As Take That prepare for their new Circus Live tour, Gary Barlow recalls which song is officially their worst and why he felt like a ‘failure’ as the band’s songwriter
As the legendary pop group prepares to dazzle fans once again with their highly anticipated The Circus Live 2026 tour – complete with massive elephant and fire-breathers – it’s easy to forget that the road to pop royalty wasn’t always paved with gold.
While they are now celebrated as one of the greatest British bands of all time, their early days were a whirlwind of mounting pressure, make-or-break performances, and creative struggles that left certain members feeling out of place.
Following disappointing sales from their first three singles, and with pressure mounting from their record label, there was a lot riding on the success of It Only Takes A Minute. With first-week sales looking promising, the group were invited to make their high-energy debut on Top Of The Pops, in what would become their first of several performances on the show that year.
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It was not an easy gig to get, says former TOTP magazine editor Peter Hart, but became instrumental in the band’s change in fortunes. “Top Of The Pops was the show every record label wanted their artist to appear on,” he tells OK!. “It wasn’t just a music programme, it was a cultural institution and genuinely had the power to make or break a performer.
“Outside of the No1 slot, acts were only lucky enough to appear on Top Of The Pops if the show’s producers wanted them there. Of course, it would help if they were inside the Top 10, but there were a number of other factors at play too, including how TV-friendly the act looked and sounded.”
He continues, “When Take That released It Only Takes A Minute, everything came together at once. The single was going up the charts, the band had great choreography, they looked brilliant and they already had a fan base. But without Top Of The Pops, Take That would probably have never broken through to a mainstream audience – it’s that simple.”
Their efforts paid off as the single entered the charts at No16 and steadily climbed to No7 over the following weeks. However, while reaching their highest chart position to date was cause for celebration, the success was a bitter pill for songwriter Gary. He later said he felt “defeated” that their first major hit was a cover version rather than one of his original tracks, revealing, “I felt like I’d failed because I hadn’t delivered what we’d needed as a group.”
Tom Smith, editor of Billboard UK, notes that in hindsight, the band’s relatively slow rise to stardom actually worked in their favour. “It would have been hugely disappointing for Gary, but it benefitted Take That in the long run. When they were first formed, they were bandmates, but they weren’t friends. The first couple of years gave them a chance to bond. It meant that when things were good, they were really, really good.”
Their next single, I Found Heaven – also taken from their debut album Take That & Party – was released in August 1992, with an accompanying video shot on the Isle of Wight’s Sandown Beach. However, while it may have reached a respectable 15 in the UK charts, Gary has since described it as “by a huge margin, the worst song of Take That’s and my career”. Gary’s redemption came around two months later with the release of the more critically acclaimed A Million Love Songs, a heartfelt, piano-driven ballad he wrote when playing a keyboard at 15 years old.
“Gary has always been an old soul, so he was like a 40-year-old songwriter trapped in a teenager’s body,” says music writer Michael Cragg. “He wrote with such sophistication and his lyrics were almost timeless.”
By this point, the group’s popularity was growing so rapidly that an album signing at an HMV store in Manchester had to be abandoned due to safety concerns. “To walk down the street now is just a nightmare,” Gary admitted at the time. “At the end of the day, you want to leave that behind for just five minutes… Please nobody touch me for five minutes.”
A cover of Barry Manilow’s Could It Be Magic was the final single from their debut album and reached No3 in the charts. In December 1992, just days after the single’s release, the boys scooped a record-breaking seven trophies at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party – the moment Mark (who, naturally, was named Most Fanciable Male) said he knew Take That had truly “made it”.
Take That were officially the biggest band in Britain, but even greater success was in store in 1993 when they achieved their first No1 single with Pray. “When Gary first played it to us, we were all so buzzed,” recalls Mark. “I had a feeling that this, this is the song, this is the one that’s going to take us to the next level. And it did.”
“It was a real moment for us,” adds Gary. “That song was the first time we found the sound of Take That.” Pray was loved by both critics and fans, eventually earning Gary an Ivor Novello for Songwriter of the Year, as well as the Best Contemporary Song award.
In a compilation of greatest-ever No1 singles, The Guardian’s Kieran Yates describes it as Take That at their “peak”, saying, “The video/full-blown homoerotica is as over the top as the song, and does it real justice – Robbie in a scarf and dungarees, Jason holding a log up to God, and hand mirrors on the beach – the sheer sensual surrealism makes it one of the best videos of all time.”
Two more No1s followed that year with Relight My Fire and Babe, which was their first single featuring Mark on lead vocals.
“It was clear how much our audience loved Mark, so Nigel [Martin-Smith, their manager] said, ‘We need a song for Mark,’” says Gary. Mark has since described the experience as “daunting”, yet his bashful performances and puppy-dog eyes only seemed to fuel his fans’ obsession. In fact, two-thirds of all Take That’s fan mail was addressed to him.
Their Everything Changes album continued to spawn hit records, with its title track – featuring lead vocals from Robbie – also hitting the top spot, and beating a record set by The Beatles for consecutive No1 singles by a British act.
Take That’s international fan base was huge and they capitalised on this success with their first European tour, which kicked off in Hamburg, Germany, in March 1994. “All of a sudden it felt like we were taking over the world,” says Mark.
While Love Ain’t Here Anymore broke the group’s streak of No1 hits, they returned to the top spot in October 1994 with the R&B-influenced single Sure. This era showcased an edgier new look for the band: Robbie debuted a buzz cut, while Howard sported an eyebrow ring and dreadlocks.
Looking back, Mark thinks their rebellious image reflected the internal struggles the group were experiencing at the time. “There was a lot of self exploration going on,” he says. “You were part of a group and you were also trying to find yourself. But the identity of the group got made before you’d found your own.”
Unfortunately, it was becoming all too clear that the polished façade had started to slip and the cheeky grins had begun to fade. “The more successful we became, the bigger the audiences, the bigger the stages, we had more lights, more glitz, more glamour, more paraphernalia,” Jason later admitted. “But in and amongst your excited positive feelings, there’s always a feeling of is this really happening and should it be really happening and should I be feeling happier? It was a tremendous pressure, really.”
And it seemed no one was feeling the pressure more than Robbie Williams. Within a few months, he would no longer be a member of Take That.
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