Toyah’s second, and final single, from the Love Is The Law album was ‘The Vow’, the first time a ballad had been released as a single by Toyah. This was also the final single on Safari Records (though at the time there were still plans to release ‘Dreamscape’ as a single in early 1984). No official promo video was filmed for the single so ITV’s The Saturday Show and Toyah made one, and it’s a good clip. View at Dreamscape’s You Tube channel by clicking below. View larger versions of the screen caps here. (Thanks to Andy for the clip)
I’ve always loved the original Love Is The Law press advert published in Japanese magazines in 1983. The ad was only ever available in black and white so I’ve made an attempt at colourisation. It didn’t turn out quite as well as I hoped it would but I thought I’d share it anyway… View the original here.
Back in 2003 the marking of the 20th anniversary of Toyah’s Love Is The Law album was a far more subdued affair than what’s currently happening for the 30th. Maybe it was considered too soon to go down Nostalgia Avenue (!). One of the very few things that did happen was Dreamscape’s 20th Anniversary feature. I think this was my first attempt at something like this and compared to later features it is very amateurish but I knew I wanted to do something to remember one of my favourite albums. This was definitely before I had learned to use Photoshop properly :) One of the best things about it, though, was In The Fairground‘s Andrew York reminiscing about 1983. Go back 10 years, to when the internet was a little less frenetic, by clicking below.
“I’ve got Broken Diamonds going round & around & around in my head! One week till first show!“, Toyah tweeted today. Click below to view all the ‘Love Is The Law & More’ tour dates and links to buy your tickets. Click here to view a larger version of Dreamscape’s “Broken Diamonds” picture, and here to visit our ‘Love Is The Law: The Complete Songwords’ page. (Original photo by Dean Stockings © Toyah Willcox Ltd)
In late November 1983, just after Love Is The Law had been released and just before the start of the ‘Rebel Run’ Tour, Toyah guested on The Janice Long Show on ‘BBC Radio One’. She talked about all manner of topics, including recording the album, her plans for the future and an embryonic idea which is close to what we now recognise as the internet. Listen to the interview by clicking below.
A couple of Love Is The Law rarities from outside the UK – Toyah on the cover of Yugoslavian magazine ‘itd’ and an unofficial cassette release of the album, most probably from Saudi Arabia. The tape is interesting as not only does it include all 10 songs from Love Is The Law, in a different order to the official release, but it also has five songs from Toyah’s previous studio album The Changeling. Unfortunately I don’t have photos of these in great quality but I think they are worth a post as there are very few LITL rarities in existence.
Vote for your top albums of 1988 in Slicing Up Eyeballs poll. Toyah’s album ‘Prostitute’ is included as an option. Voting closes on 25th October and the results will be announced at the beginning of November. Click below to participate in the poll. View Dreamscape’s mini ‘Prostitute’ feature.
Dreamscape is compiling Love Is The Law – The Complete Lyrics. We’ve reached the eighth song on the album – the rowsing and anthemic title track Love Is The Law, co-written by Toyah, Joel Bogen, Simon Darlow and Phil Spalding. Click below to visit the LITL – The Complete Lyrics page.
It’s Love Is The Law Month here at Dreamscape, and our latest post is a selection of screen caps, and the video clip, from Toyah’s phone in/interview on BBC1’s weekend morning show Saturday Superstore. Presented by, Radio 1 DJ, Mike Read, this aired in December 1983. Click here for larger screen caps and below to watch the clip at Dreamscape’s You Tube channel. (Thanks to Andy)
A striking new Toyah image has been unveiled today, on the new ‘Love Is The Law & More’ Tour t-shirt. Toyah tweeted: “So excited about new tour t-shirt. Just right balance of past/present imagery. Sleek n’ mean’ n fun“, View the t-shirt at Instagram.
Dreamscape’s Love Is The Law 30th Anniversary tribute. Dedicated to everyone who loves the album.
