This track was released in
1987 on the
IRS label as a 7-inch vinyl single. It reached number one in the UK charts.
Hey Matthew (which ran for 3:35) had a
B-side called
The Things I Saw (3:25).
It was successful enough to be included, later in 1987, on the 10th edition of the popular British
double-CD compilation album,
Now That's What I Call Music!. You will find
it on NOW 10, CD 2, track 7.
Hey Matthew also appeared on Karel Fialka's 1988
much-less-successful
album,
Human Animal.
The first half of the song deals with what the child, Matthew, sees on TV.
It highlights televised violence, both on the news and in the form of children's entertainment.
(Who could forget the haunting repetition of the line,
"I see the A-Team"?)
The second half of the song covers the father asking his son the age-old question
"what do you want to be when you grow up". In this respect the record appears to be a musical version of the classic poem
If,
with some 80s TV references thrown in. These date it quite badly (
Terrahawks?
He-Man? Hardly timeless stuff).
The song, like the Rudyard Kipling poem, is faintly
didactic in tone, while hoping for a great future for the child.
Will you learn to live, will you take, will you give?
As the bridges burn, will you live and learn?
Will you be numbered with the brave and true?
Well good luck, kid, here's looking at you!
The kid in question seems to actually be Karel Fialka's son. On the record sleeve he was sat on Fialka's knee and
dressed in a cheap-looking
Spider-Man costume.
Karel Fialka is considered to be a
one hit wonder. Hey Matthew was his only chart success.