Released 5 February 1982 Recorded 1981 Length 3:24 | Format 7"
12" Genre Post-disco
dance-pop | |
B-side "Theme from Mantrap" (UK) | ||
"Poison Arrow" is a song by the English new wave band ABC, released as the second single from their debut studio album, The Lexicon of Love (1982).
Contents
The single was released in the United Kingdom on 5 February 1982 on 7" and 12", with the same mix appearing on both formats; however a subsequent U.S. 12" remix (also known as the "Jazz Remix") appears on several ABC compilations, and as a bonus track on reissues of The Lexicon of Love.
An alternate, lounge music styled version of this song, entitled "Theme from Mantrap", was released as the B-side of "Poison Arrow" in the United Kingdom, and "The Look of Love" in the United States. The 12" single in the United Kingdom additionally included an instrumental version of "Theme from Mantrap" under the title "Mantrap (The Lounge Sequence)". The band's first hit in the United Kingdom "Tears Are Not Enough" was the B-side of "Poison Arrow" in the United States.
Chart performance
The song reached No. 6 on the UK Singles Chart, while also climbing to No. 4 in Australia, and serving as the band's first entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, rising to No. 25.
Music video
In the music video, ABC's singer Martin Fry plays three roles — as a haughty upper-class opera patron, as a messenger boy at the opera, and as a bandleader at a 1960s-style swinging nightspot — and, in all three roles, unsuccessfully attempts to woo the leading lady, played by Lisa Vanderpump, later of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.