Song of the Day 11/6: Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, “Don’t Give Up”

I don’t need to be in America to know that Democrats are demoralized about the midterms — our site traffic took a dive after the primaries, a sure sign of progressive malaise. This song is for them.

Peter Gabriel released this duet on his “So” album in 1986. At that point Margaret Thatcher, who infamously claimed that there was no such thing as society, had been prime minister for more than five years, and it became clear that the beatings were going to continue until Britain was Great again. It was four more years before enough of her conservative colleagues realized that was never going to happen, and the grocer’s daughter was cashiered.

For his “Across the Borderline” LP in 1993, Willie Nelson enlisted Sinéad O’Connor for the female part.