1981 · BEHIND THE SONGS
A disco-stringed stand-alone single, re-recorded for Rio — the hit Duran Duran never learned to love.
Every band has a hit it would rather forget. For Duran Duran, that song is “My Own Way” — the fourth single, released in November 1981, which reached number fourteen in Britain and then got quietly disowned by the very people who made it. The band has called it one of their least favorite songs; they rarely play it live. And yet it is a fascinating record: a glittering, string-laden disco-pop single that captures Duran Duran at the exact moment they were becoming famous, and a song with two lives — the hit single version and the slower, stranger album version that appeared on Rio.
The single version is pure 1981: four-on-the-floor drums, a rubbery bass line from John Taylor, and — most distinctively — a sweep of disco strings arranged by Richard Myhill that gives the song its champagne fizz. Simon Le Bon sings it with a strut, all cheekbones and confidence, and the whole thing moves like a band that knows it is about to conquer the world. It is, by any objective measure, a terrific pop single. Which makes the band’s ambivalence all the more intriguing: what did they hear in it that we don’t?
Writing and recording
Like all early Duran Duran singles, “My Own Way” was written by the full band — Le Bon, Andy Taylor, John Taylor, Roger Taylor, and Nick Rhodes — and recorded in October 1981 at the Townhouse Studios in London with Colin Thurston producing. Thurston, who had helmed the debut album, knew how to bottle the band’s energy: Roger Taylor’s drums crack, Andy Taylor’s guitar chimes and slashes, and Rhodes’s keyboards add the Euro-sheen that was becoming the band’s signature. The single version runs three minutes and thirty-nine seconds, and it was backed with “Like an Angel” — a combination that gave the band its fourth consecutive British Top 20 hit.
Two versions, one song
Here is where the story gets strange. When Duran Duran recorded their second album, Rio, they decided “My Own Way” did not fit — so they re-recorded it from scratch. The album version is slower, moodier, and lyrically different, stripped of the disco strings and recast as something closer to a nocturnal art-pop piece. It is the same song in name only, and the contrast is startling: the single is a champagne rush, the album version a 3 a.m. meditation. The band has always preferred the Rio version, which tells you something about where their hearts were — less interested in the dance floor than in the shadows at its edge.
Chart journey
Released on November 16, 1981, “My Own Way” peaked at number fourteen on the British singles chart — the band’s fourth Top 20 hit in a row, following “Planet Earth,” “Careless Memories,” and “Girls on Film.” It also reached number ten in Australia, number twelve in New Zealand, and number twenty in Ireland: a solid international showing for a band still building its empire. The single’s sleeve, designed by Malcolm Garrett with Peter Saville Associates, was as stylish as the music. And the video, directed by Russell Mulcahy — the man who would define the band’s visual identity — gave MTV one more reason to put Duran Duran on heavy rotation.
The album around it
Rio, released in May 1982, is the album that made Duran Duran immortal: a sleek, sunlit masterpiece that reached number two in Britain and eventually conquered America. The re-recorded “My Own Way” sits on its second side, a brooding counterpoint to the title track’s yacht-pop euphoria. Hearing it there, you understand the band’s decision: the single version belonged to 1981, to the scramble for hits; the album version belonged to the world Rio was building — more European, more nocturnal, more adult. It is one of the rare cases where the remake surpasses the original, at least in the eyes of its makers.
Covers and legacy
The song’s strange afterlife is its real story. Because the band rarely plays it, “My Own Way” has become a cult object among Duran Duran devotees — the hit that the hits left behind. Its two versions give fans something to argue about, which is the lifeblood of any serious fandom. And the single version, with those disco strings, has aged into a perfect time capsule of the new romantic moment: the sound of five young men from Birmingham who were about to become the biggest band on the planet and, for three minutes and thirty-nine seconds, sounded like they already were.
What to listen for
Play both versions back to back — it is the only way. Start with the single: notice the strings, which enter like a curtain rising, and John Taylor’s bass, which struts through the verses with total confidence. Then play the Rio version: slower, darker, Le Bon’s vocal more introspective, the whole track bathed in a blue light the single never knew. Listen for what changed and what didn’t — the melody is the same, but the meaning has shifted. At three minutes and thirty-nine seconds, the single is a rush; the album version is a reverie. Together, they are the sound of a band outgrowing its own hit in real time.
The details of the single version repay attention: Richard Myhill’s string arrangement, which lifts the chorus into something almost cinematic; Roger Taylor’s drumming, which drives the track with a disco precision he would soon leave behind; and the backing vocals, stacked like champagne glasses. The Townhouse sessions captured a band at full tilt — Thurston’s production is all gleam and momentum. It is easy to hear why the single worked: it is engineered for joy, and it delivers.
And yet the band’s ambivalence is understandable: “My Own Way” was the sound of Duran Duran following a formula, and they were a band that wanted to invent formulas. The Rio re-recording was their correction — proof that the song had always contained something deeper. Play it now, four decades on, and both versions sound like history: the hit and the revision, the rush and the reverie.