Video hit T'pau

T'pau - China in your hand

"China in Your Hand" is a song by British band T'Pau, released from their album Bridge of Spies.

A re-recorded version was released as a single in October 1987, spending five weeks at number 1 in the UK and is arguably the song for which the group is best known in their native Britain, though their debut single "Heart and Soul" was a much bigger hit in the United States.

"China in Your Hand" was the 600th song to top the UK charts, and kept George Harrison's "Got My Mind Set on You" from hitting the top spot.

The song's lyrics refer to the novel Frankenstein and its author Mary Shelley. This is more readily heard on the longer album version of the song, as the re-recorded single edit omits most of the more obvious references to the book.

The song's title was more unclear however and when quizzed, co-writer Ron Rogers was unsure of to what it referred.

Lyric writer Carol Decker explained that it is the effect that if you hold a china cup to a light, you can see your hand through it – therefore 'china in your hand' means something that is transparent.

In a segment on the BBC1's The One Show on 6 March 2014, Carol Decker explained that she had been holding a china tea cup belonging to Ronnie Roger's mother in her hand while washing up and had felt a lump in the bottom. She held the cup to the light and saw an image of a young woman in the base of the cup. Decker had the cup with her and showed the viewers the image. Sadly Ronnie's mother died of breast cancer just before T'Pau achieved major chart success.

The song is in the key of B-Flat major on the original album version but the radio edit version is slightly sped up to reduce its length resulting in the tuning being mid-way between B-Flat and B Major.

In 2011, contestant Amelia Lily performed the song on series 8 of UK's The X Factor. Judge Gary Barlow said it was "nice to hear the song being sung in tune for once", in mockery of Decker, who reacted to the comment via Twitter.

British EDM artist Jimmy Rotten used a sample of the song's intro in his track "Join Hands".

The lyrics:

It was a theme she had

On a scheme he had

Told in a foreign land

To take life on earth

To the second birth

And the man was in command

It was a flight on the wings

Of a young girl's dreams

That flew too far away

And we could make the monster live again

Oh hands move and heart beat on

Now life will return in this electric storm

A prophecy for a fantasy

The curse of a vivid mind

Don't push too far

Your dreams are china in your hand

Don't wish too hard

Because they may come true

And you can't help them

You don't know what you might

Have set upon yourself

China in your hand

Come from greed

Never born of the seed

Took a life from a barren hand

Oh eyes wide

Like a child in the form of man

A story told

A mind of his own

An omen for our time

Don't push too far

Your dreams are china in your hand

Don't wish too hard

Because they may come true

And you can't help them

You don't know what you might

Have set upon yourself

China in your hand

Oh your hand

Your dreams are china in your hand, wooah

Here in your hand

China in your hand, woh oh oh woh oh oh woh oh

Here in your hand

Woh! You take a flight on the wings of fantasy

Then you push too far

And make your dreams reality

Yeah! For the china in your hand

But you shouldn't push too hard

You take a flight on the wings of fantasy

Then you push too hard

You make those dreams reality

Yeah! China in your hands

But they're only dreams