The album’s liner notes come complete with a specially commissioned interview with Colin. This smoky-voiced singer/songwriter, whose sophisticated jazz-pop songs and dramatic vocal delivery place him somewhere between Bryan Ferry and Morrissey, hits his peak with the driving 'Everything's Coming up Roses' (not the Jule Styne song). These include the original Ugly Man version of the Wonderful Life single plus a selection of B-sides and four songs from a 1986 Janice Long session. There is also a 2-disc re-issue available with a second CD of 14 bonus tracks. Black, who wrote the song while broke, commented: 'I was really being ironic. It was released twice as a single and was successful the second time, becoming a top ten hit in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the UK. Read ‘Wonderful Life and before – The Music of Black (Colin Vearncombe)’ here. 'Wonderful Life' is a song by the English singer Black from his 1986 album of the same name. “Hand me the number of Dial-a-Fudge – I wish to send an order to whoever it was that said that the trick to life is keeping it simple!” CV “I have little but good memories of this pre-success period,” says Colin today. ‘Wonderful life’ is still widely available on CD, featuring five tracks not released on the vinyl edition.

Reviewers would later come to consider the sound of the album dated, but the strength of the underlying songs has ensured a successful acoustic revival on Colin’s later albums. Although ‘Wonderful life’ and ‘Sweetest smile’ are both melancholy ballads, it is European hit ‘Everything’s coming up roses’ that better defines much of the rest of the album of upbeat, electric guitar and synth-driven rock. The album ‘Wonderful life’ went on to sell two million copies worldwide. Sufficiently different from the usual conveyor-belt of identikit hits to distract the listener and stretch their attention span to four minutes.” Record Mirror would later describe Black’s first hit Sweetest Smile as “a beautiful, slow croon. Wonderful Time Up There (Pat Boone) 2:02: 20. Black’s breakthrough album rode to the number three spot on the back of ‘Wonderful Life’ and ‘Sweetest Smile’, both UK top ten hits.

Wonderful life black