Living on the Ceiling

"Living on the Ceiling"
Single by Blancmange
from the album Happy Families and Happy Families Too...
B-side
  • "Running Thin"
  • "I Would" (12" only)
Released15 October 1982
Genre
Length4:02
LabelLondon
Songwriter(s)
  • Stephen Luscombe
  • Neil Arthur
Producer(s)Mike Howlett
Blancmange singles chronology
"Feel Me"
(1982) 		"'Living on the Ceiling'"
(1982) 		"Waves"
(1983)
Music video
"Living on the Ceiling" on YouTube

"Living on the Ceiling" is a song by English synth-pop band Blancmange. It was released as the band's third single in 1982, taken from their debut studio album Happy Families. It became the band's first (and biggest) UK Top 40 hit, peaking at No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart[3] and being certified Silver by the BPI for sales in excess of 200,000 copies.[4] The single also reached No. 5 on the Australian Singles Chart.[5]

Blancmange performed the song on Top of the Pops, but for broadcast on the show as well as on BBC Radio, the track was edited to replace the lyric "Up the bloody tree" with "Up the cuckoo tree". However, in a subsequent episode of Top of the Pops where the song was used as the 'play-out track' without the band in the studio, the original "bloody" lyric was left in and was clearly audible.

The song was used in an episode of Limmy's Show in 2011, where Limmy looped the "up the bloody tree" lyric for comedic effect. In an interview with The Quietus in 2020, frontman Neil Arthur joked that Limmy's version was "better" than the original.[6]

  1. ^ Mason, Stewart. "Living on the Ceiling – Song Review". AllMusic. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  2. ^ Matheson, Whitney (24 April 2014). "My favorite '80s New Wave song is ..." USA Today. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference UK was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Certified Awards". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 11 October 2013.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference AUS was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Hensey, Garry (8 June 2020). "The Strange World Of... Blancmange". The Quietus. Retrieved 8 May 2023.