. One of his clients was a girl named Jan Smith, who he later married. Whilst working with her, a vehicle crashed into their van, injuring Jan. She claimed compensation and used the money to buy Howard a synthesiser, a Moog Prodigy. The shop delivered two by mistake, and Howard liked the combination of the two so much that he paid for the extra one. He hit the charts in 1983 with a song called "New Song," which made it into the UK top ten. Speaking with Songfacts, Jones explained the song is his manifesto, and why he wanted to get in the music business and write songs to begin with. Said Jones: "I was working in the factory at the time - I was doing the gigs at night and I was working in the factory. And I wanted to say to people, 'You can. It is possible to do what you really want to do if you've got enough guts and determination. You can do what you're really good at in this life if you set your mind to it.' And so really that's what that song's about. It's about letting go of fear and seeing both sides of an argument and throwing off the things that hold you back mentally." Jones subsequently had three mo