Writing has taken a back seat to watching season three of The Bear, but a Cocteau Twins needle drop in episode four reminded me that the show inspired a post(-punk), it did pretty well so why not again? And it’s been a while since I shared any Cocteaus, and it’s always the right time for some Cocteaus.

I already wrote about the song in question – “Pearly Dew Drops” – early last year, so I’ll choose something else. “Love’s Easy Tears” was a non-album track released as the a-side of an EP in October 1986, a few months after their fourth full-length Victorialand. It’s not actually a song I know as well as some others, since it only gets in my ears when I dive into the Lullabies To Violaine singles compliations on streaming. Which also reminds me, I should go and get me some copies of that… and for some reason, volume one is readily available new but volume two… is not. Okay, then.

Post-Punk.com has already done the heavy lifting on the background of the single a few years ago, so I’ll just quote them here:

Initially, the EP was released issued as a 7″ single, with “Those Eyes, That Mouth” as the b-side, and a 12″ version that also included the track “Sigh’s Smell of Farewell”.

In 1991, Love’s Easy Tears was re-released on 4AD as a CD single with a fourth track, “Orange Appled” (originally only found on a US only Relativity Records release of the EP on cassette and vinyl), which according to bassist Simon Raymonde, was, despite it being a non album track, one of the band’s favourite songs to perform live, starting from the CD release in 1991, until the band broke up in 1997.

Love’s Easy Tears was the eighth EP released by the band, and being their last EP for 4AD, it became hard to come by after the CD version went out of print, leaving eager fans to left order the infamous 10 Disc EP box set, released on November 4th, 1991.

Cocteau Twins | Love’s Easy Tears @ Post-Punk.com