New Life

"New Life" is the first track and the second single on Depeche Mode's first studio album, Speak & Spell. It was released on June 13th, 1981.

Background
“New Life” is Depeche Mode’s 2nd single and the 1st track on the album Speak & Spell. Its B-side is “Shout!”. The single peaked at #11 in the UK and became Depeche Mode’s breakthrough hit. It wasn’t commercially released in the United States. The band performed “New Life” on BBC’s Top of the Pops on 25 June 1981. It was their first TV appearance.

Dave Gahan & Martin Gore told the UK magazine No. 1 that, in contrast to their first single “Dreaming Of Me”:"Dave: This time when we went into the studio we did wanna make a record that would get into the charts, we were playing with sequencers and stuff.""Martin: After the success of ‘Dreaming Of Me’ we thought that this game wasn’t too difficult after all.""Dave: Yeah, we thought we’d make a few more singles quick."

Releases
New Life as a single was released initially throughout Europe in 1981 in 7" and 12" varieties. It later saw more widespread release in North America and other areas when the singles box set was released.

Versions
There are only two official versions of this track:

Formats and track listings
These are the formats and track listings of major single releases of "New Life":

7": Mute / 7Mute14 (UK)


 * 1) "New Life" – 3:43
 * 2) "Shout!" – 3:44

12": Mute / 12Mute14 (UK)


 * 1) "New Life" (Remix) – 3:58
 * 2) "Shout!" (Rio Mix) – 7:31

CD: Mute / CDMute14 (UK)1


 * 1) "New Life" (Remix) – 3:58
 * 2) "Shout!" – 3:44
 * 3) "Shout!" (Rio Mix) – 7:31

CD: Sire / 40290-2 (US)1


 * 1) "New Life" (Remix) – 3:58
 * 2) "Shout!" – 3:44
 * 3) "Shout!" (Rio Mix) – 7:31

Notes


 * 1: CD released in 1991.
 * All songs written by Vince Clarke.