A vaguely rare photo of Toyah from the ‘Love Is The Law’ album shoot. This is a lesser-used variation of a couple of similar colour photographs that were taken to promote the album. I think it was used in one, maybe two, music paper & magazine articles. Click below to view a larger version.
• Love Is The Law & More: It’s now just two weeks until Toyah’s UK Tour begins, at Legends in Newcastle. Full tour dates and links to buy tickets available at The Official Toyah Willcox Website.
The rare Japanese vinyl release of ‘Love Is The Law’. It includes the same 10 song tracklist, white label with English lyric insert and Japanese bio info insert. Plus pink, blue and white obi-strip (Cat: VIL-6093). Click below to view a larger version.
A short rare interview with Toyah during the ‘Rebel Run’ UK Tour. This aired on the 5th December 1983 on BBC1’s Sixty Minutes, the replacement news programme for Nationwide. It had only launched in October and went on to be quite short lived as it was “axed” in July 1984. Toyah talks about touring, new single ‘The Vow’ and there’s also some brief soundcheck footage. Click below to view the clip at Dreamscape’s You Tube Channel and view larger versions of the screen caps here. (Thanks to Andy for the clip)
Welcome to October, there are only a couple of weeks until Toyah’s latest anniversary tour begins and here at Dreamscape it’s Love Is The Law Month. Over the next few weeks we’ll be bringing you regular updates connected to Toyah’s amazing 1983 album. Starting off with this great photo of Toyah, performing ‘Rebel Run’ on ITV’s Hold Tight. Click below to view a larger version. (Thanks to Andy)
Are you ready to share the ‘Love’? – Starting tomorrow Dreamscape is celebrating Toyah’s 1983 album ‘Love Is The Law’ (one of the songs on it inspired this website so it would be wrong not to). Every day throughout the month we will be bringing you at least one LITL-related post – So please do Come to the Dreamscape…
Dreamscape’s Love Is The Law Month doesn’t begin until Tuesday but I thought I’d add this today rather than wait, especially as it went on sale exactly 30 years ago. Toyah: Return Of The Rebel, there were more smaller articles, such as “Personal File” and the like over the next few years but this was Toyah’s final big double-page interview feature for ‘Smash Hits’. Click below to read at Dreamscape’s Press Archive.
• The full 29 September – 12 October 1983 issue has also just been uploaded to The Smash Hits Archive.
Even our Chief Rebel Runner is looking forward to “Love Is The Law Month” at Dreamscape :) Huh? Oh, okay it’s stills of Toyah promoting the album in 1983. Stay tuned for an abundance of LITL-related updates… Even as I type some Martian Cowboys are having Broadband installed to make sure they don’t miss out!
We are now into the third part of September and the end of the month is almost here so it’s not too early to announce that October is “Love Is The Law Month” at Dreamscape. We will be bringing you lots of content related to the magnificent 1983 album in the build up/countdown to Toyah’s Love Is The Law & More Tour kicking off. The horns of elfin land really will be calling you to come to the Dreamscape :) In the meantime, click below for details on the tour, including dates and links to buy tickets for each venue.
• Toyah is getting ready for the tour. She tweeted on Wednesday: “Just learning Dreamscape….perfect opener for the tour set…..into Rebel Run perhaps?“
‘Dreamscape’ has always been one of my favourite Toyah songs, hence the title of this website, but listening to the Love Is The Law album over the last year, I think ‘Time Is Ours’ has overtaken it. Thus I thought it deserved a little preferential treatment when doing the songwords – Think of it as a double-pager :)
• I haven’t forgotten about ‘Dreamscape’ – The songwords from last year are here. I was going to redo it to fit the theme of The Complete LITL Lyrics page, though possibly not as ‘Time Is Ours’, above, differs too.
Vote for your top albums of 1987 in Slicing Up Eyeballs poll. Toyah’s album ‘Desire’ is included as an option. Voting closes on 27th September and the results will be announced at the beginning of October. Click below to participate in the poll. (Thanks to Paul Johnson)
• View Dreamscape’s ‘Desire’ feature here.
