Hear the Isolated Vocals of Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush in “Don’t Give Up”: The Power of Perseverance

Just by chance, could you use a song about per­se­ver­ance and over­com­ing adver­si­ty? Some­thing to give you a lit­tle encour­age­ment and reas­sur­ance? Then we sub­mit to you “Don’t Give Up,” fea­tur­ing the iso­lat­ed vocals of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush.

When he released the song on his 1986 album So, Gabriel told NME: “The cat­a­lyst for ‘Don’t Give Up’ was a pho­to­graph I saw by Dorothea Lange,… which showed the dust-bowl con­di­tions dur­ing the Great Depres­sion in Amer­i­ca. With­out a cli­mate of self-esteem it’s impos­si­ble to func­tion.” Else­where, on his web­site, Gabriel explained that the song was also “informed by the high lev­els of unem­ploy­ment under the Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment of Mar­garet Thatch­er of the 1980s.” What­ev­er the chal­lenges they’ve faced, lis­ten­ers have sought solace in this song for the past 38 years. No doubt, for some, it will come in handy dur­ing the weeks and months ahead.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Dorothea Lange Dig­i­tal Archive: Explore 600+ Pho­tographs by the Influ­en­tial Pho­tog­ra­ph­er (Plus Neg­a­tives, Con­tact Sheets & More

Kate Bush Enjoys a (Long-Over­due) Revival, Sparked by Sea­son 4 of Stranger Things

Peter Gabriel Re-Records “Biko,” His Anti-Apartheid Protest Song, with Musi­cians Around the World

Watch a New­ly-Restored Peter Gabriel-Era Gen­e­sis Con­cert Film From 1973 in Stun­ning 4K Qual­i­ty

Peter Gabriel and Gen­e­sis Live on Bel­gian TV in 1972: The Full Show